Lillian Gish is Effing Awsome! (Watching Birth of a Nation for the 1st

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

time) Showing on TCM tonight.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. But... Paulette Goddard... *sigh* Any other silent fav's out there?

[NNadir]

2. She was very beautiful. I understand though that the movie was racist.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Terribly Racist. That's part of the reason they're playing it...

Showing it more as a historical piece than anything else.

It was based on Thomas Dixon's book, The Klansman which glorified the KKK.

The movie is as about as racist and degrading as any movie ever made. Technically, it is an excellent film and therein lies the irony and the ongoing interest in the film.

[NewJeffCT]

6. It was also hugely important

The movie was so influential that not long after it was released the "popularity" of the KKK soared in the US, to number like 3 million. Griffith (I believe) later said that he thought history would eventually be taught through moving pictures - "Mission Accomplished"

[cmkramer]

4. Broken Blossoms

That's my favorite performance of hers. She plays a little girl who's a victim of child abuse. In her last scene, she's hiding in a closet from her drunken father and as he starts to bang the door down, she literally starts turning around and around and around in terror.

[Zomby Woof]

5. She had an amazing career

From her Griffith films in the 1910's, right up until "The Whales of August" in 1989.

Saw "Birth of A Nation" at an art movie house back in the 80's, with live piano accompaniment. There was a lecture to preface the movie, to discuss both its racist content and its technical brilliance. Its content makes it so hard to watch, it's easy to overlook that this was the most accomplished and influential film from a technical standpoint until "Citizen Kane" came along.

[kwassa]

7. but ... but .... what about Mary Pickford, America's Sweetheart?

I once had a job interview with Buddy Rogers, her husband, one of those bizarre life experiences. Aside from my interview with Mel Blanc, the strangest.

[bertha katzenengel]

8. You Rang?

Signed,

the former Bertha Venation

;)

:hi: TYJ.

[flamingyouth]

9. You should see her in Griffith's "Broken Blossoms"

She's amazing in that as well.

It too is alarmingly racist (this time against Chinese people), but her acting is incredible.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0009968/

[PassingFair]

10. "The Vamp"

Theda Bara.