Way Down East (1920) Review

D.W. Griffith is without doubt one of the most controversial directors in all of film history. It is, perhaps, due to the flagrantly racist tone of his films (mainly The Birth of a Nation); as well as the "God-fearing" themes in some of his films, that film scholars like to diminish his impact on cinema.

Admittedly his screenplays are steeped in melodrama due to the unyielding virtue of his protagonists. 'Way Down East' can't be excused of these same criticisms. At the same time, there is something in the story of a young woman tricked into a false marriage, before being spurned and tossed aside whilst pregnant, that still resonates with an audience today. Coupled together with Lillian Gish, who must surely be regarded as the one of the first and finest example of screen acting as an art form. Her innocent and pure performance, goes undiminished throughout the film, despite the fate that befalls her; but you always feel the underlying pain and anguish she feels through her guilty secret.

Richard Barthelmess is equally evocative as the admirer of the post traumatic Gish, who is at a loss as to his own rejection from Gish. You can sense the inner turmoil and tension between the two in the second half of the film. This translates superbly even today, with it's subtleties and feeling of unrequited love.

Unfortunately the same subtleties cannot be ascribed to the majority of the supporting cast; who are merely caricatures, whose indulgence only serve to add to the melodrama and aide Griffith's moral diatribe. That said, it is still a story that grips you, and there are more than obvious parallel's to Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbevilles', despite this being adapted from an entirely different stage play.

Like all Griffith work there a more than just a few glimpses of directorial genius. With 'Way Down East' he arguably exhibits the pièce de résistance of his entire career in the ice floe finale. It is to do it a disservice to call it "a feat of early film making", for it stands on it's own in terms of technical achievement and it's provocative images.

Lillian Gish lies afloat a sheet of ice after being overwhelmed by a blizzard; as she lays down the ice begins to break, and the ice-floe begins. Barthelmess sports her limp body flowing downstream and jump across the ice-floe in order to rescue her before an upcoming waterfall. It is 5 spectacular minutes of cinema at both it's most magnificent and it's purest, in this case both leads performed their own stunts and in an actual blizzard and on a real ice-floe. Lillian Gish would suffer from a couple of ailments, that were caused during the filming, for the rest of her life. (This entire scene can be viewed below)

Perhaps on paper 'Way Down East' isn't as ground breaking as 'The Birth of a Nation' or 'Intolerance'; but when taking into account the finale, as well as Gish's performance, it may be argued that it is in fact his most innovative film.