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| D. W. Griffith: The Birth of a Nation (1915). |
THE BIRTH OF A NATION (David W. Griffith Corp. / Majestic Motion Picture Co., US 1915)
Dir.: D. W. Griffith; cast: Henry B. Walthall, Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, Ralph Lewis, Mary Alden, George Siegmann, Walter Long, Elmer Clifton, Joesphine Crowell, Spottiswoode Aitken, Raoul Walsh;
English intertitles.
35 mm, 11,335 ft, 190' (16 fps), Photoplay Productions.
Act I: 88 min, Act II: 101 min.
Playback: music score: John Lanchbery.
Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): The Griffith Project 8, 14 Oct 2004.
Eileen Bowser [DWG Project # 513]: "Memoirs by several eyewitnesses of the production of The Birth of a Nation have been published. Two who were closest to it day by day were G. W. Bitzer, the cameraman, who had been with Biograph from its beginnings, and Karl Brown, a clever and sharp-eyed kid in his teens, later a well-respected cameraman, writer, and director. Karl Brown wangled a job as assistant to Bitzer as soon as the new company had arrived in California, months before production of The Birth of a Nation began. As part of his job assisting the cameraman, he recorded every scene of that production in his log as it was made. These men were blessed with good memories and a desire to record what happened as objectively as possible, but we have to take into consideration that their remembrances were those of old age, long after the events they recorded (see G. W. Bitzer, Billy Bitzer: His Story, 1973; Karl Brown, Adventures with D. W. Griffith, 1973; another eyewitness account, Before, In and After Hollywood: The Autobiography of Joseph E. Henabery, was published in 1997)."
"In April the company completed and released Home, Sweet Home, and in May produced The Avenging Conscience. At the same time that Griffith worked on that innovative film, preparations had already started on The Clansman. A caravan of automobiles led up through Cahuenga Pass to the northern slope of Cahuenga Peak, and there, in a natural clearing, the plans were laid out for the battle scenes. Karl Brown remembered: “A sort of ridge of high ground curved around the rim of a gently descending slope of clear ground that ran down to where the dry-as-dust riverbed of the Los Angeles River lay baking in the sun. There were little clumps of trees clustered on both sides of this open area, with small hills rounding up here and there in the background to provide splendid locations for artillerymen to rake the field with grape and canister, the two favorite close-range charges of the Civil War cannoneers. Not only the geography but the orientation of the field happened to be perfect. When shooting big stuff you must shoot either north or south, never east or west. On this location all the camera angles from the ridge would be shooting north, which meant cross light from the right during the morning, and from the left throughout the afternoon.” (Adventures with D. W. Griffith, pp. 55–56)"
"Frank Wortman, master carpenter, and George Siegmann, chief among the multitude of assistant directors, laid out the trenches and gun emplacements as Griffith surveyed the scene and expressed his vision with gestures and words that to the young Karl Brown were poetic and unspecific but that Wortman and Siegmann knew how to interpret in practical terms. Confederate trenches to the right, Union to the left. Griffith had observed long ago at Biograph that it was necessary to preserve screen direction in battle scenes, in order not to confuse the audience about which running and falling soldiers belonged to which side of the conflict. There is a long list of “assistant directors”: Joseph Henabery (in the Appendix to his autobiography) disputed the title of chief assistant director that Karl Brown awarded to George Siegmann, claiming that title for George Beranger. It is easy to fall into such disagreements, since the title “assistant director” was not then an official one, and any number of people might have acted in that capacity for the moment when Griffith needed something done. As Karl Brown put it, “…and whoever else happened to be standing around doing nothing…”. Brown mentioned, after George Siegmann, Elmer Clifton, Herbert Sutch, Erich von Stroheim, Howard Gaye, Monte Blue, George (André) Beranger, Donald Crisp, Fred Hamer, Tom Wilson, Christy Cabanne, and Raoul Walsh, all names known to film history, but this list is not complete and surely not entirely accurate. Some of these names are also to be found in Bitzer’s account. Many of these men also worked on Intolerance, which could have added to the confusion in Brown’s and Bitzer’s memories. Henabery thought Stroheim and Monte Blue were not yet at the studio. Ambitious young men were eager to act in the lowliest capacity to work with D. W. Griffith, considered the outstanding creative genius of his day in motion pictures, or, if not actually present, ready to claim in later years that they were. Assistants were always needed in large crowd scenes such as the battle sequences to direct groups of extras in the action."
"Brown said that Battles and Leaders of the Civil War became the chief reference for all the military equipment. The job of Herbert Sutch was to procure the ancient muskets, and to find a way to convert these weapons, which had been modernized to fire cartridges, to the appearance of Civil War authenticity, not to mention the necessity of shooting blanks. According to Brown’s account, Sutch achieved this by pouring a very soft wax into the modern cartridges with a small amount of smoky black explosive powder (Brown, p. 58). Such improvisation characterized the spirit of Griffith’s team. For period uniforms and costumes, they turned to Robert Goldstein, a Los Angeles costumer who was to be enriched by having to accept part ownership in the production instead of payment of his bill. The same reference, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, was Goldstein’s guide to preparing the costumes. Bitzer, too, became a part owner of the film when he advanced his savings to help finish it. W. H. Clune, owner of Clune’s Auditorium, where The Clansman had its Los Angeles premiere, was a big contributor to the costs of production. Nobody had reason to regret their investment, as it turned out."
"Journalistic attempts to characterize the achievement of The Birth of a Nation often point to its production cost, lavish for its time, and its record-breaking return at the box-office, but the problem with this is that we do not have good enough financial records to tell us the real story. All we really know is that production costs swelled way beyond what they had available, and loans were needed to complete the film. Bitzer gave a sort of account of costs: $10,000 to Thomas Dixon for the rights to The Clansman; filming costs rose to $78,000 at one stage; Bitzer put in $7,000 from his own savings; Griffith told Bitzer “That Woman” (whoever that may have been) invested $9,000; W. H. Clune put up $15,000, and Goldstein took payment for costumes in stock for $7,000. Originally budgeted for $40,000, Bitzer said, The Birth of a Nation cost $110,000. He also announced that it grossed $20,000,000 over the years, but Variety is unsure enough as to decline to list the film at all in their annual top-grossing films lists, although, of course, they mention it."
"While trenches were dug and gun emplacements built in the valley chosen for the battle scenes, a vacant lot across the street from the studio was leased, where “Huck” Wortman and his carpenters erected the streets, house fronts, and slave quarters of a sleepy Southern town. Some of these sets were erected right on the studio lot, conveniently next to the carpenter shop."
"After six weeks of rehearsal, shooting began on 4 July 1914. Bitzer said that just one camera was used, a Pathé “with a 3.5 two-inch lens interchangeable with a wide-angle lens – that is, you had to screw one out and screw the other into its place” (Iris Barry, D. W. Griffith, p. 37). The orthochromatic film was slow, and limited in tonal range. Bitzer suggested that the limitations of this stock may have helped give the images “historical authenticity”. The entire film was hand-cranked by Bitzer, in what he described as 3⁄4 waltz time, and the turning had to be absolutely constant to the end of the shot, as was second nature to any experienced cameraman of that day. It was also common to vary the cranking speed according to the demands of the specific scenes, and in addition, Griffith films were sometimes sent out with instructions to the theatre manager to vary the projection speed in certain scenes."
"The first scenes filmed were the battle scenes. Bitzer claims that the little family group on the hill, watching Sherman’s march to the sea, were discovered sitting there by Griffith, and were captured on film without their knowing. The team went up in the mountains to Big Bear to shoot Gus’s chase of Little Sister among the pine trees, and her fall to her death among the rocks. Later, Brown and Bitzer were sent back to the mountain to film a dummy that Brown threw – in place of Mae Marsh – over the cliff, and, according to his tale, almost went over with it. In a mountain meadow at Big Bear, they did the love scene between Margaret Cameron and Phil Stoneman. They drove east to the open country around the Rio Hondo [a tributary of the Los Angeles River] to film the thundering hordes of the white-robed Clansmen on horseback from every possible angle: both Billy Bitzer and Karl Brown have left harrowing tales of horses jumping over them and explosions and smoke beside them as they filmed from ground level."
"The assassination of Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre was pictured in authentic detail according to old engravings, with the playscript of Our American Cousin at hand to guide the performance on stage. A mirror was moved around to reflect sunlight on Booth like a spotlight as he slid through the theatre crowd. After three seasons filming on the West Coast, Billy Bitzer was experienced with lighting by the brilliant California sunlight, aided by soft cloth diffusers and mirrors, instead of the electricity needed for indoor work back East. According to him, the only scene requiring special lighting was the burning of Atlanta in miniature, in order to make it look real, as he put it (Bitzer, p. 106). Joseph Henabery, stepping out of the ranks of extras, got the role of Lincoln by showing Griffith what he could do with Lincoln make-up: actors at that time were still responsible for their own make-up. Joseph Henabery said that in one long sequence he was chasing himself: as a black renegade and then as a white soldier. As an extra, he believed he played 13 different characters. The repeated use of extras, and at times actors playing extra roles, may explain why some scholars have found editing “errors” in later years, such as a character falling dead in battle and discovered up and running in a later scene. Blackface make-up on white actors, and black extras even in the same scene, were common in the industry."
"Karl Brown told us that Griffith (at least in the period to which Brown was witness) never called “camera” or “cut” as other directors did, but always “fade in” and “fade out”. Brown’s theory was that Griffith never knew in advance whether he would need a fade to open or close a scene, and the system of including a fade every time gave him the option to use it or not. Rose and Jimmie Smith were his cutters for most of his career. They knew how to interpret the remarks he made when he looked at the footage in the projection room at night, after shooting was done for the day."
"Shooting was complete in October, and the footage was edited to 12 reels by the end of the year. Karl Brown was assigned to shoot the intertitles for the film, and therefore was not a daily witness to the editing work. While the editing and titling went on, the indefatigable Griffith produced The Mother and the Law, which was not released at that time, but revised and incorporated as the modern story of Intolerance (1916)."
"As The Clansman, The Birth of a Nation had its first public showing on 1 January 1915, at the Loring Opera House in Riverside, California, with a special seven-piece orchestra, and prices of 20 and 30 cents, according to the printed program in the Griffith Papers at the Museum of Modern Art. This was a high-class showing for 1915. Nevertheless, Griffith considered it only a trial run, held secret from most of his staff, because he did not want any cheerleaders in the audience, just ordinary moviegoers. Joseph Henabery said that he went along with Griffith to that screening and wrote down as best he could and with the help of his fiancée, later his wife, what was in the film at that date (this document is in the Joseph and Jeanne Henabery Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library; see Henabery, p. 82). The official premiere was at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles on 8 February. Griffith attended these showings to judge audience reaction, and then edited further. He continued to do the same at the New York premiere on 3 March, where the picture was now known as The Birth of a Nation; he followed it to the showings in Boston and Chicago for the same purpose."
"If production of a film includes its editing stages, production of The Birth of a Nation continued long after the film was being shown to the public. It is hardly surprising that modern-day prints and even negatives show some gaps or illogical connections, when the editing continued under such circumstances. Today, archival reconstruction offers a variety of choices to the restorer: which showing constitutes the original version? Griffith cared deeply about audience reaction. I expect he would be quite bewildered to observe how young audiences perceive the film today. The film has not changed, but we have."" – Eileen Bowser [DWG Project # 513]
AA: I viewed only 25 minutes from the beginning because I wanted to catch the Vertov screening at 20.30 at Teatro Zancanaro. And because I had seen the electrifying 1997 Pordenone film concert The Birth of a Nation of the Photoplay print with John Lanchbery himself conducting his adaptation of the Carl Joseph Breil score. A great score and a great print.
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