D W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation

by Melvyn Stokes

  If the fictional villains of the film (including Stoneman) were presented as grotesques—figures drawn from the melodramatic imagination—they were balanced by nonfictional characters who looked at least to a degree like their counterparts of the Civil War era. Joseph E. Henabery, who in the end played Abraham Lincoln, later speculated that if there had not been financial problems over making The Clansman Griffith might have preferred to have hired an actor such as Benjamin Chapin, already well known for his Lincoln impersonations on stage. Henabery, having watched several actors dressed as Lincoln appear at the studio, did some research of his own at the Los Angeles Public Library on Lincoln’s appearance. Convinced that with makeup he could do a better job than the actors he had seen, he asked Robert Woods to speak to Griffith on his behalf. Invited by the director to make up and try out the Lincoln costume for the role, he spent much of the next two days, complete with wig, padding, and heavy makeup, broiling under the hot Californian sun while Griffith never spoke to him once. Having given up in discouragement on both days (and twice being told off for leaving the set without permission), he was finally, to his surprise, told to report early the next day and to put on his makeup for the Lincoln role.28 Gish later recalled that the search for Mary Todd Lincoln “ended when we found a woman with an uncanny similarity to the First Lady working in wardrobe” and that “Members of Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet were chosen on the basis of facial resemblance to the historical characters.”29 Raoul Walsh, playing John Wilkes Booth, had the dark intense good looks of Lincoln’s assassin.30 Finally, Donald Crisp, Howard Gaye, and Sam de Grasse, all wearing full makeup, created reasonably good impressions (respectively) of Grant, Lee, and Charles Sumner.

  When he was not playing Silas Lynch, George Siegmann functioned as Griffith’s main assistant on The Clansman. Despite his forbidding exterior, he was a warm-hearted and much-loved man, yet also one who was “sensitive to Griffith’s every whim” and “powerful enough to bend everyone else to his will.”31 Other members of Griffith’s company who also doubled as assistant directors were Elmer Clifton, Donald Crisp, Bobby Harron, and Raoul Walsh. With the exception of Harron, all would eventually become well-known directors in their own right, as would Griffith’s “Lincoln,” Joseph Henabery. One of the bit-part players, who fell off the roof of a building during the raid on Piedmont, was Erich von Stroheim, who subsequently took the first step on the road to his own directorial career by being promoted to assistant director.32

  Lillian Gish remembered that to economize as much as possible, members of the regular Griffith company often played several different roles.33 Joseph Henabery, who became a full member of the company while Birth of a Nation was being made, later recalled that through careful makeup he was able to appear in the film as thirteen entirely different characters. In one sequence, by the use of cross-cutting, he appeared both as a black man fleeing white soldiers and one of the pursuing whites.34

  There were also far fewer extras than the later publicity for the film would claim. The battlefield sequences probably had no more than 300 to 500 at most. Griffith created the impression of large armies, according to Gish, by beginning with a close-up and then moving the camera farther away from the scene, thus creating an “illusion of depth and distance,” and having the same soldiers run around to make a second entrance.35 Extras were hired by the day for $1.10 or $2.00 (depending on the authority) and a free lunch.36 They remained, for the most part, entirely anonymous. One exception was the man playing the Union soldier guarding the entrance to the military hospital where the “Little Colonel” was recuperating, who made plain—to the audience’s amusement—both his attraction to Elsie Stoneman and his awareness of her unattainability. Twenty-five years later, William Freeman, the man who had played the “mooning sentry,” introduced himself to Lillian Gish at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.37

  Rehearsals

  While finishing The Avenging Conscience in May, Griffith began rehearsals for The Clansman that would continue for two months before shooting began, bringing his cast together in “a makeshift building of cheap rough pine.” A small hall served as makeup room for the extras and there were only “hard kitchen chairs” to sit on (Griffith believed that more comfortable seating would loosen his players’ concentration). Once roles had been assigned (and some of the early rehearsals were intended to try out performers in different parts), each player got to know very thoroughly the scenes in which he or she was to play.38 According to Karl Brown, Bitzer’s assistant, Griffith directed these rehearsals as

  strictly ad-lib, off-the-cuff improvisations to see what would work and what would not. He started with a central idea from which the story grew and took shape and came to life through his manipulation of these living characters. It was his way of writing … Instead of working with a pen or pencil, or through the mind and artistry of a professional writer, however skilled, he sculptured his thoughts in living flesh, to see and feel and sense what could be achieved and what could not, and to know in advance what scenes would “play” and which would not. This called for a sort of cut-and-try, or trial-and-error procedure.39

  Joseph Henabery, who participated in many of these rehearsals, also emphasized their experimental quality, with Griffith and his company beginning “to unravel the story and translate it into action, rather crude at first, but gradually bits of business were conceived and developed … Difficult situations were simplified or smoothed out and made plausible.” According to Henabery, Griffith kept an open mind and was receptive to suggestions from the cast, although this was rather contradicted by his account of the shocked reaction of other actors when he disagreed with the director over how a particular shot of Lincoln should be taken.40

  The rehearsal of a simple scene, Brown remembered, might be tried two, three, five, or a dozen different ways. After a number of such rehearsals, Bitzer recalled, Griffith had the habit of disappearing for a while to his otherwise rarely used office and lying down on a couch. Bitzer came to believe that rather than planning the mechanics of the scene he was rehearsing, Griffith was really “giving his people a chance to get into the mood or attitude of what he expected of them.”41 And rehearsals were not just for the actors. Everyone involved in the production—whether responsible for settings, props, costumes, or photography—also attended with notebooks and sketch pads ready as “everything was not only worked out but thought out to the finest detail.” The need for doors, windows, drapes, and props became clear as rehearsal followed rehearsal. It became apparent to Griffith’s chief carpenter, Frank (“Huck”) Wortman, “what sets to build and how to build them.” Rehearsals demonstrated to Ralph DeLacey, the props man, what would be needed so that he could start “rummaging in secondhand shops, pawnshops, or even cellars and attics of old-timers.” Finally, they showed Bitzer the scenes he would have to shoot and helped him plan how to do it.42 It was through Bitzer that the cast eventually learned when Griffith was satisfied that a particular scene was ready to be shot. Since the director timed a scene only when it was pretty much in its final form, when Bitzer appeared with a scratch pad and took out his watch it signaled that the rehearsal process for that scene was almost over.43

  This rehearsal method was common in the early American movie industry, but it had never been used before for so long and complicated a film as The Clansman. The lack of any kind of systematic shooting script still appears startling to modern commentators.44 Yet, as Joseph Henabery later commented, “Either with or without a script, there has to be planning.”45 Sets had to be built, props acquired, and costumes ordered. As preparations for the film increased in tempo, Gish recalled that sets began to go up, costumes arrived, and “mysterious crates, evidently filled with military equipment, were delivered.”46 The construction of sets was the responsibility of “Huck” Wortman, then a “down-to-earth,” rather solid man in his forties who chewed tobacco incessantly.47 A carpenter and self-taught designer, Wortman could build anything Griffith wanted. Gish remembered the director consulting him
on the sets to be built even before rehearsals began for The Clansman:

  He would show Huck a photograph that he wanted copied, or point out changes to be made in the reproduction. They would decide how the sun would hit a particular building three, four, even five weeks from then.48

  If Gish’s memory is correct, of course, it would mean that Griffith—while he may have had no shooting script—had the scenes he planned to shoot (and possibly the order in which he planned to shoot them) visualized from a very early stage.49

  According to Karl Brown, there was a vacant lot just opposite the Griffith studio at the point where Sunset Boulevard curved to the west and Hollywood Boulevard began. Once this had been leased, Wortman and his crew of former stage carpenters built a whole Southern street on it in “violated” or forced perspective (with the buildings farthest from the camera’s position being smaller so that the street would look longer and more imposing when photographed).50 The Camerons’ house, Brown would later recall, “was built on the studio grounds, just inside the gate at the western end, along with Piedmont Street, which ran back to where the dressing rooms were hidden by a return piece that blocked the camera vision.”51

  Gish insisted that Griffith did “meticulous research” for The Clansman. At least as far as the outward appearance of things was concerned, there was some truth in this. Several of the historical scenes and tableaux were based on Matthew Brady photographs from the war period. Moreover, the director telegraphed a South Carolina newspaper for photographs of the interior of the state house and had Wortman construct the set of the state legislature to correspond with the pictures. To build the largest interior set for the film, intended to represent Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln was assassinated, Wortman and his crew also “had authentic still pictures of the real theater to guide them.”52 It was not merely sets that Wortman had to provide. There were no authentic cannons from the Civil War era available in the West, so the construction crew also had to create guns, carriages, and caissons. Their “bible” in this respect was Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, a classic work originally published by the Century Company in 1894 but reprinted in a very cheap edition by a New York newspaper in 1912. The detailed pictures of guns and other military equipment allowed Wortman and his team to make realistic-looking simulations.53 The same book also helped the Goldstein costume house provide uniforms for both Northern and Southern armies. The firm made no real effort to produce uniforms that fit well, but, according to Karl Brown, that too added to the “authentic” look of the film (“one glance at a Brady picture proved that the real uniforms had been turned out in quantity far from the field of action and that nothing fit anybody”).54 There was one area, however, in which authenticity had to take a back seat: while Civil War muskets were easily obtainable from a firm called Bannerman’s in New York, they had all been converted to fire metallic cartridges loaded through the breech. Given the limitations of the “army” of extras who would do the film’s “fighting,” there was no real possibility—even if the money could have been found to convert the guns back again—of training them how to load muskets with ramrods through the muzzle.55

  Shooting The Birth of a Nation

  Griffith chose to begin shooting his film on a symbolically important date: July 4, Independence Day. His biographer speculates that he may have decided to do this as a means of “announcing his own independence not only from the niggling [financial] concerns of the Aitkens back East, but of all the conventions that had ruled American films in their infancy.”56 It is unclear what scenes were shot this first day. According to Karl Brown, they focused on the election near the beginning of Reconstruction in South Carolina. Carpetbaggers were photographed plying newly freed slaves with alcohol and supplying each of them with multiple marked ballots for the elections. There followed a celebration with a lot of dancing.57 Brown’s recollection was contradicted by Billy Bitzer and Raoul Walsh, each of whom insisted that the first scene shot was the battle of Petersburg.58 On the face of it, Petersburg seems the likelier possibility. It made sense for Griffith to shoot the large-scale scenes first—the battle of Petersburg, the Klan’s ride to the rescue—while he had the money to pay the extras and the time to reshoot if he thought it necessary.

  Considerable preparation had already been made for shooting the battle-field sequences. In common with most of the other location shots, they were filmed in relatively close proximity to the studio. Griffith, who had studied maps of the battle, recreated the field of Petersburg, with the help of a number of Civil War veterans he had recruited, just below Cahuenga Park in the San Fernando valley, in an area that is now part of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.59 In filming the battle, Gish claimed, he directed both armies by shouting through a megaphone from the top of a forty-foot tower. When the din of the battle made it no longer possible to hear him even with a megaphone, a system of magnifying mirrors let him pass on instructions round the battlefield.60 In reality, Griffith seems to have used a system of flags to communicate with groups of extras: Raoul Walsh remembered a white flag being used to start the action and Karl Brown recalled flags of different colors being used to tell particular groups to advance or retreat.61 Each group of extras was controlled by one of Griffith’s many assistant directors. Since every sequence shot was preceded by a meeting in which Griffith outlined in general terms the action that was to follow, the assistants’ job once shooting began was to watch from the middle of their group (where they wore uniforms and also acted as extras) for signals telling them to move forward, pull back, or stop and fight in accordance with the director’s master plan.62 The battle sequences took around three days to shoot, with most extras being needed on the first day.63 To take advantage of the cross light from the right in the morning and the left in the afternoon, all filming was done from camera placements facing north. Gish recalled that Griffith, to help audiences distinguish further between the armies with their differently colored uniforms, arranged things so that the Confederate forces always entered from the left of the camera and the Union army from the right.64

  Other shots were done on location in the surrounding hills (the Little Colonel’s inspiration for the Ku Klux Klan), the area near Whittier between southern Los Angeles County and Orange County (the Klan rides), and the Ojai Valley in Ventura County (once Griffith discovered that it was cheaper to bring actors to the horses than vice versa for the Klan shots). Seymour Stern later maintained that some group shots of the Klan, and in particular the shot of Klan riders against the sky on a hilltop, had been taken in Calabassas and the Agoura Trading Post.65 The sequences in the cotton fields were shot at Calexico, one of the few areas in California below sea level (Margaret Cooper would recall experiencing several days of 100 degree heat there, with most of her suffering for nothing since much of the footage taken was later edited out).66 The most distant location shoot, Gus’s chase of Little Sister, was in the pine forest around Big Bear Lake. Not only was the journey long and often dangerous for Griffith and his team, but when they got back to Los Angeles Griffith realized that he also needed a simulated shot of Little Sister jumping from the rock. Bitzer and Brown were consequently sent back to Big Bear Lake so Bitzer could photograph the dummy Brown threw (with difficulty) off the top.67

  With the exception of these shots, The Clansman was made on or next to the Griffith lot. Henabery recalled that “all interior scenes were shot on open stages, which were level floors or platforms with movable overhead diffusers and with no side walls.” To prevent damage from rain or fog, all dressings and properties had to be removed and stored at night and set up again the next day.68 For exterior shots, space on the back lot was at a premium: Bitzer remembered it as being “terribly crowded” with the consequence that, bit by bit, the filmmakers encroached on the property next door, owned by a Mrs. Thorsen, renting more and more land from her until finally it was all in use.69

  Once filming began, days began early and continued until there was no longer sufficient sunlight to shoot by. According to Lillian G
ish:

  sunlight controlled the shooting schedule. Preparations began at five or six in the morning. The actors rose at five in order to be ready at seven, when it was bright enough for filming. Important scenes were played in the hard noon sun. I remember that we used to beg to have our closeups taken just after dawn or before sunset, as the soft yellow glow was easier to work in and much more flattering.70

  By the standards of a later day, the actors and actresses worked very long hours and were far from cosseted. They had no one to help with their makeup, which Miriam Cooper recalled as

  difficult. The harsh California sunlight was hard on our faces. Billy Bitzer, the cameraman, blended a brown powder for us to wear over pink grease paint. He showed us how to do it the first time, then we were on our own.71

  There were no continuity people: players had to remember for themselves what they had worn earlier and, in the case of actresses, what their hair had looked like. There was no one to help them with their costumes: because there was no time between takes to return to the dressing rooms, they became used to carrying various changes of clothes with them around the set.72 Sometimes there was a break for lunch; often, as Gish remembered it, there was not.73

  Billy Bitzer, who had been Griffith’s principal cameraman since 1908, later claimed to have shot every single foot of The Birth of a Nation. The camera he used was the hand-cranked Pathé model on which, according to Jean Mitry, a high proportion of the movies made in the world were then filmed. Known as the “crackerbox” in the United States because of its wooden frame, the Pathé camera was inexpensive (only $300) and light to carry (it could easily be picked up and moved forward for a close-up, back for a longer shot, giving Griffith “the opportunity of directing every detail of every scene personally”).74 Besides its cheapness and mobility, the Pathé camera appealed to Bitzer because of the effects, such as washboarding, he could create with it. In his autobiography, Bitzer asserted that the film had been shot with two lenses—one 2.52 inches, the other wide-angle—each of which, when needed, had to be screwed into the camera thread mount.75 The camera was focused using a small lens on the back. Footage and stop numbers could be read from little dials that were also located on the camera’s back. Turning the camera by hand at a constant pace to three-quarters waltz time—first with one arm, then with the other—had become so much a part of him by 1914 that Bitzer later confessed “that I felt I could do it in my sleep.”76