SOURCE: "Voices from the Silents," in Wonderful Inventions: Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound at the Library of Congress, edited by Iris Newsom, Library of Congress, 1985, pp. 31-9.

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 traced to the turn of the century. Since the late 1800s, motion pictures have drawn what they have needed from the other arts—music, literature, and the theater—and have attained an artistic maturity of their own in a relatively short period of time. The artistic attainment has been accompanied by a coincidental evolution of motion picture technology.

The development of a historical record of the motion picture has not kept pace with the advancement of the art and technology, however. Indeed, the history of the motion...