From the New York Times, May 18, 1919, 52.
D. W. Griffith was talking. The writer had gone to see him on business— the business of setting up an interview. But Mr. Griffith, producer of pictures, is not a producer of interviews, ready-made or made-to-order while you wait. Apparently he does not keep a stock of assorted statements and pithy sayings pigeon-holed and indexed in his mind to be drawn from for purposes of public education and self-advertising as occasion may require— or unguardedly permit. But he is a sociable man and talks, as one person does when he meets another, about whatever happens to come up as a subject of discussion. He was talking to two friends when the writer came in. The principal effect of the writer’s entrance seemed to be simply the addition of another individual in the conversation— for it was a conversation, Mr. Griffith being as ready to listen as to talk.
All of those present being identified with the screen in one way or another it was natural that moving pictures, particularly photoplays and pictorial effects should be mentioned. And it was when Mr. Griffith began to tell of some of his studio experiences that the writer picked up the trail of the interview he was looking for. But Mr. Griffith apparently did not keep in mind the fact that here was a newspaper man present with an ulterior motive. And the newspaper man himself forgot this fact— while Mr. Griffith talked.
“The most difficult thing in making photoplays,” he said, “is to get the human touch into pictures. A little scene with human beings in it is harder to make than the biggest spectacle ever staged.”
“This from the man whose spectacles are famous,” thought the writer.
“Recently we worked for hours trying to get a girl’s smile,” Mr. Griffith went on. “We wanted just a simple, human smile, and yet, no matter what we did, it seemed to elude us. Finally we thought we had it, and quit. But a few minutes later, as I was walking down the street, I saw a real girl smile— and I knew we had missed it.
“Getting humanness on the screen— that’s the difficult thing, and the important thing. No one has succeeded in doing it to his satisfaction yet, but there has been an approach to success in this picture and that, and we are always trying and improving. Therefore we are hopeful. We know the screen can be human.”
It became evident in a moment that the idea of humanness on the screen meant more to Mr. Griffith than just the representation of life for the idle entertainment of the movie-going public. More intently he kept talking without changing the subject, that is, not changing it as it presented itself to him, but developing it comprehensively to its full importance.
“The common humanity of all men and women is what people fail to realize,” he said. “They are not impressed with the fact that all men are human beings, with like characteristics, instincts, virtues, vices. Many talk of the brotherhood of man and do not seem to be aware that intrinsically all men are brothers, separated by barriers of selfishness, prejudice, and ignorance. They fail to appreciate the fact those barriers between men of different countries and of the same country must be broken down before there can be any real brotherhood. A company of estimable gentlemen in Paris form a League of Nations— while families in New York gather at their dinner tables and fight over the steak or the coffee. They can’t even have a working league in the family. The nations, through their dignified representatives, agree to become friends— while to the people of any country, to us in America say, the Italian is a wop, the Frenchman is a frog-eater, and the Chinese is a chink. What vital force can a League of Nations have so long as persons in the same family, the same community, the same country, or the same world remain potentially or actively hostile toward each other. Men everywhere have got to realize their own faults, the virtues of others, and the common humanity of all before they can really co-operate in a world community. Their mental attitudes must be the result of this realization.
“Don’t think I’m getting away from the subject we started with,” Mr. Griffith put in. “I’m not. For it is in helping to bring men and women together in a universal understanding of their essential brotherhood that the screen can do its greatest work. To the family or the small group in which people rub elbows and step on each other’s corns, the screen has something to say. It can show men and women to themselves. In it they can see themselves as others see them. They can see their little meannesses and mighty offenses mirrored, from bad table manners to acts of selfishness that destroy the well-being of others, and the seeing may make them uncomfortably self-conscious of themselves as they really are. And when a man becomes uncomfortably self-conscious of himself, he may find comfort in improving himself.
“To the people of different nations and races the screen can emphasize the common human character of all. A mother in Italy who sees a moving picture of a mother in Russia nursing her baby may grasp the meaning of the fact that mother law is universal. The love of a man and a woman humanly represented on the screen has meaning for spectators in every theatre in the world and establishes a common bond between the human being in France and the human being in China.
“The people of the world have different languages. They cannot, so far as the masses are concerned, read each other’s books and understand each other’s speech. But they can understand each other in the language of moving pictures. In the screen the world has a universal language that does not need to be translated for any one anywhere. A reel of film can go around the world telling the same story, taking the same humanity, to every one in every land. It may have the human touch in comedy or tragedy, seriously or frivolously. The man in Japan who laughed at Charlie Chaplin’s feet is closer to America in his heart than if he had not seen the little comedian.”
Mr. Griffith’s idea seemed to be similar to the idea of those who work for an international language of words like Esperanto. But he has the advantage because his language of moving pictures does not need to be learned with labor, and it has already been universally accepted, being universally intelligible. It is waiting only to be developed. It needs only a vocabulary sufficient for the use to which it should be put. This thought seemed to be in Mr. Griffith’s mind, for he went back to his starting point and said:
“You see why I regard the putting of humanness on the screen of such prime importance. That girl’s smile must be the real smile of a real girl anywhere if it is to have a human appeal for every one.”
The writer thought of the rural scenes in A Romance of Happy Valley, the German mother and her son in The Girl Who Stayed at Home, and the little disturber in Hearts of the World, so unusual and yet so human. And while he watched “the chink and the child” in Broken Blossoms he thought again of what Mr. Griffith had said.