D. W. Griffith Summary

Griffith, D. W. (1875-1948) Considered the father of the motion picture and the first great artist of the cinema, director D. W. Griffith revolutionized filmmaking with technical innovations and a nar... Read more

David Wark Griffith (1875-1948), American filmmaker, was a pioneer director-producer who invented much of the basic technical grammar of modern cinema.On Jan. 22, 1875, D.W. Griffith was born at Crest... Read more

In the following essay, originally published in 1924, Griffith speculates on a number of innovations he believed will occur in filmmaking during the next one hundred years and predicts that movies wil... Read more

In the following essay, Tucker creates a portrait of Griffith by drawing on memories and reflections from several of his contemporaries. The origins of the motion picture as an art form can be trac... Read more

In the following essay, originally published in 1949, Eisenstein explores Griffith's innovative use of montage as well as film techniques which can be traced in literary form to the works of Ch... Read more

In the following essay, Kael reflects on Griffith's pioneering cinematic accomplishments. "She is madonna in an art as wild and young as her sweet eyes," Vachel Lindsay wrote o... Read more

David W. Griffith was a legendary filmmaker in that he pioneered the film industry itself. Griffith had captured the minds of audiences to bring film out of its infancy and into the fascinating art f... Read more