D. W. Griffith

Interviews

Anthony Slide

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781617032981
• eBook ISBN: 9781628468236
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

D. W. Griffith (1875–1948) is one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture. As director of The Birth of a Nation, he is also one of the most controversial. He raised the cinema to a new level of art, entertainment, and innovation, and at the same time he illustrated, for the first time, its potential to influence an audience and propagandize a cause. Collected together here are virtually all of the "interviews" given by D. W. Griffith from the first in 1914 to the last in 1948. Some of the interviews concentrate on specific films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and, most substantially, Hearts of the World, while others provide the director with an opportunity to expound on topics of personal interest, including the importance of proper exhibition of his and other's films, and his search for truth and beauty on screen. The interviews are taken from many sources, including leading newspapers, trade papers, and fan magazines. They are often marked by humor and by a desire to please the interviewer and thus the reader. Griffith may not have been particularly enthusiastic about giving interviews, but he seems always determined to put on a good show. Ultimately, D. W. Griffith: Interviews provides the reader with a unique insight into the mind and filmmaking techniques of a director whose work and philosophy is as relevant today as it was when he was at the height of his fame in the 1910s and 1920s.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology
• Filmography
• At the Sign of the Flaming Arcs
• David W. Griffith Speaks
• A Poet Who Writes on Motion Picture Films
• Editorials in Films
• D. W. Griffith Answers Two Vital Questions
• D. W. Griffith Producer of the World’s Biggest Picture
• Five Dollar Movies Prophesied
• Interviews with Prominent Directors: “And the Greatest of These Is”—David W. Griffith
• The Story of David Wark Griffith: Part One
• The Story of David Wark Griffith: Part Two
• The Story of David Wark Griffith: Part Three
• The Story of David Wark Griffith: Part Four
• The Story of David Wark Griffith: Part Five
• The Real Story of Intolerance
• The Making of a Masterpiece
• The Film World’s Greatest Achievement
• D. W. Griffith Champions England’s Natural Light
• Took Scenes in the Trenches
• Griffith Returns from the Front with Official Pictures Made under Fire—Will Use Them in a Film Spectacle of War
• Griffith—and the Great War
• Griffith, Maker of Battle Scenes, Sees Real War
• Pictures and Projectiles
• Life and the Photodrama
• How Griffith Picks His Leading Women
• Humanity’s Language
• Griffith Points Out Need of Tragedy on the Screen; Likes San Francisco
• The Poet-Philosopher of the Photoplay
• Exhibitor Is a Co-Artist, Says D. W. Griffith, Returns from Los Angeles to Open Eastern Studio
• The Filming of Way Down East
• The Moral and the Immoral Photoplay
• The Greatest Moving Picture Producer in the World
• Griffith Reveals Sartorial Secrets
• D. W. Griffith’s Screen Version of The Two Orphans Would Fill Its Author with Awe
• An Intimate Closeup of D. W. Griffith
• Griffith: Maker of Pictures
• The Genius of a Masterpiece
• Griffith Film Stirs Anger of Parisians
• Stereoscopic Films
• In and Out of Focus: D. W. Griffith
• What Are the Chances of a Beginner
• D. W. Griffith Is Struggling to Pay His Debts
• How Do You Like the Show?
• Don’t Blame the Movies! Blame Life!
• He Might Be the Richest Man in the World
• His Best Pictures Were the Least Expensive, Says “D. W.”
• D. W. Griffith Addresses the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• Walter Huston Interviews D. W. Griffith
• David Wark Griffith Tells ’Em
• The Star-Maker Whose Dreams Turned to Dust
• Film Master Is Not Proud of Films: “They Do Not Endure”
• D. W. Griffith Tells Plans Which Include Picture Making
• Return of a Master
• Griffith Back to Live Here “for Half Century”
• “Cinema’s Fullest Scope Still Ahead”—D. W. Griffith
• Forty-Seven Questions from Seymour Stern to D. W. Griffith
• Flash-Back to Griffith
• The Writings of D. W. Griffith
• Index