Way Down East

Lillian Gish and fellow co-stars really bring home this great drama. It's interesting and exciting and wonderful to watch. Surely a legend of the 20th Century, Mr Griffith outdid himself with this successful film and Gish can only be praised for a great performance. Her pain and despair can be felt in the scene's where she realises she's been 'betrayed' and she nurses her child while he slips from this world. It's acting at it's finest for no words were necessary, it's all in 'the look'. Certainly 10 out of 10, but if I were to make one comment about this film in the negative, it would be it's length. Perhaps 15 to 20 minutes too long. Otherwise it's majestic.

DW Griffith's ideal was that dreams can come true or should be shown to, and that cinema should work to that effect. He carried all the other Victorian values with him, the edifying fable, usually a big sappy story, grandiose love, austere morals, the struggle against forces of darkness. These are old and mouldy relics now, and must have even seemed so at the time to young more radical cineastes abroad.

But he was our first master of technique and many learned from him, Abel Gance in France, Sjostrom in Sweden, of course Chaplin, Kuleshov and his film workshop. Here he perfects the business with layers he was still struggling with in Intolerance.

Intolerance always cut back and forth to very concrete moments in time, every intertitle announcing so in advance, as a result we got forced, simple metaphysics. Simple physics in fact, exhaustively so. You did not have to do any work, merely be swept as part of one or the other mob. It was clean linear history, movement in one direction.

I want to direct your attention to two instances here. One is where we have just followed another segment of the misadventures of the naive country girl betrayed by the rich playboy, the film suddenly cuts away to the handsome country boy - her true love interest we presume - being jostled awake in bed as though from a bad dream and himself the dreamer of our story. This has saturated so ubiquitously in film culture, it is now considered in bad taste to signify a dream scene in this way.

The other is the awesomely mounted ice-breaker finale, impressive for just the selection of cascading imagery but now parting to reveal soul, the whole fabric of the world being torn beneath the feet of our heroine to reveal a liquid universe below, stories written in waters and swept away and forgotten. In all the years of film since then we have only managed to invent a third layer on top of Griffith's two, adding in the equation the veracity of the author supplying the fabric and imagery, and have mostly spent that time transferring the whole more directly to the eye and perfecting links and arrangements.

More erudite filmmakers would envision complex worlds with more clarity, but as far as nuts and bolts film mechanics are concerned a lot of it is patented here.

What would otherwise be a pretty good, if old-fashioned, melodrama is made memorable by a climax that still holds up decades later as one of the most exciting scenes on film. The movie as a whole is imperfect - it's a bit too long, and is occasionally preachy - but it fits together well, and is a deserving classic of the silent film era.

The story is openly moralistic, and would not have worked without good characters and acting. Lillian Gish is deservedly remembered for her role, but Lowell Sherman is also important as the oily Sanderson - his understated performance makes his villainy more effective, and balances out the parts of the movie that are more heavy-handed (the title cards, in particular, leave no doubt as to how the director feels). The story ends up working pretty well in the context of its era.

What really stands out, of course, is its terrific climax on the river, still justifiably praised after all these years. Carefully conceived and beautifully photographed, it is a most effective way to wind up the story. The riveting drama and the stark beauty of the scenery make a great combination that you won't forget.

This would have been even better if it had been maybe 30 minutes shorter. Some scenes go on longer than necessary, and there is a lot of filler material about the townspeople - mildly amusing, and comic relief from a heavy story, but the comedy is not exactly of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin quality, and a bit less would have been better. Still, the majority of the time the film does keep your attention.

"Way Down East" is a classic in spite of its flaws, one that every silent film fan will want to see. And it also would be worth watching for the climactic sequence alone, for anyone who appreciates quality cinema.

WAY DOWN EAST was an old-fashioned melodrama even in 1920 when D.W. Griffith decided to film it. It's the kind of story that leaves itself open for spoofing, but Griffith approaches the story of a "mock marriage" and its aftermath with earnestness and a great eye for detail.

Aiding Griffith in bringing this story to life are three great stars: Lillian Gish as Anna, Richard Barthelmess as David, and Lowell Sherman as caddish Lennox. The supporting cast includes New England "types" that almost parody Dickens. Kate Bruce is the staunch mother, Creighton Hale the ditzy professor, Vivia Ogden the town gossip, Burr McIntosh the intolerant squire, Emily Fitzroy runs the hotel, etc.

The story of love, betrayal, tolerance, and redemption is slow moving and has (as usual in a Griffith film) subplots, but like the very river, all the actions and events slowly come together for the finale that left 1920 audiences in a frenzy. Indeed the ending is among the most famous in all silent films.

Gish is quite beautiful here. In her opening scene she is in her parlor with her mother making a broom, holding up the straw so that we see only her white cap and large expressive eyes. She's stunning. As Anna she goes through the gamut of shy maiden, young lover, wronged woman, timid servant, and town jezebel. Barthelmess is solid as the young and innocent David who falls in love with the servant girl.

Their final scenes in the blizzard (filmed on Long Island in a real storm) on the icy river (filmed in White River Junction, VT) are totally amazing. And they did not use stunt doubles. As Gish lies exhausted on the piece of ice she may or may not know that it's heading for the falls. There are scenes were her hand and hair trail in the icy river. Just amazing. Barthelmess uses the breaking ice as a trail so that he can reach Gish before it's too late. There are several shots where he falls off the ice or the ice breaks under him and he plunges into that wintry river. The entire sequence is as thrilling today as it was in 1920.

Gish once wrote that her long hair froze solid from being in the river water and snapped off with the ice.

WAY DOWN EAST is a great film.

A young woman, after being lured into a false marriage, finds the chance for happiness on a friendly farm WAY DOWN EAST.

David Wark Griffith, the Father of American Cinema, had his last great financial blockbuster with this highly sentimentalized silent melodrama. Always anxious to promote decency & morality with his epic films, Griffith here exposes & castigates male brutality against the weaker female, making this a stark portrayal of Good versus Evil as he follows the fortunes and misfortunes of his long-suffering heroine.

Bird-like & fragile, Lillian Gish takes the brunt of the plot upon her young shoulders. To say that she performs magnificently is only to state the expected. The wealth of emotions stealing across her lovely face give expression to her every thought, as her character struggles to maintain her equilibrium against the onslaughts hurled against her.

Richard Barthelmess portrays the quietly heroic farm lad who becomes paladin for Miss Gish during her tribulations while abiding in his home. His stalwart decency is in strong contrast to the villainy of Lowell Sherman, the rich roué whose misdeeds nearly destroy Lillian.

Griffith's broad canvas allows for detailed portraits by a fine supporting cast: a pharisaical squire (Burr McIntosh), his saintly wife (Kate Bruce), a butterfly-chasing professor (Creighton Hale), a dour landlady (Emily Fitzroy), a lazy, good-natured constable (George Neville), a jolly, oafish farmhand (Edgar Nelson), and a gossiping spinster (Vivia Ogden).

The film climaxes with one of the most famous sequences in all of Silent Cinema: Barthelmess' rescue of Miss Gish as she lies unconscious on an ice floe, speeding towards a tremendous waterfall. Filmed on Long Island in the dead of Winter, the performers were in real peril. These scenes still pack a punch and are worthy testimony to Griffith's genius.

Special mention should be made of the cinematography of G. W. Bitzer, Griffith's invaluable cameraman. His beautiful photography softly illumines both the tender scenes and the bucolic vistas, giving them the quality of aged snapshots in a cherished family album.