An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by D.W. Griffith and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. By now, I have seen the most famous movies directed by this great master but, even though this one did seem to have a decent reputation, to be honest, it didn’t really impress me though. Indeed, it was visually not bad (the chase scene on the ice towards the end was pretty wild) but, as far as I was concerned, it was pretty much a typical vintage melodramatic soap that they used to make back then. Basically, they gave us a pure and innocent girl who gets deceived and defiled by some evil libertine guy, something they really loved back then apparently, this movie was even a big box-office success when it was released but I’m not a huge fan. The fact that they needed 150 mins to tell a rather simple story after all probably didn’t help either. The extensive running time probably had to do with the fact that there were quite a lot of characters involved but, to be honest, they were all rather unremarkable, I’m afraid. The only exception was Lillian Gish. Obviously, it wasn’t the first time I saw Gish in one of D.W. Griffith’s production and, once again, she didn’t disappoint, that’s for sure. Indeed, there were a couple of close-up shots which were just masterful. Another thing that stood out with this movie was some random comical scenes that showed up from time to time. I don’t think I ever saw Griffith indulging with such audacious comic touches in his epic dramas before but, to be honest, it didn’t really work, I’m afraid. For example, this character Professor Sterling felt like some really misguided mix of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Anyway, to conclude, even if I did struggle to care about the damned thing, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in D.W. Griffith’s work.

6/10