The Griffith Project

No other silent film director has been so extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than five hundred films had been the subject of a systematic analysis. Now, for the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from 'Professional Jealousy '(1907) to 'The Struggle' (1931) - is explored in this multi-volume collection of contributions from an international team of leading scholars in the field. Created as a companion to the ongoing retrospective held by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, 'The Griffith Project 'is now an indispensable guide to his work. This is the final volume of the project.

No other silent film director has been so extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than 500 films has been the subject of a systematic analysis and the vast majority of his other works still awaits proper examination. For the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from 'Professional Jealousy' (1907) to 'The Struggle' (1931) - will be explored in this multi-volume collection of contributions from an international team of leading scholars in the field.

1912 is the first 'golden year' in the career of D.W. Griffith. There is still a wealth of treasures waiting to be uncovered in this year. Their reappraisal is one of the aims of this sixth installment in the multi-year research project commissioned by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Sacile.

No other silent film director has been as extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than five hundred films has been the subject of a systematic analysis, and the vast majority of his other works still await proper examination. For the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from 'Professional Jealousy '(1907) to 'The' 'Struggle '(1931) - will be explored in this multivolume collection of contributions from an international team of leading scholars in the field. Created as a companion to the ongoing retrospective held by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, the Griffith Project is an indispensable guide to the work of a crucial figure in the arts of the nineteenth century. The latest volume assesses Griffith's work in 1914-15. It includes an extensive, multi-authored evaluation of 'The Birth of' 'a Nation.'

Silent film director D.W. Griffith is the subject of this study. Only a small group of his more than 500 films are subject to analysis. The creative output of Griffiths from 'Professional Jealousy' (1907) to 'The Struggle' (1931) is explored.

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT Paolo Cherchi Usai, General Editor Volume 12: Essays on D.W. Griffith Edited by Paolo Cherchi Usai and Cynthia Rowell With contributions by William M. Drew, Helmut Färber, André Gaudreault, Philippe Gauthier, Lea Jacobs, Joyce Jesionowski, Charlie Keil, Richard Koszarski, Arthur Lennig, Pat Loughney, David Mayer, Russell Merritt, Jan Olsson, Paul Spehr, Yuri Tsivian, Linda Williams In early 1996, an international group of 35 specialists in silent cinema volunteered to write commentaries on more than six hundred films directed, written, produced and supervised by D.W. Griffith – or featuring him as a performer – for the eleven-volume series The Griffith Project, the largest monograph ever assembled on an individual film director, in conjunction with the massive retrospective held at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival from 1996 to 2008. All authors involved in The Griffith Project were bound to strict editorial rules, most notably the fact that all titles in the series would be assigned to them in pre-determined groups rather than as a result of their own individual preference for this or that specific entry. The patience and commitment demonstrated by all scholars in this endeavor requires at least a symbolic recognition. We therefore invited the members of the project team to write an essay on a (D.W. Griffith-related) topic of their own choice. The papers included in this volume constitute the response to our carte blanche invitation. Our offer was also extended to other experts on D.W. Griffith who, for various reasons, were unable to participate in The Griffith Project but consistently supported it with their generous advice and insight. This volume brings The Griffith Project to completion, as 2008 sees the last installment of the D.W. Griffith program at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival with the screening of his films produced between 1925 and 1931. Not surprisingly, twelve years of research on D.W. Griffith have unearthed an impressive wealth of knowledge but also an equally amazing array of new questions, certainly enough of them to fill several more volumes. Some of them (including the increasingly complex issue of D.W. Griffith's role as production supervisor) are only introduced or barely mentioned here, but we are confident that what we have called the 'Griffith Project' will continue – at the Giornate and elsewhere – with more research and newly found or preserved prints. PAOLO CHERCHI USAI is Director of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. He is co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House (Rochester, New York). He directed the experimental feature film Passio (2007). His latest book is David Wark Griffith (Editrice Il Castoro, 2008).

The fourth volume of 'The Griffith Project' looks at the films produced by D.W.Griffith at the Biograph Company in 1910. There were 86 films in all and they represent a period of creativity for the director, and they have been systematically analyzed in this volume.

No other silent film director has been so extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than five hundred films had been the subject of a systematic analysis. Now, for the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from "Professional Jealousy "(1907) to "The Struggle" (1931) - is explored in this multi-volume collection of contributions from an international team of leading scholars in the field. Created as a companion to the ongoing retrospective held by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, "The Griffith Project "is now an indispensable guide to his work. This is the final volume of the project.