David W. Griffith Speaks

Among Other Things He Discusses the Director's Lot, the Development of Picture Players and Throws New Light on the Question of the Stage Versus the Drama

By Robert E. Welsh


David W. (Larry) Griffith. Most Prominent Motion Picture Director.

There is a gray-haired, cigar-chewing city editor in my mind just now whose only guide in the writing of headlines is, "Say something that will tempt them to read the article through." What could better carry out this gospel than the line, "David W. Griffith Speaks?" He who knows not of David W. Griffith should be abashed at his temerity in wandering into the motion picture section, and he who knows of David W. Griffith needs no other incentive to read. For as the statisticians say, "Were film progress to be measured in miles, the steps of advancement contributed by David W. Griffith placed end on end would gird the earth." That is the way the Statistics Editor would say it, to the motion picture student "David W. Griffith" would be enough. Explanation is superfluous, for to film men this name is what is called in algebra a "known quantity." But enough of lame comparisons, you say, away with the preliminaries; you want to hear David W. Griffith, not a mere manipulator of the typewriter keys.

Well and good, by special request we will omit the overture and raise the curtain. With the aid of Frank Woods, The Spectator, I have hunted my elusive quarry down and now have him backed into a swivel chair. To call David W. Griffith a director is but half stating the truth, yet we seek the tangible as a topic for conversation and begin to talk about the direction of pictures. Remembering Mr. Griffith's early stage experience I ask him which he deems the harder work, directing for motion pictures or the spoken drama.

A wry smile lights his dark, sharply cut features, and you can already guess the answer. In fact, the very atmosphere of the Union Square studio is sufficient answer. "Directing for motion pictures, undoubtedly," he replies. "The stage director who knows absolutely nothing of pictures will throw up his hands in dismay when he begins to learn the many difficulties that surround picture work. For one thing, the film director's work is, in a sense, never done. After long rehearsals, and diligent study of the scene, be cannot congratulate himself because it appears to be going, finely when the camera's crank turns. There are a multitude of pitfalls before the film will be shown on the screen. Perhaps your film stock was poor, there is danger in the developing of the negative, or making the positive prints. Then when the picture is seen on the screen you find that a stray ray of light has spoiled a much desired effect, or any one of a dozen little details that the stage director is entirely free from."

A big man is David W. Griffith, on a big job, and with a big viewpoint. This is a discovery that you make after only a few minutes conversation with him. You note the infrequency with which he mentions "my company, and my this and my that." It is a broader outlook that David Griffith has, and in his words you detect that broad-gauged respect and love for the new art- the motion picture. Mention the stage director has brought to mind the everwaking conflict, the "stage versus the motion picture," and we speak of the attitude that many adherents to the old testament hold towards the motion picture. Aha that has struck the mark. Mr. Griffith had been leaning back in his leather-cushioned chair. Now his feet come down to the floor with a bang, and his hand taps the desk for emphasis.

"That is all wrong," he says, the words sharply cut as he is speaking fastly. "When the present day stage can show one-half to its credit that the motion picture can, then will be the time for criticism, assuredly to-day is not the time. The shoe is on the other foot. It is the stage that should be defended when in comparison with the motion picture.

"Suppose, for instance, that you were Milton, or Browning, or any of the poets whose work has lived for generations after them. Say that you had just written 'Paradise Lost' and wished to have it produced on the stage. To whom would you go? In your natural enthusiasm after the completion of a great work, to whom would you go and even expect a production? Can you imagine your reception in the average manager's office with a manuscript of a classic under your arm? Or, supposing the impossible, that you had secured a production, of what manager would you expect a performance that would contain any of the poetry, any of the soul of your work?"

Giving due allowance for the difficulty with which I imagine that I am Browning or Milton, I confess that the prospect of peddling "Paradise Lost" along Broadway is not alluring. Mr. Griffith smiles with me as we imagine the poet's plight.

"Aha," he continues, "but the motion picture has taken all of these works, has deemed none of them too 'highbrowed,' and has 'got them across.' Perhaps the production was not always perfect, or wonderfully artistic, but the big idea was still there, still intact, and it reached the hearts of the spectators. The motion picture is doing daily more than the stage of to-day can think of doing. Before the stage attempts to criticise the photoplay let it do one part of what the motion picture is doing for the enjoyment, uplift and education of the people.

"Stage directors and players often criticise the picture and its methods of work. And why? Because the picture is too true to life, it is not 'theatrical.' The motion picture is an art, a distinct art, and in many ways a greater art, since it approaches more closely real life. It is this viewpoint that many people reared in the life of the spoken drama cannot get. They say that we picture directors do not know the 'rules,' the technique of the drama. We know enough of the rules and the technique to avoid them, for real life is not run by 'rules.' The motion picture technique is what technique really means, a faithful picture of life. Unless you do the thing as it was done before, as it has been done for years, you violate the 'rules'; to my mind you violate the real essence of technique when you do not do it as it is done in real life. The motion picture, properly presented, should be a picture of real life, entrances and exits should be regulated as they would be in real life, not according to set rules, and emotions should he depicted as they would be in real life.

"You say that some stage players look down on the motion picture. I say that I would not have the average stage player in a picture of mine. Mrs. Fiske's work in 'Tess of the D'Urberville's' was wonderful; Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson being a great artist, I imagine should be able to do some good work in pictures, but we are speaking now of the average player. It would take them years to grasp one-tenth of the knowledge of the picture art that young members of our company already know. Aside from the value of a few big names I would much rather have real picture people in my plays. Where is the player that by a mere flash of the eyes, a passing of the hand that by a mere flash of the eyes, a passing of the hand over the forehead could convey half the emotion to the spectator that Blanche Sweet or Mary Pickford could give? Where is the stage player who studies real life and who duplicates real life as these players of the screen do?"

"Blanche Sweet. Mary Pickford." These names bring to mind another thought, and I ask for the secret by which he chooses and develops stars. Here we make another discovery of the mind-stunning salary, this director with the power of a dictator, possesses the modesty of a hermit.

"There is no secret," he says. "I did not 'teach' the players with whom my name has been linked. We developed together, we found ourselves in a new art and as we discovered the possibilities of that art we learned together.

"It is this learning, step by step, that brought about the 'close-up.' We were striving for real acting. When you saw only the small full-length figures it was necessary to have exaggerated acting, what might be called 'physical' acting, the waving of the hand, and so on. The close-up enabled us to reach real acting, restraint, acting that is a duplicate of real life. But the close-up was not accepted at once. It was called many names by men who now make use of it as a matter of course. 'Why,' said one man well known in the film world, 'that man Griffith is crazy, the characters come swimming in on the scene."

From talk of the close-up we come naturally to the switchback and the score of other innovations to the credit of this smiling, somewhat boyish, man in the chair before me. The evolution of the switchback as told by David Griffith proves the contention that the film is more akin to printed fiction than to the spoken drama.

You remember," he continues, "in Dickens and other writers of his period the plan of saying. "While all these dire happenings were occurring to our heroine, far away another scene fraught with interest was being enacted?' You remember how a chapter would end leaving you at the highest pitch of expectancy, while the author told of happenings somewhere else, but bearing on the main issue? This was the reason for the switchback, to draw the threads of the narrative together, to accelerate the action, to heighten the action. But the switchback can be abused, and is being abused. In many pictures I think the director used the switchback merely because he knew of nothing else to do at that particular moment, he used the switchback to hinder the action, to hold up the story, but that is all wrong. The switchback should be used only when absolutely necessary. It should be used to accelerate the action, to further the story, to help the spectator to a better understanding, and not to hold him back from the story. The switchback I use with fear. Each scene, even when only a snatch of a few feet of film, is carefully rehearsed time after time, and down to the finest details. The switchback must be as perfect as any portion of the story, and above all, it must give a very good, sound, reason for its existence before I will attempt to use it."

All this talk you say and we have not found out anything about David W. Griffith, the man. The individual. We have not discovered his age, how he came to enter pictures- oh! we've missed any one of a dozen stock interviewing details. But no, you have found the real David Griffith, the present-day Griffith. You've found, as I found, that David W. Griffith was as big in thought and word, as you expected. There is one thing you can't discover, and that is the David Griffith of the future. Still in his prime, there is a strong note, in his words, an optimistic tone that makes you hesitate to prophesy, to place any limitations on the future of this man.

"The future?" he replies to your question. "The future of the picture is a topic that usually makes me go into ecstasies. The big things it is possible for the picture to do make one feel at a loss for words. Just think of what it would mean as an educational force. Think what could be done with the picture if it came into the hands of a rival political party with a big issue like that of slavery before the voters. Think of the possibilities as a newspaper, with up-to-the-minute illustrated areas of the world. Think of the big stories that are yet to be filmed, the history of the world yet to be told in pictures for future centuries. And all these things are not so far in the future as you may imagine. I'll wager that in a year from now, even you, with some knowledge of the film business and rosy expectations of what is likely to happen, will come to me and admit that you are absolutely surprised, that you had not the faintest expectation of the things that will have happened dealing the coming year."

Will we? The words of David W. Griffith have unusual weight; I think we will. Let's watch 1914 and see.

Robert E. Welsh, "David W. Griffith Speaks," The New York Dramatic Mirror, January 14, 1914, pages 49, 54.

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