This film I think deserves a 7. I don't even need to say that Griffith was the pioneer of cinema at one point. This film about the Monteagues during the American Revolutionary war proved this as well. It even had influence on the amazing Abel Gance's "Napoleon" including the board room scenes, which add an interesting counterpoint to that otherwise modern masterpiece. You see Griffith used doctrines of another time to express things in his contemporary periods, so when watching his films there's a grand sweep of history and layers and layers of his own inherent interest in history. It just so happens this can be a defect when he infuses it with the melodrama of his own time in Biograph. Considering the man's extraordinary acute vision of cinema - the way he coached actors and actresses for hours and hours, sometimes even showing them the way they have to sit, their body language and the way they have to interact in the scene - then on how he cut film, masked film, brought emphasis on certain things along side his masterful cinematographer Billy Bitzer, who ran his course shortly after "America or Love and Sacrifice" this also proves to be the epitome of a man stuck in his time and frame of mind during which films like "The Iron Horse", "Strike" and "Michael" were getting made amongst some other classics by others like Chaplin and Fairbanks. Though I can't help to have a soft spot for his work here.
It's not contrived as such and it's actually a pretty supreme experience especially when Griffith filmed the dipsomaniacal Paul Revere riding recklessly on the horse to declare "fists to fists" as a way of commencing an act of war against England. I happen to be from Britain and found the story was interesting for me to look at as it was done with Griffith's perspicacious perspective and albeit I'm not really very conversant with it either, I understood how England was disparate back then (in the sense that they had total control over America) and how America wasn't the way it's today. And then as the war would see it, America would augment in stature again. As if this was like a lesson in history just goes to show how Griffith substantiating that instead of books, films should be the new source of history, remained completely obstinate in his views. Not so much that one can agree with him, but one can agree with the notion that this film should be accessed in film classes. It's just as good an archetype as "Birth of a Nation" and even grander in my opinion. As a lot of the film centres on Walter Butler's derailment on America, an English man, it's interesting how he pulled the performance from Lionel Barrymore that proved suave and understated and despicable in expression. His ideas of Good and Bad become two main elements here; for example Butler leading of Tories and Indians against that jingoistic mentality was a pure example of this perception. And his romantic archetype in the war, while she spectates across (Carol Dempsey) is just an element of Griffith that could have been dispensed. In some ways, I wasn't quite clear about whether or not Butler was English or American, so I had to try and resolve that ignorance subsequently watching the film.
I agree with another reviewer on here, who said that the subplot was really unnecessary. I concede because with this the film drones on these characters in an ineffectual way and it then loses its touch of brilliance. Nathan is the main character, who's sent out to War. During this time he's deeply impassioned in love by Nancy Monteague, a very wealthy woman who goes away to Mowhawk Valley. There's a lot of unnecessary establishing scenes with her and Butler and it's also set during the time Washington was growing to prominence.
Even with its preachy didacticism at times and the way it portrayed Men as chauvinistic, scenes such as the entrance into war and when Butler gets closer to the Americans can be intriguing, especially in the way Griffith uses lighting to emphasise them as if they're figures and his impressionistic use of editing to make you feel as though the war was taking place in his mind, which is done adeptly, but in saying so one wishes the film wasn't this melodramatic in the end. It's as though he was trying to pay the debt of his masterpiece "Intolerance" and then transgressed down the line afterwards. This film is just as well crafted, baroque and immense as anything, but as one reviewer said back during its debut "A war film has dwindled to shear melodrama" it shows this was essentially the counterproductive reaction during the time Vidor brought out his war film "The Big Parade" which made enormous box office revenue during the 20's. It's weird how Vidor also suffered in the 50's when he made "War and Peace" which was reputedly gorgeous, but lacked the substantive content of Tolstoy's original idea.
So what I am saying is that when watching the film, one must put it into context. It's a cliché I know, but unless you're interested in history, the film will rank poor. Interesting to note that during the film there are scenes where Indians seem like they're getting treated the same way Black people were almost a decade before in Griffith's film and yet it's barely looked at. It seems to be a marginal linkage, but it showed how conservative Griffith was still. Well for some of its faults (mainly because Griffith was coming out of his infancy in film making), I can't help, but be enraptured by the heat of war and the way Griffith shows it in great detail. If you have the chance pick up the Image Entertainment DVD, which restored the film to perfection.
It's not contrived as such and it's actually a pretty supreme experience especially when Griffith filmed the dipsomaniacal Paul Revere riding recklessly on the horse to declare "fists to fists" as a way of commencing an act of war against England. I happen to be from Britain and found the story was interesting for me to look at as it was done with Griffith's perspicacious perspective and albeit I'm not really very conversant with it either, I understood how England was disparate back then (in the sense that they had total control over America) and how America wasn't the way it's today. And then as the war would see it, America would augment in stature again. As if this was like a lesson in history just goes to show how Griffith substantiating that instead of books, films should be the new source of history, remained completely obstinate in his views. Not so much that one can agree with him, but one can agree with the notion that this film should be accessed in film classes. It's just as good an archetype as "Birth of a Nation" and even grander in my opinion. As a lot of the film centres on Walter Butler's derailment on America, an English man, it's interesting how he pulled the performance from Lionel Barrymore that proved suave and understated and despicable in expression. His ideas of Good and Bad become two main elements here; for example Butler leading of Tories and Indians against that jingoistic mentality was a pure example of this perception. And his romantic archetype in the war, while she spectates across (Carol Dempsey) is just an element of Griffith that could have been dispensed. In some ways, I wasn't quite clear about whether or not Butler was English or American, so I had to try and resolve that ignorance subsequently watching the film.
I agree with another reviewer on here, who said that the subplot was really unnecessary. I concede because with this the film drones on these characters in an ineffectual way and it then loses its touch of brilliance. Nathan is the main character, who's sent out to War. During this time he's deeply impassioned in love by Nancy Monteague, a very wealthy woman who goes away to Mowhawk Valley. There's a lot of unnecessary establishing scenes with her and Butler and it's also set during the time Washington was growing to prominence.
Even with its preachy didacticism at times and the way it portrayed Men as chauvinistic, scenes such as the entrance into war and when Butler gets closer to the Americans can be intriguing, especially in the way Griffith uses lighting to emphasise them as if they're figures and his impressionistic use of editing to make you feel as though the war was taking place in his mind, which is done adeptly, but in saying so one wishes the film wasn't this melodramatic in the end. It's as though he was trying to pay the debt of his masterpiece "Intolerance" and then transgressed down the line afterwards. This film is just as well crafted, baroque and immense as anything, but as one reviewer said back during its debut "A war film has dwindled to shear melodrama" it shows this was essentially the counterproductive reaction during the time Vidor brought out his war film "The Big Parade" which made enormous box office revenue during the 20's. It's weird how Vidor also suffered in the 50's when he made "War and Peace" which was reputedly gorgeous, but lacked the substantive content of Tolstoy's original idea.
So what I am saying is that when watching the film, one must put it into context. It's a cliché I know, but unless you're interested in history, the film will rank poor. Interesting to note that during the film there are scenes where Indians seem like they're getting treated the same way Black people were almost a decade before in Griffith's film and yet it's barely looked at. It seems to be a marginal linkage, but it showed how conservative Griffith was still. Well for some of its faults (mainly because Griffith was coming out of his infancy in film making), I can't help, but be enraptured by the heat of war and the way Griffith shows it in great detail. If you have the chance pick up the Image Entertainment DVD, which restored the film to perfection.