Winners of the Gish Prize

Winners of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the largest arts prizes in the U.S.


Frank Gehry, architect, 1994
Ingmar Bergman, film director, 1995
Robert Wilson, artist and director, 1996
Bob Dylan, singer/songwriter, 1997
Isabel Allende, author, 1998
Arthur Miller, author and playwright, 1999
Merce Cunningham, dancer and choreographer, 2000
Jennifer Tipton, lighting director, 2001
Lloyd Richards, theater director, 2002
Bill T. Jones, dancer and choreographer, 2003
Ornette Coleman, jazz innovator, 2004
Peter Sellars, theater, opera and festival director, 2005 Shirin Neshat, film maker, 2006
Laurie Anderson, artist, 2007,
Robert Redford, actor, 2008
Pete Seeger, musician, 2009
Chinua Achebe, author, 2010
Trisha Brown, dance, 2011
Anna Deavere Smith, playwright, 2012

Nominations are currently being accepted.

James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU
(415) 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

Sna Francisco Symphony presents Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin

Named the “greatest film of all time” at the Brussels World's Fair of 1958, Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, is considered one of the most historically influential silent films. When it had its US TV premier on PBS in the 1970s, it screened as Potemkin.

Eisenstein wrote the screenplay in 1925 as a revolutionary propaganda film, showcasing the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when a crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers. The memorable Odessa steps scene is iconic and chilling.

BATLESHIP POTEMKIN

A still from the famous Odessa steps massacre in Potemkin.

Potemkin made its television premiere in the US on the PBS series Film Odyssey in the early 1970s. It was broadcast then as Potemkin. Judith Crist reviewed for TV Guide and corresponded with me about the film. We corresponded about it via email shortly before her death.  Following are notes from files about the 1970s screening, subsequent screenings, and screenings of other Eisenstein films.  

Film Notes:

Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) was commissioned by the Soviet Union’s government propaganda unit to film a twentieth anniversary story of the unsuccessful 1905 revolution.  Battleship Potemkin was released in 1925 and it was much more than a standard propaganda film. It is cinematically radical and an extremely accomplished film celebrated as one of the finest examples of Soviet film and a masterful and historic contribution to film.

In 1905 Russia Lenin spoke of revolution: "Revolution is war. Of all the wars known in history, it is the only lawful, rightful, just and truly Great War...In Russia this war has been declared and won."

Sailors aboard czarist battleship Potemkin, some sympathetic to Lenin, are tired of the putrid meat served them. When their protests become too vocal, a group of them are placed before a firing squad.

Before the order is given to shoot, Vakulinchuk (Alexander Antonov), a bystander who is also a sailor urges his comrades to revolt. Although Vakulinchuk is killed in a bloody struggle, mutineers prevail and seize control of Potemkin.

Potemkin sails into the harbor of Odessa and is greeted by thousands of men, women, and children. An atmosphere of fervid revolutionary solidarity is established as all gather against oppressors. Suddenly the militia appears and fires into the crowd.

After the Odessa massacre, Potemkin's crew comes face to face with the czar's armada. Potemkin, poised for battle, signals its opponents to "join us." The czar's ships lower their cannons, and the men on board unite with the crew of Potemkin in the brotherhood of revolution.

When Eisenstein was selected to direct a film celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1905 revolution, his grand vision was for an 8-part epic to be titled simply 1905, but adverse weather and impending deadlines forced them to film a single revolutionary episode about Potemkin mutiny. This film runs 74 minutes, but it is an historic 74 minutes with many influential scenes and compelling cinematography.

Famous, the Odessa massacre Eisenstein so brilliantly and artistically filmed is pure propaganda, it never happened.  His Soviet benefactors approved it and many Russians, largely ignorant of their history, believed it accurate. It was an international critical success.

Over the years, Potemkin has gained importance and many admirers. It was selected as the greatest film ever made in a 1952 poll commissioned for the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Eisenstein was voted the greatest director of all time in a 1962 survey taken by the British magazine Sight and Sound.

Eisenstein pioneered a dynamic, virile, and consciously expressionistic style of editing, now known as montage, according to many it reinvented cinema. Eventually, the more organic films of such masters as Ozu and Renoir were to counter the theories of Eisenstein, who himself retreated from the extremes of dynamic editing in Ivan the Terrible Part 1 (1944) and later films. Paramount lured Eisenstein to Hollywood in 1930 but, for, perhaps artistic reasons, the Soviet director could not decide on a project and no film resulted.

A few years before Ivan, Eisenstein remained enthusiastic about the manipulative potential of montage. He is known as the “Father of Montage.”

Propaganda was an integral part of Potemkin, Strike (1924), and earlier Eisenstein films. This denies viewers an association with a “hero” or a “heroine” in favor of a “heroic collective.”

Potemkin, at times, uses overly simplistic symbolism for propaganda sake, such as the devious priest who wields a crucifix in a hatchet-like movement. The film is marred also by an overall grounding in righteous vindictiveness, the brutality of the czarist slaughter on the Odessa steps, the slash across the woman’s face, the baby carriage with an infant rolling down the steps, the bizarre appearance of the devious priest, the soldiers walking on the body of a wounded boy, etc.
 

Nevertheless, Potemkin remains a superbly crafted film, and its extraordinary 7-minute "Odessa steps" sequence remains among cinema’s most potent and memorable scenes. It is, to some, a masterpiece of propaganda and, by my long experience with the film, a crowd pleaser. Potemkin is also a though proving masterpiece of manipulation and propaganda.

James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU
Member, San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Member, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Member, Film Society of Lincoln Center
415 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

Fay Kanin dies but leaves screenwriting legacy

Fay Kanin dies: She was a former president of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fay Kanin also won two screenwriting Emmys and an Emmy as producer of the 1979 TV special 'Friendly Fire.'

The former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Fay Kanin, at the Academy in Beverly Hills, Calif. in 2006. The Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter served as president of the film academy from 1979 to 1983.
( (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File))

---

By Associated Press / March 28, 2013 at 8:20 am EDT

Los Angeles Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Fay Kanin has died. She was 95.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed Kanin's death Wednesday. She served as president of the U.S. film academy from 1979 to 1983.
'She was committed to the Academy's preservation work and instrumental in expanding our public programming. A tireless mentor and inspiration to countless filmmakers, Fay's passion for film continues to inspire us daily," said the Academy in a statement. "Our prayers and condolences go out to her loved ones.”
Kanin was nominated for an Academy Award for 1958's "Teacher's Pet" alongside her husband and writing partner, Michael Kanin. The film starred Clark Gable and Doris Day.

RECOMMENDED: The 50 best movies of all time

Fay Kanin was also recognized for her television contributions, winning two screenwriting Emmys in 1974 and another for producing the TV special "Friendly Fire" in 1979. Kanin also got a Tony nomination in 1985 for her book to the musical “Grind.”
According to Variety:

"In addition to her tenure as AMPAS president from 1979-83, Kanin was chair of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress for two decades, served on the boards of the Academy and of the American Film Institute, was president of the Screen Branch of the Writers Guild of America and served as an officer of the Writers Guild Foundation.
Then-Paramount chief Sherry Lansing told writer Cari Beauchamp in 2001 that Kanin is “one of the great women of our time. She is an excellent writer, an exceptional leader, an extraordinary role model and a personal inspiration to me.”

Details on Kanin's survivors and cause of death were not immediately available.

Jmaes Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU

The Last Edition at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival

I am in the process of recovering notes from a presentation at the California Historical Society on this film. Also, notes from the screening and conversations with locals involved with the discovery and restoration. My colleagues at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus, had a trailer on the film and restorations used it to add to lost parts of the film. More coming.

James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU

Passing of Long Serving Gish Advisory Member Esther Williams

Here is another posting we lost on the passing of longtime beloved Gish Theater Advisory Member Esther Williams (1921-2013).

New York Times

June 6, 2013

Esther Williams, Swimming Champion Who Became a Movie Star, Dies at 91

By ALJEAN HARMETZ

 

Esther Williams, a teenage swimming champion who became an enormous Hollywood star in a decade of watery MGM extravaganzas, died on Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 91.

Her death was announced by her publicist, Harlan Boll.

From “Bathing Beauty” in 1944 to “Jupiter’s Darling” in 1955, Ms. Williams swam in Technicolor pools, lakes, lagoons and oceans, cresting onto the list of Top 10 box-office stars in 1949 and 1950.

“Esther Williams had one contribution to make to movies — her magnificent athletic body,” the film critic Pauline Kael wrote. “And for over 10 years MGM made the most of it, keeping her in clinging, wet bathing suits and hoping the audience would shiver.”

In her autobiography, “The Million Dollar Mermaid” (1999), Ms. Williams spoke of movie stardom as her “consolation prize,” won instead of the Olympic gold medal for which she had yearned. At the national championships in 1939, Ms. Williams, who was 17, won three gold medals and earned a place on the 1940 United States Olympic team. But Hitler invaded Poland, and the 1940 Olympics were canceled with the onset of World War II.

At a time when most movies cost less than $2 million, MGM built Ms. Williams a $250,000 swimming pool on Stage 30. It had underwater windows, colored fountains and hydraulic lifts, and it was usually stocked with a dozen bathing beauties. Performing in that 25-foot-deep pool, which the swimmers nicknamed Pneumonia Alley, Ms. Williams ruptured her eardrums seven times.

By 1952, the swimming sequences in Ms. Williams’s movies, which were often elaborate fantasies created by Busby Berkeley, had grown more and more extravagant. For that year’s “Million Dollar Mermaid,” she wore 50,000 gold sequins and a golden crown. The crown was made of metal, and in a swan dive into the pool from a 50-foot platform, her head snapped back when she hit the water. The impact broke her back, and she spent the next six months in a cast.

Ms. Williams once estimated that she had swum 1,250 miles for the cameras. In a bathing suit, she was a special kind of all-American girl: tall, lithe, breathtakingly attractive and unpretentious. She begged MGM for serious nonswimming roles, but the studio’s response was, in effect, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Audiences rejected her in dramas like “The Hoodlum Saint” (1946) and “The Unguarded Moment” (1956). Her only dry-land box-office success was “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1949), with Ms. Williams as the owner of a baseball team whose players included Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly (although even in that film, she was seen briefly in a swimming pool).

The men who played opposite her in a dozen lightweight comedies full of misunderstandings and mistaken identity were almost interchangeable. Johnny Johnston in “This Time for Keeps” (1947), John Carroll in “Fiesta” (1947) and Peter Lawford in “On an Island With You” (1948) were male ingénues who the studio was hoping might turn into stars. In terms of star power, she was matched on screen only by Victor Mature, with whom she had an affair when they were making “Million Dollar Mermaid,” and by MGM’s all-American boy, Van Johnson, who wooed or was wooed by her in “Thrill of a Romance” (1945), “Easy to Wed” (1946), “Easy to Love” (1953) and “Duchess of Idaho” (1950).

“Just relax,” she recalled Mr. Johnson telling her after the first few days on “Thrill of a Romance.” “It’s your naturalness that’s going to make you a star.”

Esther Jane Williams was born in Los Angeles on Aug. 8, 1921, the fifth and last child of Lou and Bula Williams. Her father was a sign painter; her maternal grandparents had come west to Utah in a Conestoga wagon after the Civil War. Unwanted by a mother who was tired of raising children, Esther was turned over to her 14-year-old sister, Maurine. The family’s chief breadwinner was her brother Stanton. A silent movie star at the age of 6, Stanton died of a twisted intestine when he was 16 and Esther was 8.

That summer she learned to swim. From the beginning, Ms. Williams wrote in her autobiography, “I sensed the water was my natural element.” She counted wet towels at the neighborhood pool to earn the nickel a day it cost to swim there. The male lifeguards taught her the butterfly, a stroke then used only by men, and, at the Amateur Athletic Union championships in 1939, the butterfly won her a gold medal in the 300-meter medley relay.

Three years earlier, 20th Century Fox had signed the Norwegian ice skater Sonja Henie, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and turned her into a movie star in a series of skating movies, and Louis B. Mayer, who ran MGM, wanted to match Fox. The studio found Ms. Williams performing in Billy Rose’s Aquacade at the San Francisco World’s Fair. She was, as she put it, learning to “swim pretty” in tandem with Johnny Weissmuller, a former Olympic gold medalist who was already the star of MGM’s “Tarzan” films.

At first, Ms. Williams was one of two dozen MGM contract players who had, she wrote, “a look, a voice, a sparkle or a smolder.” Few lasted more than a year. To test audience reaction to her, Ms. Williams was given the role of Mickey Rooney’s love interest in an Andy Hardy movie. Half a dozen starlets — including Lana Turner, Judy Garland and Kathryn Grayson — had already been tested that way. Fan mail response to the film, “Andy Hardy’s Double Life” (1942), was unequivocal: Audiences loved the girl in the two-piece swimsuit.

At 17, Ms. Williams married Leonard Kovner, a pre-med student whom she supported by working as a stock girl at a fancy department store. It was the first of her four marriages, and he would demand $1,500 — all the money she had saved from the Aquacade — before he would agree to a divorce.

Her 13-year second marriage, to the singer Ben Gage, would bring her three children and cost her considerably more money. According to Ms. Williams, Mr. Gage frittered away $10 million of her money on alcohol, gambling and failed business ventures. He also neglected to pay taxes and left her in hock to the Internal Revenue Service for $750,000 by the time they divorced in 1959. By then, Ms. Williams wrote, “I was 37 and there was not much mileage left in my movie career.”

A decade later she married Fernando Lamas, the Argentine-born actor and director, who had helped her to swim the English Channel in “Dangerous When Wet” (1953). He was the first man who gave Ms. Williams money rather than taking it from her, but he exacted a heavy price. Her three children were not allowed to live with them or even to come to their wedding.

That marriage lasted until Mr. Lamas’s death in 1982. Six years later she married Edward Bell, a professor of French literature 10 years her junior, with whom she introduced a collection of swimwear. She also put her name on a line of successful aboveground swimming pools.

She is survived by Mr. Bell; a son, Benjamin Gage; a daughter, Susan Beardslee; three stepsons, the actor Lorenzo Lamas, Tima Alexander Bell and Anthony Bell; three grandchildren; and eight step-grandchildren.

Asked once who her favorite leading man was, Ms. Williams offered a simple and unsurprising response: “The water.”

Esther Williams RIP


James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU


415 516 3493

Longtime Gish Theater Advisory Committee Member Fay Kanin

Here is a posting we lost from March on the loss of our long serving and beloved Advisory Committee Member Fay Kanin. She was another legend. Sourced: The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

Fay Kanin dies but leaves screenwriting legacy

Fay Kanin dies: She was a former president of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fay Kanin also won two screenwriting Emmys and an Emmy as producer of the 1979 TV special 'Friendly Fire.'

The former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Fay Kanin, at the Academy in Beverly Hills, Calif. in 2006. The Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter served as president of the film academy from 1979 to 1983.
( (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File))

---

By Associated Press / March 28, 2013 at 8:20 am EDT

Los Angeles Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Fay Kanin has died. She was 95.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed Kanin's death Wednesday. She served as president of the U.S. film academy from 1979 to 1983.
'She was committed to the Academy's preservation work and instrumental in expanding our public programming. A tireless mentor and inspiration to countless filmmakers, Fay's passion for film continues to inspire us daily," said the Academy in a statement. "Our prayers and condolences go out to her loved ones.”
Kanin was nominated for an Academy Award for 1958's "Teacher's Pet" alongside her husband and writing partner, Michael Kanin. The film starred Clark Gable and Doris Day.

RECOMMENDED: The 50 best movies of all time

Fay Kanin was also recognized for her television contributions, winning two screenwriting Emmys in 1974 and another for producing the TV special "Friendly Fire" in 1979. Kanin also got a Tony nomination in 1985 for her book to the musical “Grind.”
According to Variety:

"In addition to her tenure as AMPAS president from 1979-83, Kanin was chair of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress for two decades, served on the boards of the Academy and of the American Film Institute, was president of the Screen Branch of the Writers Guild of America and served as an officer of the Writers Guild Foundation.
Then-Paramount chief Sherry Lansing told writer Cari Beauchamp in 2001 that Kanin is “one of the great women of our time. She is an excellent writer, an exceptional leader, an extraordinary role model and a personal inspiration to me.”

Details on Kanin's survivors and cause of death were not immediately available.

Recent International Film Recommendations for the Gish Theater

July 18, 2013

Dr. Brett Holden,

I have three recommendations for future screenings at the theater. These are three of my favorite international films.

First, “Good Morning Babylon” (1987) is a sweet and memorable homage to Intolerance (1916). Two Italian brothers immigrate to Los Angeles in 1915 and get hired to make the biggest set, Babylon, ever made for a motion picture. Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani and it is a French-US-Italian production.

Second, “Genevieve” (1953) a beautiful British tribute to vintage cars and their enthusiasts as they take on the annual London to Brighton race. Directed by Henry Cornelius and starring Kenneth More, Kay Kendall, Reginald Beckwith, and the lovely Dinah Sheridan.

Third, my Midnight Movie favorite from the 1970s, “King of Hearts,” a 1966 French anti-war classic directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Alan Bates and Genevieve Bujold. At end of WWI, Germans evacuate a French village and leave a ticking time bomb. On their way out, Germans set free inmates from an insane asylum. Bates, a Scottish soldier, is sent in to defuse the bomb and becomes enchanted with the “townspeople.”

These three films are excellent examples of international cinema. When I was in high school in the 1970s, PBS broadcast many fine international films, including Ballard f A Soldier (Russian), Knife in the Water (Polish) and Yojimbo (Japan). Sadly, PBS is no longer programming such films. I talked with Judith Crist about this because she was the film critic for TV Guide at the time.

If you have recently screened these films, pardon my untimely recommendations. If, however, it has been awhile since you’ve screened them, or if you’ve never screened them, kindly consider programming them.

Sincerely,

James Patterson
415 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Opens with Louise Brooks

The Castro Theater was packed for opening night of the 18^th San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The star of the night was Louise Brooks (1906-1985) in her only French film, Prix de Beaute (1930). Two versions, silent and talking, were issued. The festival runs July 18-21.

Brooks, with milk white skin and sleek “black helmet,” is always visually appealing. She was most active in silent cinema from1925 to 1930 appearing in mostly modest but interesting productions.  

Brooks' career flourished in Europe with her famous work with G. W. Pabst, especially Pandora's Box (1929). Brooks' sex appeal was cemented as Lulu with a subtle, erotically charged performance. Though the film was not successful in 1929, it has been in high at film festivals and commercial screenings since the late 1980s. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has screened it to packed houses twice in recent years.

Brooks made two other films in Europe - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), again with Pabst, and Prix de Beauté (1930), her only French film based on a story by Pabst & Rene Clair. (Both screened by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in recent years.) When her European work ended, Brooks returned to Hollywood for sound films with very disappointing results.

In Prix de Beaute, Brooks plays Lucienne, a Parisian typist wins a beauty contest and finds herself swept up in a whirlwind of fame and publicity. Among the elite, the newly christened "Miss Europe" thrives on the affectionate attentions of several potential paramours and shuns her previous life and a former lover. Brooks’ brief singing at the end is dubbed by Edith Piaf.

Prix de Beaute is not as polished or as interesting as Pandora’s Box, but Brooks’ intriguing youthful look and her enthusiasm in the role is memorable. Reportedly, her performance suffered due to heavy alcohol consumption.

Barry Paris’s “Louise Brooks: A Biography” (1989) is an excellent examination of Brooks’ life and times. “Lulu in Hollywood” by Brooks is a well done memoir.

James Patterson

Adviser, Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
Bowling Green State University
(415) 516 3493

Gish Prize Recipient Anna Deavere Smith Awarded 2012 National Humanities Medal by President Obama

Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Winner Anna Deavere Smith Awarded 2012 National Humanities Medal by President Obama at The White House.

WASHINGTON, DC – On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 President Obama awarded a 2012 National Humanities Medal in the East Room of the White House to playwright Anna Deavere Smith.

The National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the Nation. 

Anna Deavere Smith¸ New York, NY. In awarding Smith the medal, President Obama said: I award the medal to Anna Deavere Smith for her portrayal of authentic American voices. Through profound performances and plays that blend theater and journalism, she has informed our understanding of social issues and conveyed a range of disparate characters.

I have seen Smith perform in Washington, San Francisco and New York. Her performance in Twilight: Los Angeles, which I saw at Ford’s Theater in Washington, was electrifying. I hope to have an interview with Smith in a future posting.  

Below is our February posting about the Gish Prize Awarded to Anna Deavere Smith.

“It is my desire... to give the recipients of the prize the recognition they deserve,
to bring attention to their contributions to society and encourage others
to follow in their path.” —Lillian Gish

The Gish Prize Trust announced playwright, actress, author and educator Anna Deavere Smith has been selected to receive the 19th annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, given annually as a legacy from the legendary film and stage actresses.

Established in 1994 by Lillian’s will, The Gish Prize is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in the arts and one of the largest, currently bearing a cash value of approximately $300,000. Throughout the years, the Prize's mission has helped to support artists who have pushed the boundaries of their art forms and contributed to social change, therefore paving the way for future generations of artistic innovators.

Lillian Gish’s guidance stated the Prize was to be awarded “to a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life.”

Of the Gish Prize Anna Deavere Smith said, “The Gish Prize provides credibility and recognition for artists who invented a new path for themselves and their work. The Gish sisters leave an enduring lesson for all artists that forging their own a path is worth the effort. I am deeply honored and can't imagine a greater honor than having my name linked with the incomparable Dorothy and Lillian Gish."

“The Gish Prize acknowledges and celebrates artistic breakthroughs and supports the indomitable spirit of trailblazers like Anna Deavere Smith,” says Jacqueline E. Elias, Senior Philanthropy Advisor at The Philanthropy Centre at JPMorgan Private Bank.” This tremendous gift inspires us year after year and we are honored to maintain the legacy and spirit of the pioneering Gish sisters.”


About Anna Deavere Smith
Playwright, actress, author and educator Anna Deavere Smith first achieved acclaim with her one-woman theater works Fires in the Mirror (on the 1991 Crown Heights riot in New York) and Twilight: Los Angeles (on the violence surrounding the 1992 Rodney King case). On the basis of extensive interviews and research, Ms. Smith transformed herself on stage into an entire community of witnesses and commentators, creating an almost unprecedented “blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie” in the words of the MacArthur Foundation, which presented her in 1996 with one of its “genius grant” fellowships. Ms. Smith considers these and her other one-woman shows, which began in the 1980s, to be a series, titled On the Road: A Search for American Character. Her most recent such exploration was Let Me Down Easy (2008-2012), on the subject of health care.

Ms. Smith is most recognizable in popular culture as Gloria Akalitus on the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie and as Nancy McNally on NBC’s The West Wing. She has been featured in several films, among them The American President, The Human Stain, Life Support and Rachel Getting Married. Film versions of Fires in the Mirror, Twilight: Los Angeles and Let Me Down Easy have been broadcast on PBS.

Ms. Smith’s writings include the books Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines and Letters to a Young Artist, as well as articles for the The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Yorker, O Magazine, Elle, Essence and The Drama Review, among other publications.

Ms. Smith is a University Professor at New York University’s Performance Studies Department and has been an artist in residence with The Ford Foundation, MTV Networks, The Aspen Institute, and San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, among other institutions. She is the founder of Anna Deavere Smith Works, Inc., to bring together artists, thinkers and activists across disciplines with the goal of cultivating artistic excellence that embraces contemporary social issues.

Ms. Smith has received two Tony Award nominations, an Obie, a Drama Desk Award, a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle and numerous honorary degrees.

About The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
Established in 1994 through the will of Lillian Gish, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize is given annually to an individual who has “made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” Past recipients, from 1994 through 2011, are Frank Gehry, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Wilson, Bob Dylan, Isabel Allende, Arthur Miller, Merce Cunningham, Jennifer Tipton, Lloyd Richards, Bill T. Jones, Ornette Coleman, Peter Sellars, Shirin Neshat, Laurie Anderson, Robert Redford, Pete Seeger, Chinua Achebe and Trisha Brown. Prize recipients are nominated by the arts community and chosen by a distinguished committee of arts leaders for their groundbreaking work in their chosen fields. The Gish Prize committee, a group that changes every year, has included playwright David Henry Hwang, filmmaker Mira Nair, sculptor Martin Puryear, composer Alvin Singleton and President Emerita of The Museum of Modern Art Agnes Gund. For further information, the public is invited to visit www.gishprize.com.

About Dorothy and Lillian Gish
Dorothy and Lillian Gish followed their mother onto the stage at an early age. The older of the two sisters, Lillian took her first theatrical curtain call in 1902 at the age of eight in the play In Convict’s Stripes. In 1912, the sisters’ childhood friend Mary Pickford introduced them to D.W. Griffith, who launched their film careers. Lillian would become one of America’s best-loved actresses and is considered by many the First Lady of the Screen. In her 85-year career, she appeared in more than 100 films—from Griffith’s An Unseen Enemy (1912) to Lindsay Anderson’s The Whales of August (1987)—and also took numerous roles in television and on stage.

Dorothy Gish began her stage career at the age of four and also went on to make more than 100 films, many of them with Lillian. Dorothy’s early work in film highlighted her keen sense of humor, bringing her acclaim as a star of comedy. At the end of the silent era, she turned her attention to the stage, where Success in Young Love brought her accolades with New York audiences, on the road and subsequently in London. In 1939 Dorothy and Lillian each played Vinnie Day, wife of Clarence Day, Sr., in two extensive American road company productions of Life with Father. Dorothy returned to film and television in the 1950s.

Dorothy Gish died in 1968 with her sister by her side. Lillian Gish died in February 1993 at the age of 99, only months away from her 100th birthday. Dorothy and Lillian RIP. Both sisters left the bulk of their estates to the arts, including a trust for the formation of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

James Patterson

Adviser, Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
Bowling Green State University
(415) 516 3493

A Newly Restored Intolerance Coming Soon to a Theater Near You.

See DW Griffith's Intolerance the film that changed the world in 1916. The Film Forum August 2-8 in New York. As of August 15, Intolerance is held over at the Film Forum. Recent ads state the run must end August 20. See it at the Film Forum.

Friday, August 2 - Thursday, August 8


D.W. Griffith's powerful storytelling is demonstrated Intolerance (1916)  The first three cards in the film, subtitled "Love Throughout the Ages," announce the film's theme and its ambitious structure: "Our play is made of four separate stories, laid in different periods of history, each with its own set of characters. Each story shows how hatred and intolerance, through the ages, have battled against love and charity. Therefore, you will find our play turning from one of the four stories to another, as the common theme unfolds in each."

The modern story, sometimes called the American story, has Jenkins (Sam de Grasse), a rich mill owner, establish a charity for the poor. His foundation quickly becomes a magnet for socially minded women and their intolerant ideals. Memorable title card: "When women cease to attract men they turn to reform." The Film Forum audience groaned and laughed at this.

A boy, a very handome Robert "Bobby" Harron and a girl, known as "the dear one," Mae Marsh, are forced to the slums due to labor-management disputes at their mill, including a strike in which the boy's father is killed by company guards. The boy, who turns to a life of crime to support himself, meets, courts, and marries "the dear one."

A husband and a new father, the boy decides to go straight but is framed by his crime boss (Walter Long) and ends up in prison. Wrongfully declaring the girl an unfit mother, the ladies of the Jenkins Foundation seize her baby and place it in an institution. High drama for 1916.

After the boy's release, the gangster who framed him takes an interest in "the dear one" and is fatally shot by his jealous girlfriend, a beautiful Miriam Cooper. The boy is arrested for the crime, found guilty and sentenced to death. Ultimately, the real murderer confesses and a governor's pardon saves the boy from the gallows at the last possible moment. An exciting car versus train race adds to the story's drama. At end, boy, girl, and baby are happily reunited as a family.

The Judaean story, the weakest and most ploddingingly told of the four narratives, relates three key episodes in the life of the Christ (Howard Gaye): the miracle at Cana, the tale of Jesus' merciful treatment of the woman taken in adultery, and the crucifixion, an impressive scene.

The French story is an account of religious intolerance in medieval times. King Charles IX (Frank Bennett), a Catholic, orders an attack on Protestants that results in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. Battle scenes are a bit much. The French interiors are most elaborate and impressive. A very young Eugene Paullete stars. He had supporting roles in the sound era and impressed audiences with his deep voice in the memorable 1936 "My Man Godfrey" with William Powell.

The fourth story, my favorite, is set in the Babylon governed by peaceable and religiously tolerant King Nabonidus (Carl Stockdale) and his son Belshazzar (Alfred Paget). The intolerant and traitorous High Priest of Bel (Tully Marshall) conspires with Persian ruler Cyrus (George Siegmann), to conquer Babylon.  The Persians' first attack on the city fails, but as the Babylonians are rejoicing in their victory Cyrus strikes again. This time the Persians are successful.

Among the casualties are the prince and his princess, Attarea (Seena Owen), who commits suicide, and a feisty and attractive Mountain Girl (Constance Talmadge, 1898-1973), who dies fighting to defend Babylon and its ruler and her idol Belshazzar. The Babylon story contains scenes of frontal nudity as a young woman bathes in a public bath. In other scenes, nipples of young women can be seen through their costumes. Elmer Clifton, a frequent Griffith player, is most impressive as a young and muscular Rhapsode attracted to the Mountain Girl (Talmadge).

The Babylon story also contains scenes of violence, including beheadings, spearings and crushings. These scenes still draw gasps. A brief scene of night battle is also impressive with white billowing smoke. The Film Forum audience applauded the camera shoot of The Babylon Gate.

Rather than telling these stories successively, the film moves back and forth among its foursome of  of injustice tales among the ages, punctuated intermittently by a long, static shot of a woman (Lillian Gish), covered head to foot, eternally rocking an old-fashioned wooden cradle at times with her hand and at times with her foot. This scene was inspired by a Walt Whitman poem. The film begins and ends with Miss Gish rocking the cradle.

Griffith had virtually completed The Mother and the Law, which became the American story and he intended to release it as a single feature film of conventional length. He fatefully decided to use it in Intolerance. The film involved many months of work and unprecedented expense.

The construction of Babylon was the largest set ever to have been created for the screen. It inspired the acclaimed 1987 US-French-Italian film "Good Morning Babylon." Intolerance was the most spectacularly lavish and ambutious film critics and audeinces of 1916 had ever seen. It required patience that many filmgoers would not give it. A conservative estimate of the film's cost is $1.5 million in 1916 dollars. (Are we now at the point where all of the reconstructions and restorations on Intolerance have risen above the film's actual cost?)

Over the years, Griffith relentlessly edited the film to appeal to larger audiences in an attempt to make the film fiancially successful. In 1919 he attempted to cut his losses by re-releasing reworked versions of the Babylon and modern stories as two solo features: The Fall of Babylon and The Mother and the Law. 

Intolerance's sets, costumes, compositions, and mass deployment of bodies in motion on a grand scale are still impressive, especially in the battle of Babylon sequence. The famous parallel editing near film end is undeniably exciting and educated scores of filmmakers. The attractive Constance Talmadge is spirited as the Mountain Girl. The Raphsode, a young and muscular Elmer Clifton (1890-1949), is one handsome hunk of man and has many impressive scenes.

The Film Forum audience did not find the film a chore to watch. They did offer a 10-minute intermission. When too many characters and too much plot (multiplied by four) are woven into a fast-moving epic of considerable length, some filmgoers could become exhausted. Still. Griffith's ambition, herculean effort, historical detail, and most honorable intentions, make Intolearnce a film to study, watch and marvel over nearly 100 years after release.

Critical acclaim for Intolerance

"SURPRISES EVEN TODAY WITH ITS VITALITY! Four tales across history are told in dizzying and masterly alternation, all linked by the broad themes of intolerance and hatred. The poignant, the brutal, the hair-raising and the sentimental churn together in meticulously composed spectacles." - Nic Rapold, The New York Times, also Film Comment

"A MOVIE OPERA! The plunging and roving camera provides visceral thrills... and Griffith's trademark closeups lend a quivering lip or a trembling hand the tragic grandeur of historical cataclysm."  - Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"THE ULYSSES OF THE CINEMA!"  - Dave Kehr

Notes: Constance Talmadge worked with Griffith on only Intolearnce and The Fall of Babylon, in 1919, a release of only the Babylon story from Intolerance.

Elmer Clifton, 1890-1949, worked with Griffith on several films including Way Down East in 1920. In 1922, he directed Clara Bow in Down to the Sea in Ships.


James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU
Co-chair Development
415 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

 

 

"Wicked Stepmother" and Lillian Gish

In the July/August 2012 issue of Film Comment, director Larry Cohen wrote an interesting article “I Killed Bette Davis.” Cohen directed Davis in her last film “Wicked Stepmother” in 1989. Though Davis appears only briefly, she got top billing in the film.

During production of “Wicked Stepmother,” Cohen and Davis discussed Lillian Gish and “The Whales of August.”

“Her [Bette Davis] physical condition is so shocking that the audience is in no mood to laugh. Still, it would have been a shame to toss her final performance on the scrap heap,” Cohen wrote.

“She [Davis] indicated that “The Whales of August” had been an unpleasant shoot. The weather was horrid and she hadn’t gotten along with Lillian Gish. Many attached to the production would claim that Bette took advantage of the fact Gish’s hearing was impaired, deliberately lowering her voice during the scenes so that Gish wouldn’t be able to hear her cues. Bette angrily responded to those rumors telling us, “It’s a total lie. Miss Gish was stone deaf. She couldn’t have heard the cues if I’d shouted them.

At time of production of “The Whales of August” Davis had had two strokes and two mastectomies. Lillian told me she felt sorry for Davis. According to Bette's assistant, Kathryn Sermak, Davis smoked over 100 Vantage cigarettes daily.

 

The photo of Davis smoking in Cohen's Film Comment article is ghastly! Davis looks like a corpse smoking. Reportedly she was only 80 pounds while working on "Wicked Stepmother."

I can attest to the smoking. When Davis was not doing her scenes, she constantly smoked from the sidelines. The owner of the house at the point, on Cliff Island, Maine, complained to Davis and the film crew over the huge number of cigarettes butts Davis tossed on his lawn.

A year later, when my partner and I returned to the location, the elderly doctor meet us on the road halfway to the point and told us not to throw any damn cigarette butts on his lawn. Neither of us smoked.

James Patterson

Member, National Advisory Committee Gish Theater SF
Member, San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Member, Film Society of Lincoln Center
July 13, 2013

"Beware of false prophets ..."

 A crowd of about 75 attended the July 11 screening of The Night of the Hunter at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. The film was directed by Charles Laughton in 1955. It was an underachiever at that time but has gained a strong following over the years.

During the scene where Lillian, as Rachel Cooper, confronts the evil Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) with a shotgun, the audience applauded. It is one of the great Hollywood injustices that Lillian did not receive an Oscar for this film.

The black and white film is stylistically impressive with motifs of German Expressionism including angular shadows, unusual dialogue, distorted perspectives, surreal sets, odd camera angles and imagery of trains, torches, mobs, and evil. Laughton successfully created a disturbing mood that reflects the sinister character of psychopathic Preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), nightmarish fears of small children, and the sweetness and strength of their savior Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish).

"It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable film villains,” wrote Roger Ebert. “It holds up ... well after four decades."^[

In 1992, the Library of Congress found The Night of the Hunter to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and placed it the National Film Registry. About the honor, Miss Gish said, among other things, she was “very happy for Charles.” It was a great screening and one Lillian would have liked.

James Patterson, Member, Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Film Society of San Francisco
National Writers Union
July 12, 2013

In January we received a letter from artist Don Bachardy. In the documentary "Chris and Don: A Love Story," Lillian makes a "cameo" of sorts in a portrait Bachardy did in 1965.

Here are some excerpts from Bachardy's letter:

"I was commissioned by Linda Kirsten to do portraits of the leading actors for that season's (1965) theater program of the Shakespeare Company of Stratford, Ct. Gish was one of the star performers, along with Morris Carnovsky, Ruby Dee, and others.

I did four drawings of Gish, two in each of our two sittings and each drawing done in an hour or so. Since all of my portraits re done from life, it has long been my habit to ask my sitters to sign and date each of my portraits.

Gish was a most cooperative sitter-still and concentrated-and all four of my drawings were accurate likenesses of her, but she would only sign and date the two which were smiling.

I think she agreed to a second sitting only because she was dissatisfied with the unsmiling portrait which you saw on the Internet.

My main evidence for this interpretation of her motivation was her fixed and unrelenting smile throughout our second sitting. Whatever her motives, however, three out of the four drawings are among my favorites of my work of that period.

She did have one of the most distinctive and recognizable faces ever ..."


Thank you Don Bachardy!!

James Patterson
Member, National Advisory Committee
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
(415) 516-3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

July 10, 2013

In Eve Golden's new book "John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars," University of Kentucky Press, she has plenty to say about Lillian Gish and her performance with Gilbert in MGM's La Boheme (1926). She also has a very nice b&w photo of Lillian and Gilbert from a scene in the film.


Excerpt from page 112:

"Gish was determined to keep herself sexless both onscreen and off. Despite rumors of her involvement with D.W. Griffith, drama critic and magazine editor George Jean Nathan, her business manager Charles Holland Duell, and her lifelong friend photographer Nell Dorr, Lillian  Gish never married and was never seriously linked to anyone romantically. She extended this to her screen persona: Gish was lovely, in a Watteau watercolor kind of way. She never bobbed her hair, and although she dressed in chic modern fashions in private life, during her youth she played only untouchable icons (her one slip was 1916's Diane of the Follies). Through the 1910s she was the Edwardian good girl (even when wronged by cads); in the 1920s she played historical figures on -in her great The Wind- a gingham-gowned farm girl. Not till middle age had safely "desexed" her did Gish take on strong, modern characters."

"John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars" is an impressive book and I will have more to say about it later.The author does not explain why she calls Gilbert the last of the silent film stars. I'll have to reach out to her.

Happy Reading!

See my review of this title on Google at Ebar.com.


James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU
Co-chair Development
415 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

New Restoration of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916)

July 8, 2013

The Film Forum will screen a new restoration of Intolerance (1916) from August 2-8. Pauline Kael admired this D.W. Griffith film starring Lillian Gish. Here admiration is reflected in the below commentary.

But let me tell you an American movie that was made by D.W. Griffith and was called “Intolerance.” It wasn’t a successful movie commercially, but it was very successful with me. - Pauline Kael

D.W. Griffith's epic celebration of the potentialities of the film medium-perhaps the greatest movie ever made and the greatest folly in movie history. It is charged with visionary excitement about the power of movies to combine music, dance, narrative, drama, painting, and photography-to do alone what all the other arts together had done. In this extravaganza one can see the source of most of the major traditions of the screen-the methods of Eisenstein and von Stroheim, the Germans and the Scandinavians, and, when it's bad, De Mille. It combines extraordinary lyric passages, realism, and psychological details with nonsense, vulgarity, and painful sentimentality. Four stories set in different historical periods are told by crosscutting, and they reach simultaneous climaxes. The cast includes Lillian Gish in the linking device; Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the modern story, "The Mother and the Law;" Bessie Love in the Biblical story, "The Nazarene;" Margery Wilson and Eugene Pallette in "The Medieval Story," which includes the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of the Huguenots in 1572; Constance Talmadge, Elmo Lincoln, Seena Owen, Alfred Paget, and Tully Marshall in "The Fall of Babylon." Cinematography by Billy Bitzer and Karl Brown; Griffith's assistants included W.S. Van Dyke, Tod Browning, and von Stroheim. Silent. The prints were originally dyed in several hues, and crews of girls added extra color frame by frame; the projectionists were also instructed to throw beams of red and blue light to intensify the effects. - Pauline Kael

Entered July 8, 2013 

SF Screening of "The Night of the Hunter" and new book with "The Eyes of Lillian Gish."

Attention San Francisco Bay Area fans, the historic Castro Theater will screen “The Night of the Hunter” on July 11, 2013. Check their website for details.

About the film, Lillian, in “The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me,” wrote: “Parts of the film were excellent, but it was not fully sustained because Mr. [director Charles] Laughton did not want to ‘ruin’ Mr. Mitchum’s image by having him play a thoroughly wicked man. In the earlier days, it would have been considered a triumph to play evil convincingly.”  This was the only film directed by Laughton.

Miss Gish wrote only two paragraphs on “The Night of the Hunter.” Many fans consider it to be her best film. The film went on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 1992.

New Book: Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography by David S. Shields (University of Chicago Press.) 401 pages.

“The Eyes of Lillian Gish” is chapter 8 in the book with 10 black and white photos of Lillian including photos from “The Wind” (1928), “The Scarlet Letter (1926), “La Boheme (1926), “Romola” (1924),  “The White Sister” (1923),  “Orphans of the Storm (1921), and “Broken Blossoms (1919). The photos of Lillian with leadning men Ronald Coleman and John Gilbert are especially good. Additionally there are two portraits of Lillian from the 1920s.

“[Lillian Gish] was the driving force in the general adoption of panchromatic film for cinematography and still photography, pioneering its employment in her projects from 1924-24, and forcing MGM to employ it in 1925.”

“How did Gish develop the acutest eye for camera talent of any cinematic performer of the era? How one learns to see in the absence of any obvious instructor is hard to ascertain.”

July 7, 2013
James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU

James Patterson

JamesPatterson705@gmail.com

Lillian Gish Forever Stamp saga

July 6, 2013

In a March 8, 2013, letter from the US Postal Service, Markes S. Lucas, Manager Stamp Development, wrote:

 "Thank you for your letter to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee expressing your support for the issuance of a commemorative stamp honoring Lillian Gish."

"I am pleased to inform you Lillian Gish is still under consideration by the Committee for possible future stamp issuance."

The letter gets rather bureaucratic after this with no promise of a Gish Forever stamp. Folks, keep writing to Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW Room 3300, Washington, DC 20260-3501.

Many thanks to Bob King at Classic Images for printing the below in the July issue.

Dear Fellow Classic Images Readers,

Linn’s Stamp News is reporting on the U.S. Postal Service’s 2014 commemorative stamps and for the 11^th year Lillian Gish, who began her movie career with her sister Dorothy in film pioneer D. W. Griffith’s 1912 “An Unseen Enemy,” is not on the list.  

Miss Gish, who died in 1993 at age 99, was the last important star of the silent era and her films included historic works like “Intolerance,”  “Broken Blossoms,” “Way Down East,” “Orphans of the Storm,” and “La Boheme.” Her screen career spanned 75 years and her stage career began when she was an infant in the late 1890s.

For years Miss Gish worked for the Postal Service to issue a stamp for director Griffith. She succeeded in 1975 on the 60^th anniversary of his still controversial 1915 Civil War epic “The Birth of a Nation.” Miss Gish put in many long hours to make the Griffith stamp a reality.

The Postal Service has delayed Miss Gish’s tribute despite my countless letters. Miss Gish and I need your help.

Ask the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee to issue a Forever stamp for Lillian Gish. Because the Committee is a panel of private citizens they have no single email. Write them at Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, c/o Stamp Development, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 3300, Washington, DC 20260-3501.

Please also ask Postmaster General Patrick Donahue to issue a Forever stamp for Lillian Gish. His email is pmgceo@usps.gov and your salutation should be Dear Mr. Postmaster General. Ask him to forward your email request to the Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee. See  www.bgsu.edu/gish/ for information on the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater. Miss Gish and I thank you.

James Patterson

Member, National Advisory Committee
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
766 Harrison Street Suite 211
San Francisco, CA 94107
415 516 3493
JamesPatterson705@gmail.com