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D.W. Griffith and the cinema of narrative integration, part 2. Lecture 7. The Birth of a Nation. Most commercially successful film of the silent era (350,000 spectators in the city of L.A. in the first 8 months) Established the multi-reel trend in America
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D.W. Griffith and the cinema of narrative integration,part 2 Lecture 7
The Birth of a Nation • Most commercially successful film of the silent era (350,000 spectators in the city of L.A. in the first 8 months) • Established the multi-reel trend in America • First film with its own composed score (with a 40 piece orchestra) • Admission price for loge seats was $2 • Exhibited in movie palaces like Liberty Theater in NYC (seating: 1,200) • money spent on advertising: $12,000 in the first week leading up to NYC premiere • 12 reels • 1,640 separate shots • Based on the novel and play by Southerner, Thomas Dixon, titled “The Clansman” • Title changed in February after Dixon proposed “The Birth of a Nation” after Woodrow Wilson’s assertion in History of the American People: • That American went from being “an aggregation of jangling, discordant, antagonistic sections” to being a united nation.
Reception Chronology • First ‘preview’ screening in Riverside, CA on Jan 1st and 2nd 1915 • NAACP (National Endowment for the Advancement of Colored People) demanded the film be censored • First screening: W.H. Clune auditorium in Los Angeles, CA on Feb. 8th 1915 • Dixon and Griffith screened the film for President Woodrow Wilson at the White House on Feb. 18th • Of that visit, Dixon wrote that he “[did not] dare allow the President to know the real big purpose back of my film—which was revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in my audience into a good Democrat!... What I told the President was that I would show him the the birth of a new art—the launching of the mightiest engine for molding public opinion in the history of the world.” (italics Dixon’s, quoted in Lennig 2004)
Controversy surrounding The Birth of a Nation “If it is right to write history, then by similar and unanswerable reasons it is right for us to tell the truth of the historic past in motion pictures.” (D.W. Griffith, 1915, quoted in Lennig 2004) Ad in a Boston paper, in advance of the Boston premiere: “The mistakes of the suffering past teach us to avoid the terrible pitfalls of the now present and nearing future… Again, you must see this picture if for no other than that your mental machinery—in whatever line it may be working—must of necessarily recharge your entire self with radiant energy. Contrast your present peaceful and happy state with the terrific agony and suffering your fathers endured that you might enjoy your present happiness in peace and freedom. Boston, the Cradle of Liberty, will not refuse any art when it is clean and free from obscenity. The way to answer an argument is by another argument. No truth can thrive in an atmosphere that know the word suppression.” (quoted in Lennig 2004)
From The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America, D.W. Griffith, 1916
Jeffries-Johnson FightReno, Nevada 1910 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z6TW83KkHWM
What is a cinema of narrative integration?Key Terms • Story (content; the “what?”) vs. narrative discourse (form; the “how?) • Narrative discourse (see Gunning and Genette) • Three interrelated elements (the perspective of the filmmaker) • Pro-filmic (before shooting) • Actors, casting, lighting, set design, locations, props, etc. • Enframed image (during shooting) • Camera angle, camera distance, camera height, photo stock (composition, etc.) • Process of editing (after shooting) • Shot length, shot juxtaposition and order • Three effects of narrative discourse (perspective of the spectator/reader) • Tense—temporal relations b/t the story and the narrative discourse • Order—succession of events • Duration—compression or extension of events • Frequency—retellings of the same event • Mood (point of view, perspective)—Does it take the perspective of a certain character or retain an objective distance from the events depicted? • Voice–the trace of a storyteller ; the ways the storyteller asserts his/her presence (Who is narrating and from where?)
What would it take for films to capture a middle class audience? • Improved subject matter—adaptation of prestigious literary works • Improved (and regulated by the MPPC) exhibition contexts (e.g. lighten dark theaters, charge more money for tickets) • Detailed Characterization like that in bourgeois theater • David Belasco, stage personality, 1908: “the audience [of film] would always be conscious that it was witnessing a mechanically produced illusion, and there would be wholly wanting that indescribable bond of sympathy between the actor and his audience” (quoted in Gunning 1990) • Psychological motivation (like that in bourgeois theater) vs. physical motivation • Narrative clarity • invisible (implied) narrator commenting on the action through film form • Presentation of images and judgment of action coalesce– ex: VOICE
