Lillian is sole author of this 1937 article, "The Birth of an Era," subtitled "The first twelve-reeler, the first two-hour feature, the first film to be seen in legitimate theaters at theater prices was The Birth of a Nation."
Page one of the article has a black-and-white still of Lillian standing next to the mustachioed Union Soldier from "The Birth of Nation." Caption: Lillian Gish, the unidentified extra, and the celebrated wistful glance. Although the fans clamored for his name, the soldier in this famous still has always remained unknown."
Page two of the article has a half-page black-and-white still of one of Griffith's battle scenes. Lillian said smoke pots were used to simulate smoke from guns and cannons. Caption: "One of the first panoramic battle scenes, and still one of the greatest."
The final page of the three-page article has one one black-and-white still of the battle scene where Henry B. Walthall, the Little Colonel, and men approach the Union battle line to shove the Confederate battle flag into the mouth of a Union cannon. Caption: More masterpieces from th camera of Mr. Griffith's Billy Bitzer. Above, hand to hand conflict between Union and Confederate forces." The second black and white still shows Klansmen charging on Negroes with the caption: "Right, Ku Kluxers charge on Negro forces."
Begin Lillian's text:
"As I look back upon the making of the picture, the chief difficulty seems to have been finding the money to go on with the ideas Mr. Griffifth had in his head-or perhaps I should say in his heart, as he was from Kentucky, the son of Roaring Jake Griffith, a coonel in the Confederate Army. He firmly believed that the truth of the Civil War had never been told, and he was quite willing to dip into his heart's blood to tell, through this new medium of the silent screen (in many ways his own invention), the story he believed in above all else in the world. I am sure it seemed more real to him than the World War, which was then taking place.
As nothing like a twelve-reel film had ever been attempted before, he naturally met with opposition on all sides. When the so-called business men of the picture industry, believing him to be an impractical dreamer, re fused him financial aid, he went begging to the merchants of Los Angeles for a thousand dollars here, five thousand there, another two thousand from someone else.
I remember my mother, having saved three hundred dollars, implored Mr. Griffith to use the money for the picture, but as it was all we had in the world he refused to take it. As we had been working without salaries for weeks, he couldn't say when pay checks would start coming in again. The picture actually took nine weeks to make, but there were many days during this time. when work stopped and Mr. Griffith would be out trying to raise the money to continue.
At first we were told that we were going to do a moving-picture version of the (highly popular) play and (bestselling) novel by (Baptist Minister) Thomas Dixon called The Clansman, but anyone who has ever read either of those and has seen the picture, The Birth of a Nation, will know how far afield from the originals we went.
As actors, our picture schooling had been similar to that which Mr. Stanislavsky so graphically describes in Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood's fine translation of
An Actor Prepares. There was never anything written for us and no scenario (any more than there were designs for sets; Mr. Griffith would explain to the head carpenter what he wanted and he would build them.)
There was a standard call for rehearsal whenever there was rain or the sun disappeared, as at such times all cameras stopped since it was before the days of artificial lights. During the rainy season there would be weeks of rehearsals, with Mr. Griffith outlining stories to be filmed far into the future. Some of them, including Faust and Joan of Arc, never reached the screen. We were rarely assigned parts, and the younger members of the company always rehearsed for the older members when the story was being developed, and all the "writing" was done by Griffith as he moved groups of characters around a room.
When the story was ready to go before the camera, the older players who were to play the parts on the screen came forward and acted the parts they had been watching us rehearse for them. This method gave them the advantage of not being over-rehearsed, and lso of watching the story quietly unfold before their eyes, giving them ideas that might have escaped had they not been kept fresh for the actual creation. It also taught the more inexperienced members what eventually would be expected of them.
At first I was not cast to play in
The Clansmen. My sister and I had been the last to join the company, and we naturally supposed, this being a big picture, that the main assignments would go to the older members. But one day while we were rehearsing the scene where the colored man picks up the northern girl gorilla-fashion, my hair, which was very blond, fell far below my waist, and Griffith, seeing the contrast in the two figures, assigned me to play Elsie Stoneman (who was to have been Mae Marsh). My sister, a child at the time, was to have played the girl of twelve, little sister to the Colonel.
Very often we would play episodes without knowing the complete story, or in which film Griffith was going to use them, as he shrouded his ideas in great secrecy for fear another studio would hear of them and get them on the screen first. Only Griffith knew the continuity of
The Birth of a Nation in its final form. There was much anxiety, and many tears shed, over the assignment of parts, as we all wanted to prove our worth before it was too late, and with photography in its undeveloped state we knew we would be passe by the time we reached eighteen.
The cameraman for The Birth of a nation was Billy Bitzer, who, together with Mr. Griffith, was inventor of the various new devices employed in the photography of the picture-devices never used before, and innovations in the art of motion-picture photography. Among us actors he was famous for his accurate eye, and he left his mark on everything his lens faced by bringing to accurate vision on the screeen many things the eye itself could not discern. This was wonderful for battlefields but most trying on faces. We used to beg for our close-ups to be taken just after dawn or before sunset, as the soft yellow glow was much easier to work in than the hard, overhead sun of midday.
Henry B. Walthall, or Wally, as he was affectionately called, came from Alabama, and was everything in life that his character of the Little Colonel was on the screen: patient, dear, and lovable, but with little idea of time. Consequently all during the filming of the picture there was a man hired for the sole purpose of getting him into make-up and to work on time, which in those days was around seven in the morning (that meant getting up at five and working steadily, sometimes without lunch, until sundown.)
Sometimes, Griffith was making scenes we were not in, he would send us to practice walking, first with comedy, then with drama, with pathos, or with tragedy. When he was satisfied with that we would have to learn to run in these different manners. Then we would have to do it with subtlety, for when the amera would be close to us, then broader, for when the camera would be in the distance, then for such times as the camera would be far in the distance (which would necessitate acrobatics); all this with complete body control and balance, as t might have to be done on a sea wall or on a mountain top. You had to know howto dance and handle horses, or if you didn't, these had to be learned outside the studio hours.
It is very strange in those old pictures to watch the wind blowing through the rooms, when the property man had forgotten to tack down curtains, tablecloths, and such tell-tale properties.
In
The Birth of a Nation we used as many as six hundred people, and the complete cost of the picture was $91,000. It was the first motion picture to run for two hours, and to be shown in a legitimate theater twice a day at theater prices. Its first run in New York was forty-seven consecutive weeks at the Liberty Theater. When it was shown in Boston it caused race riots and the firemen had to be called out to assist the police in dispersing the mob.
Mr. Griffith had his reward, however, when President Woodrow Wilson saw it t the White House and said, "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that is is all so terribly true." When this news flashed through the country, and it was learned that a mere motion picture had the power to stir feeling so deeply, The Birth of a Nation's reputation was made, and motion pictures took their place as an important part o our daily life."
Notes:
I like this article for several reasons,
The Birth of a Nation was still fresh in the mind of Miss Gish and the public in 1937. In the early 1930's it was re-released with a talking introduction by Griffith and Walter Houston.
It is interesting Lillian said Mae Marsh was planned to play the part of Elsie Stoneman. In her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, she wrote Griffith had selected Blanche Sweet, page 133, for the part. But Lillian was younger with a fairer complexion, blond hair, and she had the look of female innocence. All of these attributes were important for the near ending scene where the Mulatto, or mixed race man, forces himself and his affections on Lillian. She fights him off as best she could and in the end is saved by the KKK.
It is interesting also Lillian admits in this piece, which she wrote, "When it was shown in Boston it caused race riots and the firemen had to be called out to assist the police in dispersing the mob."
Many critics and historians state Miss Gish defended the film and Griffith from charges of racism her whole life. She didn't defend him in this piece which, I stress, she wrote at a time
The Birth of a Nation was still doing big business in theaters. .Sound films made silent films worthless, comical and unpopular but not
The Birth of a Nation.
Late in life Lillian said she was proudest of this picture because it set the standards by which all other films were made. She did not condone its violence and racism except as it being accurate history as far as Griffith and Rev. Thomas Dixon were concerned.
In a July 11, 1961
Birmingham Post-Herald article, "Actress Defends Classic, Pro-Southern Movie," Miss Gish doesn't go quite that far. The article is written by Travis Wolfe, identified as a Post-Herald staff writer, The lede is "After 46 years, Lillian Gish still is defending David Wark Griffith's classic movie "The Birth of a Nation."
"Miss Gish, who starred in the very pro-Southern film of 1915 and who until last week appeared in "All the Way Home: at the Belasco Theater, said, "Birth of Nation" was unjustly criticized."
"When the picture was shown in New York 46 years ago, it caused riots. Some persons objected to depicting Ku Klux Klansmen as heroes.
"Recently, a Montgomery, Ala., group had difficulty obtaining a copy of the silent film from New York for a private showing because of its controversial subject matter. The classic was banned in Atlanta last year even though it played there when it was originally released.
"Griffith was a great artist," said Miss Gish. "He put his life into that picture. He was marked with his personality and craftsmanship. He told the Civil War story as he knew it, and it was told to him since childhood. If it had not been sympathetic to the South, 'Birth of a Nation' wouldn't have been a Griffith film because Griffith was a Southerner."
The remainder of the article concerns Miss Gish's role on "All the Way Home." She spoke of her next project.
"It will be a live television show," said the 65-year-old Miss Gish. "Television had vitality during the early years. When it was originating live from New York, this vitality was in the atmosphere, as in the early film days. There was only one chance, and you had to do it right. Television had the excitement, the challenge. People were dedicated and worked hard, and it showed in the finished product. I'd like to see more of that in television today."
Lillian admitted frustration with her role in "All the Way Home." "It's the modern lighting. I think lighting in the modern theater is wrong. It puts actors in the dark."
"It is not what is known as a commercial play," Miss Gish said. "A commercial play nowadays usually is a musical comedy. 'All the Way Home' is simply a great play."
"The play will remain open even though Miss Gish left the cast. She was replaced by another actress." Lillian noted she was going to Europe "for a little rest."
Jim Patterson, Editor
LDGish.blogspot.com
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