The Director's Chair: Cecil B. DeMille - The Cheat

I've been aware of The Cheat for a while, but never saw it until the other night. The massive coffee table tome "The Chronicle of Cinema" contained a brief write-up on the movie, accompanied by a lurid-looking still of a dissheveled Fannie Ward sitting on the edge of a bed where Sessue Hayakawa lay sprawled out, apparently slain by his illicit lover. I think this was my first exposure to the notion that DeMille made successful films outside of the epic genre, but in fact many of his teens and twenties movies were melodramas on the subject of "a wayward wife whose impulsive indiscretions propel her into public scandal, private shame and marital turmoil" (according to the Kino website). But his treatment of this theme is no less flamboyant and entertaining than his approach to the most lavish biblical spectacle and just as in Carmen, the potential misogyny of DeMille's penchant for cheating, manipulative woman is tempered by his complete identification with the female point of view.

The Director's Chair: Cecil B. DeMille - Carmen

This is a significant post for several reasons. It is my fifteenth entry for March, meaning that I have surpassed my output for January and February combined (in other words, The Dancing Image is humming along at full capacity again - though I see the comments have curiously dropped off, unfortunately). It is also my 200th post. And, as you can gather from the title, it is both the renewal and the kickoff of my retitled series, The Director's Chair (formerly known as "THE AUTEURS"). I left off with my conclusions on the work of D.W. Griffith, a logical choice for first auteur. And DeMille, it seems, is the logical second choice, so here we are. Five years after Griffith introduced new craftsmanship into the nascent film industry of New York, DeMille arrived in Los Angeles, future show-biz capital of the movie world, to introduce his brand of flamboyant showmanship into the lifeblood of American cinema.

I've renamed the series "The Director's Chair" because as I look forward to the filmmakers I will (hopefully) cover, I note that many - like George Cukor, or even the highly individualistic John Huston - are not always considered "auteurs." Their projects are highly varied, it is often difficult to discern their artistic "voice" over the course of their career, and they have often been consigned to middling oblivion by prickly auteurists like Andrew Sarris. But I'd like to examine their projects too, and see if I can figure out how they develop over their careers, what consistencies are present throughout, and what the changes and fluctuations tell us about them.

Where does DeMille fit in this rubric? Superficially, he would seem to be the epitome of the auteur: a very definable image (in fact, it is beginning with him that we find many stereotypes of the director which continue to this day), a stardom rare for those behind the camera, and a sensibility which seems present from film to film (maligned as that sensibility may be from time to time). Yet in terms of film style, where the true measure of the auteur is taken, how does DeMille stack up? Commentary on him seems to dry up when it comes to the formal qualities of his work - it's his subject matter and the superficial decoration of his films which receives attention. How did he use the camera, the lights, the editing shears to mould his films? Was there a consistency there? A notable personal style? Or was he simply a glorified name with a run-of-the-mill approach to filmmaking? It's the intention of this series to find out, and I look forward to the task.

THE AUTEURS - D.W. Griffith

Was D.W. Griffith a surprisingly modern auteur at times, even a proto-neorealist in the end? Was his true stroke of genius a powerful control of the intimate, rather than majestic command of spectacle? Did his career effectively end in the teens; what do his later works have to say to us? I'm concluding my first Auteurs series with links to my other entries, my own analysis of Griffith's career and aesthetic development, and several clips to illustrate the master at work.

D.W. Griffith (1875-1948)
Biograph shorts, Part One & Part Two (1908-1913)
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Intolerance (1916)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
True Heart Susie (1919)
Way Down East (1920)
Orphans of the Storm (1921)
America (1924)
Sally of the Sawdust (1925)
The Battle of the Sexes (1928)
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
The Struggle (1931)

Proceed through the jump for more...

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - The Struggle

The Struggle (1931) was D.W. Griffith's last feature film. He was fifty-six years old when it was released and it had only been sixteen years since he stood astride the film world with the breakthrough Birth of a Nation. Griffith would live another seventeen years, occasionally working on the margins of the industry, under pseudonyms, but that proud opening title, "personally directed by D.W. Griffith" was never to be seen again. And by reputation, The Struggle seems an ignominious end to an illustrious career. The film flopped so badly that some newspaper accounts have it disappearing from theaters within a week. Critics savaged it, and the movie was simultaneously decried as too old-fashioned and too "Soviet" (the latter argument, apparently based on the title yet unfathomable given the film's content, only offers further proof that no one went to see it). The Struggle ended Griffith's career not with a bang, but a whimper.

So imagine my surprise upon discovering the film today. Tacked onto the Abraham Lincoln disc as an addendum (and together, these films were only released two weeks ago), it arrived unheralded and I wasn't expecting much. But The Struggle is not only Griffith's best available film since Way Down East, it's one of his best, period. The movie has its flaws, but is far superior to the more widely acknowledged Abraham Lincoln, which was Griffith's first talkie. Lincoln feels like a silent film with dialogue superimposed, whereas The Struggle is surprisingly modern - in everything from its use of sound to its performances to its photography. This is an astonishing and impressive work of art, all the more so for being unusual in Griffith's canon.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is certainly an interesting film, but unfortunately most of the interest lies in its historical and auteurist connotations rather than in the film itself. It's a curiosity rather than a success. Still, it shows D.W. Griffith grappling with a fundamentally altered medium - this is his first sound film - and if it's often creaky and dated, it's really not all that bad for an early talkie. Actually its problems lie not so much in the technique - though it's a bit stilted, Griffith seems to have taken to sound rather easily - but in structure. Its problems haven't changed much in 80 years: the biopic is still a risky and haphazard genre. By relaying a pile-on of incidents in Lincoln's life and career, this movie (like many which followed in its wake) feels less like a cohesive album than a Greatest Hits collection, and one in which the recordings are often muddy and indistinct. Still, Walter Huston offers one of the best Lincolns ever to grace the screen and Griffith crafts some effective sequences in his penultimate feature.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - The Battle of the Sexes

Just this morning I read "Echoes of the Jazz Age," F. Scott Fitzgerald's marvelous elegy for the Roaring Twenties. In it he writes, "Contrary to popular opinion, the movies of the Jazz Age had no effect upon its morals. The social attitude of the producers was timid, behind the times and banal - for example, no picture mirrored even faintly the younger generation until 1923, when magazines had already been started to celebrate it and it had long ceased to be news." The Battle of the Sexes, which appeared in 1928 (five years after the date Fitzgerald set, a year before the Crash) is the first Griffith film I've seen that makes any attempt to capture the zeitgeist. It would be unfair to call it Griffith's first Jazz Age film - there were too many of his 20s films unavailable on Netflix for me to make that judgement, and at least one of them (The Sorrows of Satan) seems to have a contemporary setting. However, it's safe to say this is a departure for Griffith and in some ways a welcome one, though I would not call The Battle of the Sexes a rousing success.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Sally of the Sawdust

When I looked up this film I was surprised to see who it starred. Oh, I thought, a Griffith movie with W.C. Fields! Not long into viewing, I realized that the reverse was probably true: this was a W.C. Fields movie that happened to be directed by D.W. Griffith. Now I don't really think this is the case - Sally was Fields' debut so it's hard to say there was any such thing as a Fields movie at this point - and I would hardly be the one to determine such a thing. A shameful admission: until now, I'd never seen a W.C. Fields movie. That sordid detail aside, this is not exactly typical Griffith. True, it is sentimental and melodramatic (though also by and large a comedy), with some subpar Victorian plot developments, and what J. Hoberman astutely calls Griffith's "opposition to Americans even more puritanical than he." But its flavor is largely determined by Fields' brusque, buffoonish, yet charming rogue, a carnival con man who has adopted young Sally (Caroline Dempster) and is now taking her to the town where her rich grandparents - whom she's never met - reside.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - America

America was one of D.W. Griffith's most massive undertakings, on par with The Birth of a Nation almost a decade earlier. Like that film, America - with its grand, all-encompassing title - is an attempt to view a grand historical event (in this case the American Revolution) through individual and family melodrama. Griffith shows a continued talent for staging battle scenes, and the cinematography in America is excellent, whether dotting distant landscapes with puffs of cannon smoke, staging massacres amidst sun-dappled trees, or zipping along country roads alongside Paul Revere in blue-tinted tracking shots. Yet somehow America didn't quite work with 1924 audiences; it was a flop for Griffith and (ironically) meant the end of his own independence. (You can read a good summary of America's history at Greenbriar Picture Shows, along with a more favorable perspective on the film.) Individual moments are strong, there was obviously a good deal of care put into the production, and yet somehow America seems to be striving after past glories and its debt to Griffith's earlier masterpiece hamstrings it in fundamental ways.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Orphans of the Storm

With Orphans of the Storm, D.W. Griffith returns to the epic form he revolutionized with The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Does he still "have it"? Well, unfortunately, not quite. The earlier works showed an incredible ability to balance exciting spectacle, multiple storylines, and intimate personal detail. Orphans proves itself unable to achieve this balancing act. At times it appears sluggish, at other jerky. As it cuts between different people and places it is initially confusing - a sense of rhythm is not established - and eventually distracting. The movie is at its best when it settles on telling the story of two sisters. Henriette (Dorothy Gish) is an abandoned aristocrat adopted into an impoverished family and then blinded during an illness; she becomes a beggar tormented by an evil old hag. Louise (Lillian Gish), Henriette's resilient but constantly besieged protector, is kidnapped and separated from her sister; she develops bonds with a revolutionary and an aristocrat which will serve her well in her struggles. The French Revolution and the subsequent Terror serve as a backdrop for the melodrama.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Way Down East

Around 1920, D.W. Griffith was at the top of his game. He had founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford, giving them complete control over their own work. Along with Cecil B. DeMille he was perhaps the most celebrated and popular director of the era. And when he released Way Down East, an adaptation of a popular 19th century play about a poor girl who is tricked by a slick man and must endure all sorts of hardships for her naivete, the film became one of his biggest hits. But it's interesting to take a look at Griffith's career, attitude, and style from the perspective of this time. That Way Down East was a hit probably represents, in part, a nostalgia for the pre-World War I era in the dawning years of the Roaring Twenties. That ambivalence would remain throughout the Jazz Age because (images of flappers, bootleggers, and sultans of swat aside) the United States was still a largely rural and conservative country, suspicious of the massive social changes that were seizing the big cities. Nonetheless, many hit movies of the twenties capitalized on the sparkling, glistening sense of a new world, and mass audiences ate it up. Griffith was to fall increasingly behind the times in this regard.

Indeed, Griffith's relevance probably peaked immediately before America joined World War I. With The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, he was the prophet of film form, leading the way adventurously into new territory. But increasingly, in 1919 and 1920, Griffith's work takes on a more aesthetically conservative tone. Gone are the ambitious structures and experiments in form, replaced by a simpler, if completely confident, style. I noted that True Heart Susie seemed even more basic than Broken Blossoms, which in turn was far more basic than the Griffith epics. Way Down East doesn't entirely continue that trend (the ice-floe climax is a quite stunning set piece) but emotionally, it continues to zero in rather than expand. And that is a good thing; despite some flaws, this is one of Griffith's most powerful works, in large part because its focus is so narrow and Griffith's immense compassion - redeemed from outright sentimentality by his sensitivity - imbues the film with a sense of elegiac grace.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - True Heart Susie

By no intention of my own, but through the malfeasance of Netflix delays and mishaps and the distraction of a new DVR, the Auteurs series was put on hold for almost a month. Now I'm back - with the first Griffith feature in the series that I had not seen before. In 1919, close on the heels of Broken Blossoms, Griffith released another melodrama starring Lillian Gish. However, this one is much simpler - and in fact comes as a bit of a surprise after Griffith's epic earlier work.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Broken Blossoms

After the grand folly of Intolerance, D.W. Griffith turned out a number of features in succession, many about the Great War that America had just joined. His most notable picture was Hearts of the World, a very pro-French testament to German barbarism, albeit with some of Griffith's antiwar sentiments stirred into the mix. Supposedly, that is. Hearts of the World is not available on Netflix, nor are the half-dozen other films that followed Intolerance. Since I'm using the online service as my guide, that brings us to 1919, three years later, and to the great director's most acclaimed work, following Intolerance and The Birth of a Nation.

Broken Blossoms couldn't be much more different from those lavish, ambitious epics. It is a quiet, poetic film, focusing on the plight of two individuals. It's about half the length of those earlier features, and does not contain an ambitious structure or massive themes or dozens of innovations. Broken Blossoms presents a director firmly in control of his craft, yet unwilling to show off. Much of the movie, especially the first half, unfolds in rather long shots, taking in the grimy surroundings of its two protagonists as they drift within its bounds (the film's one ambitious touch is its detailed sets, recreating London's poverty-stricken Limehouse district). The crosscutting is toned down here; it's used to heighten suspense but we're seldom as conscious of its effects as in Birth or Intolerance. If the latter film was the explosive work of a precocious but childlike sensibility, full of broad strokes and massive scale, Broken Blossoms exhibits a melancholy maturity.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Intolerance

As I noted last week, D.W. Griffith professed astonishment at the controversy surrounding Birth of a Nation, his 1915 epic. He followed it with another epic, even more lavish, this one devoted to the theme of intolerance in order to prove what a swell ol' guy D.W. was. This film had enormous sets, a cast of hundreds (thousands?), and a ludicrously ambitious structure and concept - the telling of four separate stories, in four different historical periods, cutting between them all so that they unfolded simultaneously. The movie came out in 1916. Think about that. This Herculean follow-up to his masterpiece was executed and delivered a mere year later; that should tell you something. Griffith directs Intolerance with the bravado of a drunken genius, as if he couldn't take the time to sort everything out neatly and just tackled the material on the wit of his whim. Consequently, his sheer enthusiasm makes the unwieldly, potentially overstuffed picture work. As someone who often has several books sitting by my bedside because I can't settle on just one, I have to say I dig the ambition.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - The Birth of a Nation

In 1915, D.W. Griffith released a masterwork, a full-length feature film with historical sweep, intimate detail, and a nimbleness unseen in cinema till then. Watching Griffith's short films at the beginning of this series, I was starting to find them tedious after a few minutes. Yet The Birth of a Nation, at over three hours, is never boring. It moves - hopping, skipping, and jumping across years and locations, yet keeping its focus on its central characters and themes, and taking its time when it needs to. There isn't a wasted moment in the whole film, and while some jump cuts may be the result of damaged film, there are certainly places where Griffith elides what is unnecessary and cuts in to punch up his point. The Birth of a Nation is a extremely tactile film, living and breathing in every frame. As we watch casual conversations unfold, sound would be superfluous; we're completely immersed in the moment without hearing what's being said. The actors give sensitive performances without wallowing in melodrama and Griffith uses space, camera movement, and cross-cutting expertly to play with our emotions and engage us in the action. In short, it's a tour-de-force.

It also tumbles into a terrifying darkness halfway through. Imagine taking a ride with someone who's a great driver, knowing all the shortcuts and making great time. Suddenly he turns demonic, careening off the road and taking you down a dirt path to God-knows-where: who is this psychopath and where did he come from? That's Griffith in this film. Not that the first half of the film isn't racist, but it's mostly too busy establishing its characters, building up the historical detail, and fighting the Civil War to bother itself one way or another about the black characters. However, once part two unrolls, we're thrust into the most primitive and chilling sort of reactionary paranoia. Suddenly, our reactions to the rest of the film are re-colored and Griffith's continuing expertise only leads us to question the brilliant fluidity of his technique; is it somehow tied in to the dark-age views he's espousing? Leftists who decry "bourgeois" filmmaking must love this movie; it makes their case for them.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Biograph shorts, Part Two

See Part One here.

The second Biograph disc finally arrived after much delay, so tonight I picked up where I left off. I started with the bonus shorts, which were made earlier than most of the other works on disc two. Including The Last Drop of Water (1911), Friends (1912), The Lesser Evil (1912), and The Massacre (1912), they were variations on the standard Griffith melodrama, composed mostly in medium shots, and all but one favoring historical American subjects. It's hard not to see these works as dress rehearsals for The Birth of a Nation. Indeed, The Massacre features wide-angle battle scenes in which Griffith starts to exercise his interest in a large-scale spectacle. However, lacking the human drama of his later work, it's not quite as compelling. Notable with each of these works is his tendency to start strong, with characters strolling onscreen or appearing in repose as if we've just caught them in the middle of their daily routine. Right away we're drawn in, but with the short form to work with, Griffith quickly falls back on melodramatic cliches and shorthand characterizations. These four works suggest that Griffith could have worne out the possibilities of narrative shorts and is ready to move on to a larger canvas. As for the rest of the collection...

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Biograph shorts, Part One

Forward-looking and backward-looking, often at the same time, David Wark Griffith (1875-1948) provides a fascinating and somehow appropriate figure to kickstart the history of film. In 1908, screened cinema had been around for thirteen years, photographic trickery creating the illusion of motion for a bit longer. Griffith was a theater man and when, in his early thirties, he turned to film-acting it was a practical matter. Eventually he wound up at Biograph, a New York film production company. Over five years, he would produce 450 short films and, in this compressed and incredibly productive period, develop a language of film which survives in some incarnation to this day.

The Adventures of Dollie (1908)
A pastoral kidnapping tale, filmed entirely in long-shot, this was Griffith's directorial debut. To what extent he had story input I don't know, but it certainly fits the Griffith mould. There are scenes of blissful middle-class domesticity, which give way to a melodramatic plot device in which outsiders threaten the secure little family. In this case, gypsies kidnap a little girl, hiding her in a barrel, which falls out of their wagon as they cross a river, is swept downstream, and eventually deposits the girl back with her kin. Griffith is far from developing the intricate interplay of images that will eventually characterize his work: the story is divided up into a series of tableaux, shot from a distance, and essentially serving as black-and-white live action illustrations to a children's book.

THE AUTEURS: A Declaration of Principles

Directors, auteurs, filmmakers -- call them what you will. Certain individuals carry a presence into their work which makes them the undisputed authors/auteurs of their movie. Well, not quite undisputed. Accomplished screenwriters like Budd Schulberg and Gore Vidal, along with other film professionals and many critics and historians, gripe to this day about the injustice of attributing a film entirely to its director. They complained that the theory, originated in France and applied to American cinema in the 60s and 70s, retroactively overevaluated directors who were little more than hired hands on the set, their power subservient to the producers and their creative input eclipsed by the writers. Certainly, there's a fair amount of ridiculousness emanating from the auteurist credo. Anyone who's worked or observed filmmaking in process, on anything from a major production to the smallest student film, knows that it's impossible for the director to have his hand in every aspect of creation, unlike the novelist or the painter.