1914 - 1929 The Modernist World Jump to:
1914 - 1929 The Modernist World Jump to:
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4 The success of Griffith and Aitken
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The major figure in the rise of the American film, David Wark Griffith, did not want to make motion pictures. No contradiction proved more ironic for, in the entire history of the American screen, no other director achieved greater success, none won more esteem. This "enigmatic and somewhat tragic" figure, as Gilbert Seldes describes him, secretly cherished the ambition to become famous as an author and counted the moments until he should have sufficient money to quit the "flickers" and write. Ashamed of "selling his soul," he changed his name on entering the movies, only later to retrieve it and make it as familiar as the term "movie" itself.
Griffith further developed the art of Melies and Porter, contributing devices of his own that made for greater unity, clarity, and effectiveness. Sensing from the beginning, the need for a body of technique to catch and control the emotions of the spectator, he did more to realize a method and a viewpoint than any other man of his day. Although he was himself a former actor and playwright, he repudiated theatrical conventions and evolved a method of expression peculiar to the screen.
Griffith came to films at that propitious moment when they were in the plastic beginnings of artistic development. To them he brought new elements of form and a variety of resources, and added at least two great productions to American motion picture achievement. The most revered and influential movie creator of his day, and perhaps of all motion picture history, he justified the new medium to the world. His productions became models for directors wherever films were made, and to this day stand not only as important achievements in themselves but as the source of central motion picture developments.
The success of Griffith and Aitken gave rise to great ambitions. Financiers, dazzled by the sums earned in a few weeks by Griffith's associates, were now willing to entrust vast sums to him. Everyone wanted to make another Birth of a Nation, provoke more riots and draw correspondingly big profits. Griffith formed an alliance with the two most successful directors of the day, Mack Sennett and Thomas Ince and, with Aitken, formed the Triangle Corporation. Griffith, who had always taken especial pains in selecting his actors, was yet unable to avoid the European errors which had been responsible for the Films d'Art. The new firm immediately set about trying to sign up America's most famous actors. Into this company came Douglas Fairbanks and William S. Hart, but even more important were Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin.
The public was all prepared to bless Triangle's efforts, for in the United States the same thing was happening that had happened in France in 1908. A part of that public which is regarded as the élite had condescended to interest itself in the new art. Now these people, as usual, believed that good films could only be made by employing well-known and popular actors and employing them in productions which would be costly and in which, therefore, only the most elevated sentiments could be expressed. A special cinema was rented for these people, the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York, in which they paid theater prices and warmly applauded the new films.
The common ordinary public, however, which cared nothing for art and tragic emotions and great gestures, proved unenthusiastic. As they also were less polite and much less prejudiced by tradition than the French public, they simply declared that the "great actors" acted very badly. In any case, an actor who is a celebrity in New York may very well be unknown in Alabama. So it turned out that the large public very quickly learned to avoid these elegant actors and to keep away from Triangle's films. The firm was so well financed that it would have been able to continue awhile but that it was hoist with its own petard. Many film stars were already earning big salaries. In order to sign up the famous stage actors it had been deemed wise to offer them even larger sums. The film people quickly realized that they were better "box office" at worse pay than these stage grandees. They demanded increases, and Triangle was under the necessity of paying two sets of actors at top prices, one set engaged on long contract and no good at all, the other very good indeed but continually demanding more money. Exhibitors refused to pay the high rentals demanded, and it was not long before Triangle passed out of existence.
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