#D.W. Griffith

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

Providing some context to this film due to the nature of its contents. This film appears on the list “1001 Films You Must See Before You Die,” which this blog is currently using for polls. It is a compilation of films deemed important to watch for those interested in cinema as determined by dozens of film critics. The Birth of a Nation appears on that list, and thus this poll blog, because of its technical feats- as it says on its Wikipedia: “it was the first American-made film to have a musical score for an orchestra[, and] it pioneered closeups and fadeouts”- but also because of its historical significance. This film is infamously extremely racist, with a plot line that demonizes African Americans (largely portrayed by white people in blackface) while glorifying the KKK to such a degree that studies even link the film to a rise in support for the racist hate group. This was also the first movie to be screened in the White House, to President Woodrow Wilson, so its historical significance cannot be downplayed.

I am thus choosing not to omit this film from this blog’s polling pool despite its nefarious nature because I am interested in how familiar people are with it and its role in history. I encourage anyone voting “haven’t heard of this movie” to at least read the Wikipedia article (my source for all of the above information) about it as it’s important to be aware of prominent films like this and how they did and continue to impact the culture we reside in.

[picturessnatcher]

The White Rose (D.W. Griffith, 1923)

[citizenscreen]

United Artists was founded on February 5, 1919 #OnThisDay

Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith signing their contracts. Lawyers Dennis F. O'Brien and Albert Banzhaf stand behind them.

[cine-poeme]

Intolerance (1916)

[frnndlcs]

Way Down East, D.W. Griffith, 1920

[iwatchfilmsbut]

Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919) // Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

[dweemeister]

Harry Belafonte in BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Actor, singer, and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte died today at his home in New York City at the age of 96. Belafonte, whose acting career made him a contemporary (and the last surviving stalwart) of a generation that included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Dorothy Dandridge, Ossie Davis, and Diahann Carroll, often took long hiatuses from moviemaking to pursue his musical and political interests. Despite a breakout 1950s in his acting career, Belafonte acted in zero films in the 1960s, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He would no longer be interested in working on films that contained no elements of social justice.

In his final narrative film appearance (and first since 2006), Belafonte appeared in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018) as an elderly activist recounting to young black activists the 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington (while paralleling Adam Driver’s character working undercover within a local branch of the Ku Klux Klan in order to root it out). One of the catalysts to Washington’s lynching was D.W. Griffith’s seminal The Birth of a Nation (1915) - a cinematically important but virulently racist work that gave rise to the modern KKK - which appears in the second half of this clip. 

[from1837to1945]

The Sorrows of the Unfaithful (1910, D.W. Griffith)

[lairreparablefugadeltiempo]

True Heart Susie (D.W. Griffith, 1919)

[wanderingmind867]

Luke Cage is having a rough time. Dealing with Cottonmouth, the other Power Man and the Wrecking Crew (with The Defenders). On top of that, he hasn't made money in days and claire temple walked out on him and left for L.A. No wonder he's planning to go and hunt her down. (Luke Cage, Power Man #22):

[machetelanding]

D.W. Griffith's The Sorrows of Satan (1926)

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[adrian-paul-botta]

Robert Harron and Lillian Gish - promotional photograph for ''Hearts of the World'' (Griffith 1918)

[citizenscreen]

D. W. Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948)

[coffeeandcinema]

Lillian & Dorothy Gish on the set of Orphans of the Storm (1921).

[davidhudson]

D. W. Griffith, January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948.