From Motion Picture Magazine, September 1919, 28–30, 102.
Tuning a pen to the melody of the poet of the photoplay is a pleasant but difficult essay.
For the melody of David Wark Griffith’s mentality is so entrancing that words are as empty of feeling in comparison; as a beautiful woman is without a soul.
David Wark Griffith does not impress you as being superhuman or godlike. His very naturalness, simplicity and lack of pose are a few of the qualities which convince one that he is a great man. For it is an axiom that upon casual acquaintance, one cannot differentiate between a true genius and the ordinary run of human beings, except that the great man is more likely to be genuine, and natural, and less of a poseur, than the waiter who brings you your coffee, or the sales “lady” who sells you your shoes. The mediocre person, the would-be, the man desirous-of-genius, alone adopts a greater-than-thou attitude.
Griffith is a genius of countless possibilities. Not only is this true, but every press and person of any consequence throughout the world has recognized him as such. So that he himself cannot be unaware of the world’s favor.
And yet when I met him the day after his most loudly trumpeted success, when all New York was bowing down before him thru the medium of the press, the mails, and the wires— in other words, the morning after the opening of Broken Blossoms, I found a man of natural poise, boyish eagerness, and a perfectly human concern over a bad cough.
“How did you like the picture?” he greeted me early, a bit anxiously and altogether unaffectedly.
Thus one finds the mainspring of D. W.’s existence, his interest and love for his work.
He creates artistic poems in celluloid— far above the prose pictures of other producers, because, added to his innate ability, he produces, not for money, nor for fame— although he appreciates these desirable adjuncts when he attains them— but for the love of the doing.
“After all is said and done,” said Griffith, gazing dreamily down from his office window upon the hurrying throngs of New York’s restless streams of humanity, “work alone will satisfy. The only real joy there is in life comes from the delightful struggle, from incessant endeavor. To be happy, one must have something to strive for. Oh, the delights of discontent! The search for success! The only true happiness that a mortal finds comes not from the goal, but from the game. Show me a man who can no longer find anything to strive for, to work for, and I can only pity him in his prison of deadness.
“Discontent is what makes the world go round. Congenial work alone furnishes a bottomless well of happiness.”
“How about love?” I queried, for it was June, and you know the old saying about “In the spring.”
“Love,” said Griffith, swinging his office chair at attention and speaking in the rich, low tones that are so characteristic of him, “love is very fine— but it is a will-o’-the-wisp, here today, gone tomorrow. Work we always have.”
“Then you don’t believe that love ever lasts?”
“Ah, I could scarcely make so broad a statement as that. I only know that I feel an infinite pity for the average sweet things who think themselves in love. For a few weeks, life is surrounded by a roseate glow. They tread upon the clouds and live on milk and honey. They marry and then they wake up. The black night of reality curtains love’s rosy dawning— and there follows an existence of pained endurance— or divorce. Oh, yes, I feel sorry for young things in love— the awakening is so sad.”
“But surely you, with all your knowledge of human nature, must believe that love lasts. What would there be without it?”
“Work,” smiled Griffith, tenderly, and then, “Yes, love sometimes lasts, but only when tended by a master gardener. Love is the most powerful seed in the world and bears the most beautiful bud of any plant. But the trouble is that most people wish love to stay in the delightful blush-pink blossom stage. That is impossible. The bud must bloom, become full-blown, and in turn become seed to produce more blossoms. Most loves are incapable of bringing this growth. The few that do are the lasting loves. The law of change is the law of life. Show me a woman, who by the depth of her understanding of man’s weaknesses (we are all children and weak), by her ability to progress with the man, by her patience, sweetness, and constant endeavor, has held a man’s love throughout his life, and I’ll show you the greatest life-work that any woman can accomplish. Yes, it has been done! But it takes good gardeners; the plant of love must be tenderly and patiently cared for.”
Having settled life’s greatest problem, we turned instinctively to the photoplay.
“Why,” I asked, “has the silent drama ceased to advance?
“Because,” answered the foremost producer, “of the enormous manufacturing cost. It is too expensive to experiment with the picture of today. A feature production costs from $40,000 to $200,000, and very few firms can afford to try new paths at that price. The consequence has been that pictures continue to be produced according to the pattern of proven popularity. In the old days it was a different proposition. A two-reeler could then be made for a few thousand. One was willing to try out new ideas at that price. But you will admit one hates to place a life’s fortune on one little advancement that may mean the loss of the whole! You can’t very well blame the manufacturer. He has to live. Take, for instance, my experience. The Birth of a Nation made a fortune, but I sunk it trying out new ideas with Intolerance. Then I had to turn to making program pictures for a living. These had to be made according to a set rule of what the public wanted. I tried to inject a little of what I wanted to do, as, for instance, the realism of the small-town stuff in the first reels of A Romance of Happy Valley, just to see how it would go— but in order to have my pictures accepted by the releasing company, I had to complete the picture with the elements of action they considered necessary to satisfy public tastes. I no sooner received the money for my program pictures than I sunk it in Broken Blossoms. I reckon I am the Broken Blossom,” he added whimsically.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” he said, “Broken Blossoms will break me, unless it is a financial success, and I fear it will never be a financial success because the majority of the people won’t understand or enjoy it.”
“I have more belief in the masses than that,” I interrupted. “I am sure they will appreciate Broken Blossoms, the most beautiful picture ever produced.”
“And yet,” said Griffith, with an expression which must have been similar to that of the disciples when the way seemed hard, “for every person who marvels at the beauty of a sunset, there are thousands who will stop to admire an electric sign on the hot street.”
And it is because D. W. Griffith can see beyond the hum of our hurried business marts, because he can hear the pulse of the universe, can sympathize with the joys and sorrows, the cares and tribulations of humanity, because even in the most sordid life he can find something beautiful, something to be admired, that he and he alone is a pioneer in the advance of the photoplay.
It is because he has the courage to ride ahead and trample down prejudice, take chances with the very wherewithal of his existence, that he has made the advance he has.
He works for the joy of it, and his twin tools are enthusiasm and an ability to hear the call of temple bells among the most humble.