The realization has dawned on the writer that this chapter is totally inadequate in giving any description of Mr. Griffith, apart from the small information that he works without a manuscript. Such, however, seems doomed to be the case. One cannot dissect Mr. Griffith, take him apart and explain this piece and that. This because he is considerably an artist and no real artist can tell exactly how he works and give the processes by which he achieves certain effects.
A painter will begin work on a fresh canvass by putting daubs of color here, there and everywhere. The layman doesn't know what in the deuce he is up to. But in the finished product these early daubs of color count largely in the effect created by the whole mass. Even the artist himself cannot explain concisely and clearly the why and wherefore of every daub he applied early in his creation.
ALL THE OLD CHARACTERS OF “WAY DOWN EAST” WERE RECREATED ON THE SCREEN WITH AMAZING FIDELITY ]
So it is with Mr. Griffith. He probably could not explain his method of working himself. He goes ahead on his creation, putting a stroke here and another there. The why and wherefore of them are things undefinable. Perhaps when his picture is finished he can give you the whys and wherefores but the chances are that he can't. He only knows that he has striven for something and either succeeded or failed in the achievement of his ambition.
And so it is with other directors, after all is said and done. Some of the methods of other directors as set down earlier in these chapters are merely ideas, small gleanings; but in themselves alone they are no more responsible for the successes of these directors than are their names.
_Why D. W. Griffith has been more successful in producing spectacular features than other directors.—His ability to step from the mountain to the molehill with agility and delicacy.—The futility of mob scenes that mean mob scenes and nothing more_
The foregoing words on D. W. Griffith have brought to mind the matter of motion picture spectacles, those pictures telling a personal story before a background of masses of people and monstrous settings. There is small doubt but that the spectacle is the most difficult of all motion pictures to produce. Mr. Griffith has succeeded most often with such subjects, perhaps because he has attempted them more often. Rex Ingram succeeded admirably well in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and no doubt will succeed again when he tries further, as he most surely will.