BROKEN BLOSSOMS

US, 1919, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Lilian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp.
Directed by D.W.Griffith.

Broken Blossoms was directed by D.W. Griffith in 1918. It stars Lilian Gish as a young teenage girl in London, in the Limehouse area. Richard Barthelmess stars as 'the Yellow Man', an eager young man who came from the Orient to spread the teachings of Buddha, but became disillusioned by life in London. Donald Crisp is Lilian Gish's bullying boxer father.

The film is a poetic presentation of characters. It re-creates the Orient. It re-creates London. However, it focuses on the three characters and the pathos of their interplay, leading to tragedy.

Griffith made his mark in 1915 with The Birth of a Nation and in 1916 with Intolerance (nicely portrayed in the Taviani Brothers' Good Morning Babylon with Charles Dance as Griffith). This film, very popular in its time, shows Griffith as a master film-maker.

1. The impact of this film so many decades after its making and release? The quality of Griffith's silent filmmaking? its place as a cinema classic?

2. The use of silent film techniques? The fixed camera and its use for locations, broad sweep of place and situation, close-ups, action? The musical score? as played in the theatre? The qualities of acting? gesture, facial expression, dialogue? The captions? information, dialogue, comment, emotion? The editing and pace? Drama, tragedy?

3. The title and the reference to the spirit of beauty? The broken blossoms strewn over this tragic situation?

4. The opening and the focus on the Yellow Man: the view of the orient, life in the orient, the American sailors and their raucous style, the Yellow Man as a young man full of enthusiasm, the teachings of the Buddha, his wanting to preach this peacefulness? His preparations to go to a foreign country? (And the contrast with the sequence with the Christian missionaries about to leave to 'convert the heathen', and the giving of the book on Hell to the Yellow Man?? His character? preparation for the action in London?

5. The focus on Lucy? Lilian Gish's skill in portraying Lucy? As a young girl? As a suffering orphan? Vier life in Limehouse? Her bullying father and the sequences with him abusing her, whipping her, tormenting her? Her wandering the town? The advice from the friends against marriage because of its suffering? The women of the streets? her bullying father and her running away? The encounter with the Yellow Man? His looking after her health, the beauty of the dress, the flowers? His bringing her to health? Her return to her father? His brutality, suspicions? Her hiding, his axing the door? Her illness, the plaintiveness of her death? A sad life ? and the gesture she used to make her lips smile? Her final smile? The pathos of her death, the grief of the Yellow Man and his taking her away?

6. The Yellow Man and his plight, in London, racial prejudice, poverty, his shop, the passers-by, the man with the evil eye? His attraction towards Lucy? Care for her? Rescuing her, the magic gown, the flowers? His grief at her disappearance? The confrontation with her father? Shooting him? and all that it meant in terms of beliefs? His taking her away? His killing himself?

7. The father and his brutality, people's attitudes towards him in the city, his memory of his boxing career? The boxing bouts? His abuse of Lucy? Taking the whip to her? His being a man about town? His suspicions? The final brutality, the axe at the door? Her death? The confrontation with the Yellow Man and his being shot?

8. The people, the police, the investigations? The atmosphere of reality as a foundation for the lyricism of the scenes with the Yellow Man and Lucy? The brutality of her father?

9. Themes of human nature, pathos and sadness, hopes, disillusionment, death?