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(22 January 1875, LaGrange, Kentucky
- 21 July 1948, Hollywood, California)
Born: David Llewelyn Wark Griffith
 D.W.
Griffith was an American filmmaker who is considered by many to be
the most influential figure in the history of cinema. He began his
career as a stage actor and writer in the first part of the 20th
century. He took his stories to the early movie studios, landing at
the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1908. Until 1913
Griffith oversaw the production of almost all of Biograph's movies,
more than 450 films.
He joined Reliance-Majestic's studios, taking most of his regular
actors and technicians, including his best cameraman, G.W. "Billy"
Blitzer. The quality of Griffith's productions was generally
considered superior to his contemporaries, and his projects became
more ambitious than the standard one-reel films. His three-hour
feature The Birth of a Nation (1915) was a stunning success and is
considered the most important film in the development of cinema as
an art. Its racism -- the protagonists are members of the Ku Klux
Klan -- keeps it from being enjoyed as a cinematic experience, but
as an item of historical interest it includes all of Griffith's
innovations in the language of cinema: cross-cutting, close-ups,
parallel narratives, camera movement and more restrained acting.
His next film, Intolerance (released in 1916), was equally ambitious
but a financial disaster.
In 1915 he joined with Mack Sennett and Thomas Ince to form the
Triangle Corporation, but the venture failed and Griffith left in
1917. He continued making movies, having success especially with Way
Down East (1920), but most of his films during the '20s lost money,
including those he made with United Artists, the studio he
co-founded with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie
Chaplin.
As silent movies were replaced by talkies, Griffith's position in
the film industry waned. His last feature, The Struggle (1931), was
a failure. Although he was no longer making movies, he was honored
in 1935 with a special Oscar. |
