Way Down East (1920)

 D.W. Griffith's "Way Down East"

In 1920, D.W. Griffith adapted a well known 19th century play into the format of film. "Way Down East" by Lottie Blair Parker was one of the most popular plays in the United States. Despite this, the play felt too old fashioned by 1920, as the play had toured from 1897 to 1909. Beacuse of this notion, many, including lead actress Lillian Gish, thought that Griffith was making a mistake in adapting the play. The play outdated nature also stemmed from its old-fashioned Victorian era ideas. However, due to Griffith's direction of this subject matter, the play ended up a rousing success.

Lillian Gish plays Anna, a poor country girl who gets tricked into a fake wedding by womanizer Lennox. When she becomes pregnant, he leaves her. After the death of the baby, she wanders onto the farm of a local family, who take her in as a house servant. Much to her surprise, Lennox shows up lusting after one of the family's daughters. After town gossip uncovers Anna's past, she is asked to leave the family home. Before she does, she outs Lennox as the reason for her misgivings. After running off into a snow storm, David, a member of the family in love with Anna, goes off after her, eventually resucing her from an icy fate.

Griffith, along with his technical innovations, has fully developed his visual abilities by leaning on the performance of the actors. Accustomed to grand, epic scales in his productions, Griffith, over the last few years before 1920 really began to develop more intimacy in his pictures. To accomplish this, broad gestures, grimacing close-ups, and fluttering eyes are all key ingredients in capturing the emotionality of his characters. Throwing in long takes does the trick, as well. Allowing the viewer to really sit with and understand this emotionality provides viewers with a richer experience of the film. Rather than showcasing grand social ideals, the familiarity with which a viewer connects with the characters creates a far better means of empathy with them. This is especially important for "Way Down East," as the necessity to identify with Anna is far more important so as to reject the Victorian pressures being placed upon her. Anna is portrayed as the victim throughout, and without the ability to connect with her, the audience may feel she deserves her fate. However, being placed in her shoes allows the viewer to more adequately analyse the fallical strutures surrounding her.

"Way Down East" is perhaps best known for its climatic ice rescue. Because of the primative nature of capturing authentic representations on film during the 1920s, the scene had to be executed in an actual blizzard. No stunt person was used in this scene, either, as Gish had to lay still on a constructed piece of ice as it moved down a frozen river. It was also Gish's idea to wetten her hair, making it appear more realistic. The effect presents as one of the greatest shots in cinematic history (below). To achieve this sequence, Griffith utilised all the varying shots in his arsenal. Long shots, medium shots, and close-ups were used to rhythmically enhance the danger and excitement. Griffith presents far away shots, which include the contextualy snowy terrain as it encompassed Anna's body in the frame. Griffith often switches to close-ups of Anna, followed by medium shots of her body moving down the river, to shots of the waterfall up ahead. The effect was enormous. Theaters reported that audience members would yell and scream throughout this sequence. Such sequences are commonplace in a contemporary piece. Many contemporary viewers would recognize the rhythm of shots that would occur in showing someone trapped on a river heading towards a imminent waterfall. The visual juggling occuring between trapped individual, mediums of the individual in the water, wides of the visual environment, and medium of the waterfall is a common method of direction meant to illicit thrilling anticipation of impending danger. However, for audience go-ers in 1920, these rhythmic shots orestrated together really got their legs jumping. For the director and film star, the effect was everlasting. Gish was reported to had damage to her right hand, losing partial feeling in it for the rest of her life. Griffith was frost-bitten on one side of his face, as well. Despite the damage to the film's crew, a cinematic moment was captured forever.

Taking a Victorian-era play and debuting it in front of a 1920 audience was not a safe decision, espicially for the high cost of the production. The $175,000 budget for the film was more than the cost to make Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" five years prior. Despite the outdated material and the costly enterprise, the film's earnings exploded. With a national gross of over $4.5 million, "Way Down East" became the fourth highest grossing silent film in history. With this film, D.W. Griffith cemented him visual style forever. With his previous films up until now, the way in which Griffith created a basic formula for how film should be expressed was forever changed. By 1920, the visual format of storytelling had been established, thanks in most part to Griffith. However, it is this established visual style and foundational framework that would cause Griffith's decline. "Way Down East" was the last major success he ever had. Despite "Orphans of the Storm" a year later, the syntax of cinema that Griffith had created began to feel outdated by the mid to late 1920s. His masterful innovations became so basic and commonplace and so much a part of the standard of filmmaking, that his continued work began to feel outdated, as the 1920s began to see more and more innovations with German expressionism and Soviet montage. "Way Down East" was the last time audiences crammed into cinemas nationwide to view Griffith's invention of film, as the way he expressed visual language became used by just about everyone.