Rightfully referred to as “the father of film technique”, D.W. Griffith's presence looms large in the history of film. He is often credited with single-handedly inventing modern film style.
It is often claimed that Griffith’s real ambition was to act on the stage. Historical writings sometimes gleefully focus on his aversion to working in film - imagine, the man who would become synonymous with film at first found the medium distasteful.
Of Name Changes and Eagle's Nests
Mast, 1992 and other writers of the time note that Griffith opted to use the stage name Lawrence Griffith for his role in the 1908 film Rescued from an Eagle's Nest. They maintain he did so because he was embarrassed to be appearing in a film, and wanted to save his real name for the stage. Mast further notes that the main reason Griffith accepted a job so far beneath him was that he was recently married, and needed to support his family.
However no source for these claims is given.
From the following 1908 review of the film from Moving Picture World, it looks likely that Griffith was embarrassed, not to be appearing in a film, but to be appearing in this film:
"Rescued from an Eagle's Nest is a feeble attempt to secure a trick film of a fine subject. The boldness of the conception is marred by bad lighting and poor blending of outside photography with the studio work, which is too flat; and the trick of the eagle and its wore wings is too evident to the audience, while the fight between the man and eagle is poor and out of vision. The hill brow is not a precipice. We looked for better things." (p. 71)
As Griffith used his given name in his subsequent films for Biograph, he can’t have been saving it for the theatre.
Griffith's Prolific Biograph Pictures
Gerald (1992) writes, “David Wark Griffith never intended to make movies. The accidental path that eventually led him to films stretched from his rural Kentucky home to selling books, picking hops in California, reporting for a Louisville newspaper, and finally writing and acting for the legitimate stage.” (p. 48)
If this were the case, Griffith would have viewed working in film as just another building block toward his true goal of becoming a theatre artist. However, in his first year as director at Biograph, he made 50 films, most of which he also wrote. Not a sign of someone who didn't intend to remain in the field.
The Former Mrs. Griffith's Testimony
Interestingly, Robinson notes that “According to Griffith’s first wife – an entertaining but not always reliable authority – Griffith had never seen a movie when he first tried to sell a scenario (an adaptation of Tosca) to the Edison Studio.” (p. 57)
If Mrs. Griffith was right in this, that her husband had never seen a movie before he wrote one, how could he have developed a strong distaste for them? The former Mrs. Griffith may not have been “always reliable”, but her claim is supported by her husband’s rural upbringing, and multitude of odd jobs. It's possible he simply never had the opportunity to see a film, or could even afford to.
Clearly the industry was not as scorned by D.W. Griffith as many historians have claimed.
References
Cook, D.A. (1981). A history of narrative film. New York : Norton.
Cowie, P. (Ed.). (1971). A concise history of the cinema. London : Tantivy Press.
David, R. (1981). World cinema : A short history. London : Eyre Methuen.
Mast, G. (1992). A short history of the movies. New York : Macmillan.
North, J.H. (1973). The early development of the motion picture (1887-1909). New York: Arno Press.
Our visits. (1908). The Moving Picture World, 2 (5), 71.
Saiger, J. (1983). Seeing stars. In C. Gledhill (Ed.), Stardom (pp. 3-16). New York: Routledge.
(1915) Motion Picture Magazine, 85-88.
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