Time to take another silent flick with a grain of salt. This time it's WAY DOWN EAST, directed by DW Griffith, infamous for BIRTH OF A NATION. His favorite actress, Lillian Gish, stars in this romantic melodrama from 1920.I say "take it with a grain of salt" because I always have to get myself in the right frame of mind when it comes time to sit down and watch a silent flick, especially one that's not horror or sci-fi or some other clearly defined genre. I have to try to view it as if I hadn't already seen movies from a several decades later, after the language of film had been figured out and recycled a bunch of times.
Gish stars as a poor New England country girl who travels to Boston to visit her rich relatives in the hopes of getting some financial help from them. While there, she's dazzled by upper class society and romanced by a rich womanizer (Lowell Sherman) who takes advantage of her innocence by tricking her into a sham marriage, just to get her in bed. Convinced she's found the husband of her dreams, Gish returns home to the country only to be unceremoniously dumped. In delicate 1920s terms, she tells her faux husband she's pregnant. In delicate 1920s terms, he tells her to go get an abortion.
Instead, Gish goes into exile to have the baby, finds herself persecuted for having a baby out of wedlock, and flees even further into the country to seek refuge. She is taken in by a Bible fearing (and well off) farm family and catches the eye of their good hearted son (Richard Barthelmess). We're introduced to the colorful characters of this small farming village (the town drunk, the town gossip, the ineffectual sheriff, his lazy horse, etc) and then find out the man who took advantage of Gish happens to keep a country house right next door.
There's a strange balance here between the tragedy of Gish's character's situation and the cheap humor Griffith attempts to wring out of the colorful country locals. Like other silent films I've seen from the era, this one could have done away with a bunch of these extraneous characters and just focused on the plight of the main character. It would have made for a more even tone and shaved some of the running time off of the overly long and drawn out two-and-a-half hours.
Aside from life constantly shitting on Gish, the main romantic drama comes from the simple farm boy falling in love with her, thinking she's totally innocent, and Gish's struggle to avoid giving in to his affections, knowing her own sordid past. Of course, none of the tragedy that befalls Gish throughout the course of the film is really her fault, unless you want to get on her case for trusting people, and if you do, you're a jerk. Gish is so pretty and lovable that only the hardest heart would take the bad guys' side against her.
Like the other Griffith flicks I've seen, this one is pretty heavy handed when it comes to moralizing. Right from the beginning we're told by the inter-titles that this is a story of woman's plight -- how God intended for the union of one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship and how woman suffers because she already believes this is the way things should be, but how man causes the suffering by still attempting to sow his wild oats. The inter-titles claim this story could be the story of any woman, and the authors of the film hope detailing this suffering might change man's reckless ways.
It's an interesting premise, although it's a little patronizing and insulting. You can tell the movie thinks it's a little more forward thinking than it actually is. Then again, it is interesting to see a movie from the 1920s that deals with scandals related to premarital sex and abortion.
The movie transcends its antiquated story line here and there thanks to the way it is put together. The most emotionally moving scenes are one where Gish baptizes her sick baby herself, afraid it will go to hell if it dies, and one where Barthelmess and Gish sit by a lakeside and Barthelmess confesses his love for her. The first of these scenes is so moving just because of the circumstances, and Gish's performance. Despite the tendency for silent film acting to kind of be all over the place, this is a tougher scene than most, and the whole set up effectively gets across the idea of Gish's desperation, loneliness and persecution. The second is moving because of the way it is shot -- much of the film is shot on location with real scenery, using nature as a back drop, and the way this scene is framed perfectly echoes the declaration of love that comes from Barthelmess.
The final sequence is probably the most famous and you've probably seen clips from it before even if you've never watched a silent film. This is the sequence in which Gish is lost in a snow storm and finds herself adrift on a sheet of ice, floating down a river towards a waterfall. The young hero comes along to the rescue, and it's kind of amazing Griffith was able to pull these kind of stuff off all the way back in 1920. Here you've got a real river, a real waterfall, real platforms floating down the river, and real people hopping from platform to platform.
It's a great sequence, but it's just too bad it takes so long for the movie to get there.
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