In this film, Griffith begins to do some of the things that he became known for doing from birth of a nation. You see a lot of cutaways, etc. He also tries to think for his audience in this contrived story about giving up alcohol (a message I don't have a problem with). Strange to see him backing the temperance movement when a few years later he would so against them in intolerance.
6 Reviews
Griffith Produces A Film With So Many Firsts
springfieldrental27 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
When D. W. Griffith directed the 1909 short "A Drunkard's Reformation," for Biograph Studios, he had no idea the number of
firsts in cinematic history this movie would produce. Arguably it became the first societal morality film which obtained results, this from the burgeoning Temperance Movement and its adherents. When released, anti-liquor drinking groups began showing the film before their gatherings. The film had such an effect on one Iowa city before a crucial vote on deciding to enact temperance laws that people, citing the movie, voted overwhelmingly to make their community dry. Temperance groups found that introducing their audience to their message became much easier to convey after the movie was shown.
Another first was "A Drunkard's Reformation" was one of first movies to contain a story within a story. We've got the framework of the plot about a dad who's had a bit too much to drink with buddies and comes home in an angry mood, berating the wife for cooking inferior food. The father and daughter then attend a play, where they watch a play based on Emile Zola's novel "L'Assommoir," coincidentally paralleling the father's drinking habits. And because of it's popularity, the movie was re-released, with updated titles including the cast and a dialogue card, the first movie to gain such a honor.
The final image of the family gathered around its fireplace in the dark reflects Griffith's and his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, new-found use of spot, or indirect lighting. The light from the fire casts on the family shows its members happily living in harmony among themselves. Such a technique in film was novel--and groundbreaking.
Another first was "A Drunkard's Reformation" was one of first movies to contain a story within a story. We've got the framework of the plot about a dad who's had a bit too much to drink with buddies and comes home in an angry mood, berating the wife for cooking inferior food. The father and daughter then attend a play, where they watch a play based on Emile Zola's novel "L'Assommoir," coincidentally paralleling the father's drinking habits. And because of it's popularity, the movie was re-released, with updated titles including the cast and a dialogue card, the first movie to gain such a honor.
The final image of the family gathered around its fireplace in the dark reflects Griffith's and his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, new-found use of spot, or indirect lighting. The light from the fire casts on the family shows its members happily living in harmony among themselves. Such a technique in film was novel--and groundbreaking.
Art Reflecting Art
Cineanalyst26 November 2020
"A Drunkard's Reformation" is one of D.W. Griffith's better early Biograph (or American Mutoscope & Biograph (AM&B), as the company was formerly known) shorts. That has very little to do with the moralizing of the temperance movement message, except that the message is doubled--reflected in the outer film and in the play-within-the-play. Try to forget the heavy-handedness of the lecturing, though, for what is some excellent montage and reflexivity for 1909. Griffith and company had already and would continue to demonstrate crosscutting in their earliest last-minute-rescue films, such as "That Fatal Hour" (1908) and "The Lonely Villa" (1909). They would also employ parallel editing for contrast in social commentary, as in "A Corner in Wheat" and, here, in "A Drunkard's Reformation."
In this one, the crosscutting comes at the beginning, as the scene transitions between the shot of a home and one of a tavern. The drunkard is getting loaded at the pub while his wife (played by Linda Arvidson, the director's real wife) and daughter await his return at home. As they look outside their window, it's almost as though they're watching him drink--anticipating the spectacle/spectator dynamic of the subsequent play-within-play sequence, and, nonetheless, it seems that they're looking for him to return. In recognition to the "AB" logo clearly visible on the wall in the home set, at least, let's call these first two shots, A) for the home, and B) for the tavern. The shot succession, then, is A-B-A-B-A, the dichotomy resolved only by the drunkard's return home. Additionally, there's a jump cut between the shots with the father at home, between his wild drunkenness and when he's in a more sedate state for his affectionate daughter to plead for him to take her to the play. To add the usual religion to the lecturing, the wife and mother prays as they leave for the theatre.
The rest of the film is technically even more sophisticated. The next sequence begins and ends with an establishing shot from the back of the theatre, with both the audience and stage in view. Let's call this establishing camera setup "E." The other two shots in the scene are, A) a proscenium arc view of the play-within-the-play, Émile Zola's "L'Assommoir," and B) a reverse-angle perspective of the father and daughter in the audience, which also creates eyeline matches, or shot/reverse shots, for us, the film's spectator, watching them watching the play. There are also two jump cuts that are cleverly divided by the theatre curtain, thus dividing the scenes within the inner, stage play. The shot succession here then is E-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-B-E. That's two establishing shots and ten shots each, not counting the curtain jump cuts, of the reverse-angled, point-of-view or look-based A and B. Quite elaborate for 1909.
Moreover, Zola's play is the same sort of teetotaler lecture as the film proper, with the film's drunkard learning the same lesson that the filmmakers surely intended for their audience to learn. As the father watches the play, note how he begins with his arms folded, but increasingly embraces his daughter as the drama unfolds. The reformation occurs off stage. Another slight point of interest is that the inner play somewhat reflects the window motif from earlier, of the wife and daughter awaiting the drunkard's return; on stage, this turns into a woman watching from outside as the play's drunkard accepts the bottle of booze she brings him. The play's denouement in contrast a tragic one.
After the theatre scene, the film returns to the family's home, for two scenes in its happy ending--one where he gives up the "demon drink" and a final insert of domestic bliss as chiaroscuro effects of the hearth are linked to the diegetic lighting of the fireplace. The final shot ends, too, as a frozen tableau vivant. These final frames in themselves are a lovely composition from Griffith's usual cinematographer Billy Bitzer. Who edited "A Drunkard's Reformation" doesn't appear to be certain, although Griffith's usual editors James and Rose Smith reportedly began working at Biograph in 1909.
The acting is interesting in this one, too. Roberta E. Pearson's has literally written the book, "Eloquent Gestures," on "The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films," as diverging, that is, from cinema's theatrical heritage. Such is not overwhelmingly evident in an early one-reeler such as "A Drunkard's Reformation," where the acting is somewhat similar on and off stage. The film proper's drunkard smashing dishes aside, however, there are some subtler moments, including the wife's slumping into a prayer position as her husband and daughter leave for the theatre, or the father gradually unfolding his arms and uncrossing his legs to increasingly tighten his embrace of his daughter during the play. By the final tableau, there's nary a melodramatic gesture to be had, with the married couple holding hands as the father slightly gestures towards his daughter in affirmation of her causing his reformation. This, at least, is in stark contrast to the unnatural frontal positioning in the "Ye Black Own Inn" stage bar and wilder antics from Zola's play--the drunkard throwing his arms about and tossing his wife (played by the "Biograph Girl" herself, Florence Lawrence) and child all over the home before himself collapsing.
In comparing "A Drunkard's Reformation" to a later play-within-a-play film with a prohibitionist message of Griffith's, "Brutality" (1912), Pearson says that while the earlier film doesn't embrace the latter's verisimilar code of acting, Griffith did appear to want to strike a difference between the unchecked histrionics on stage and the more, if still part of the "histrionic code," restrained actions of the "real" characters beyond the proscenium arc. Although Griffith began his show business career on stage and had dreams of being a playwright, he quickly surrendered any theatrical pretensions. Pearson quotes the film director as once stating, "Moving pictures can get nothing from the so-called legitimate stage," where he claims they act with unnatural gestures. "For range of delicacy, the development of character, the quick transition from one mood to another, I don't know an actress on the American stage," he continues, "who can begin to touch the work of some of the motion picture actresses." I suppose it would be more apt, then, not to refer to Zola's play as being within another play; it's a play inside of what was developing as distinctly another art form thanks to the likes of Griffith and his team at Biograph.
(From 35mm print preserved by LOC)
In this one, the crosscutting comes at the beginning, as the scene transitions between the shot of a home and one of a tavern. The drunkard is getting loaded at the pub while his wife (played by Linda Arvidson, the director's real wife) and daughter await his return at home. As they look outside their window, it's almost as though they're watching him drink--anticipating the spectacle/spectator dynamic of the subsequent play-within-play sequence, and, nonetheless, it seems that they're looking for him to return. In recognition to the "AB" logo clearly visible on the wall in the home set, at least, let's call these first two shots, A) for the home, and B) for the tavern. The shot succession, then, is A-B-A-B-A, the dichotomy resolved only by the drunkard's return home. Additionally, there's a jump cut between the shots with the father at home, between his wild drunkenness and when he's in a more sedate state for his affectionate daughter to plead for him to take her to the play. To add the usual religion to the lecturing, the wife and mother prays as they leave for the theatre.
The rest of the film is technically even more sophisticated. The next sequence begins and ends with an establishing shot from the back of the theatre, with both the audience and stage in view. Let's call this establishing camera setup "E." The other two shots in the scene are, A) a proscenium arc view of the play-within-the-play, Émile Zola's "L'Assommoir," and B) a reverse-angle perspective of the father and daughter in the audience, which also creates eyeline matches, or shot/reverse shots, for us, the film's spectator, watching them watching the play. There are also two jump cuts that are cleverly divided by the theatre curtain, thus dividing the scenes within the inner, stage play. The shot succession here then is E-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-B-E. That's two establishing shots and ten shots each, not counting the curtain jump cuts, of the reverse-angled, point-of-view or look-based A and B. Quite elaborate for 1909.
Moreover, Zola's play is the same sort of teetotaler lecture as the film proper, with the film's drunkard learning the same lesson that the filmmakers surely intended for their audience to learn. As the father watches the play, note how he begins with his arms folded, but increasingly embraces his daughter as the drama unfolds. The reformation occurs off stage. Another slight point of interest is that the inner play somewhat reflects the window motif from earlier, of the wife and daughter awaiting the drunkard's return; on stage, this turns into a woman watching from outside as the play's drunkard accepts the bottle of booze she brings him. The play's denouement in contrast a tragic one.
After the theatre scene, the film returns to the family's home, for two scenes in its happy ending--one where he gives up the "demon drink" and a final insert of domestic bliss as chiaroscuro effects of the hearth are linked to the diegetic lighting of the fireplace. The final shot ends, too, as a frozen tableau vivant. These final frames in themselves are a lovely composition from Griffith's usual cinematographer Billy Bitzer. Who edited "A Drunkard's Reformation" doesn't appear to be certain, although Griffith's usual editors James and Rose Smith reportedly began working at Biograph in 1909.
The acting is interesting in this one, too. Roberta E. Pearson's has literally written the book, "Eloquent Gestures," on "The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films," as diverging, that is, from cinema's theatrical heritage. Such is not overwhelmingly evident in an early one-reeler such as "A Drunkard's Reformation," where the acting is somewhat similar on and off stage. The film proper's drunkard smashing dishes aside, however, there are some subtler moments, including the wife's slumping into a prayer position as her husband and daughter leave for the theatre, or the father gradually unfolding his arms and uncrossing his legs to increasingly tighten his embrace of his daughter during the play. By the final tableau, there's nary a melodramatic gesture to be had, with the married couple holding hands as the father slightly gestures towards his daughter in affirmation of her causing his reformation. This, at least, is in stark contrast to the unnatural frontal positioning in the "Ye Black Own Inn" stage bar and wilder antics from Zola's play--the drunkard throwing his arms about and tossing his wife (played by the "Biograph Girl" herself, Florence Lawrence) and child all over the home before himself collapsing.
In comparing "A Drunkard's Reformation" to a later play-within-a-play film with a prohibitionist message of Griffith's, "Brutality" (1912), Pearson says that while the earlier film doesn't embrace the latter's verisimilar code of acting, Griffith did appear to want to strike a difference between the unchecked histrionics on stage and the more, if still part of the "histrionic code," restrained actions of the "real" characters beyond the proscenium arc. Although Griffith began his show business career on stage and had dreams of being a playwright, he quickly surrendered any theatrical pretensions. Pearson quotes the film director as once stating, "Moving pictures can get nothing from the so-called legitimate stage," where he claims they act with unnatural gestures. "For range of delicacy, the development of character, the quick transition from one mood to another, I don't know an actress on the American stage," he continues, "who can begin to touch the work of some of the motion picture actresses." I suppose it would be more apt, then, not to refer to Zola's play as being within another play; it's a play inside of what was developing as distinctly another art form thanks to the likes of Griffith and his team at Biograph.
(From 35mm print preserved by LOC)
Novelty
Dockelektro14 November 2001
We're all people of the 90's, of the 80's, of today. And this movie would pass unnoticed if i didn't have it explained at the Editing Theories class in film school. When we analize this one on detail, we can spot that Griffith invented all kinds of gimmicks that we take for granted today: fade outs, cross fades, fake continuity, and above all it expresses a true actor's feelings when we see the father at the theater, being clearly influenced by the play he sees. And this work of a play within a play is also a novelty, as so many other things. This works as a triumph, and a prediction of all that would be used later on movies.
Griffith
Michael_Elliott29 February 2008
Drunkard's Reformation, The (1909)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
An alcoholic father returns home, abuses his wife and then has his daughter ask him to take her to a play. The father, not wanting to, goes ahead with his daughter to the play, which turns out to be about an alcoholic. Griffith's father was destroyed by alcohol so this would be a topic to many of his shorts. Griffith gets his message across very nicely and again, needless to say, the editing between the father and the play makes the film.
You can find this film on Grapevine's D.W. Griffith: The Director series.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
An alcoholic father returns home, abuses his wife and then has his daughter ask him to take her to a play. The father, not wanting to, goes ahead with his daughter to the play, which turns out to be about an alcoholic. Griffith's father was destroyed by alcohol so this would be a topic to many of his shorts. Griffith gets his message across very nicely and again, needless to say, the editing between the father and the play makes the film.
You can find this film on Grapevine's D.W. Griffith: The Director series.
Typical Morality Play
Tornado_Sam11 January 2023
The story of the angry drunkard returning home to frighten his wife and kids was a frequent idea explored throughout the early days of cinema. Out of the many early films I've seen, the main one that comes to mind is Robert W. Paul's "Buy Your Own Cherries" from 1904, which dealt with the exact same message as well as a very similar story. The main difference between that and D. W. Griffith's "A Drunkard's Reformation" is the means by which the drunkard is reformed. Paul's film has less development to the reformation, while Griffith uses a key device to bring about the change: that is, the morality play. In that sense, Griffith's short is far more innovative in how it tells its story, although when it comes to hitting home the message, his other work of the same year, "What Drink Did", is far more powerful.
The film begins with the drunkard returning home and abusing his wife before reluctantly taking his daughter to a play. Unbeknownst to him, the play is a morality-based story that manages to convince him into reforming. As far as D. W. Griffith's early films go, there is little evidence of emerging camera technique in this one; the main development in "A Drunkard's Reformation" is when the camera cross-cuts between the reaction of the father in the audience and the action onstage, which Griffith would later perfect to build suspense masterfully. Otherwise, the film uses the typical long shots of the actors that were common at the time, showing how far the director had to go in his technique. As it is, an interesting and worthwhile short film for silent film fanatics.
The film begins with the drunkard returning home and abusing his wife before reluctantly taking his daughter to a play. Unbeknownst to him, the play is a morality-based story that manages to convince him into reforming. As far as D. W. Griffith's early films go, there is little evidence of emerging camera technique in this one; the main development in "A Drunkard's Reformation" is when the camera cross-cuts between the reaction of the father in the audience and the action onstage, which Griffith would later perfect to build suspense masterfully. Otherwise, the film uses the typical long shots of the actors that were common at the time, showing how far the director had to go in his technique. As it is, an interesting and worthwhile short film for silent film fanatics.
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