Two important cinematographic effects produced with the Pathé camera were fades and dissolves. Fades were used both to begin and to end shots; Billy Bitzer’s assistant, Karl Brown, would later recall that Griffith always used the terms “fade in” and “fade out” rather than the “camera” and “cut” commonly used by other directors.77 To accomplish a fade, Bitzer had to continue cranking the camera with his right hand, while simultaneously using his left hand to loosen the lock knob on the stop lever and pushing it forward to open the lens (fade in) or back to stop down the lens (fade out).78 Another shot Griffith was particularly fond of—the “iris” shot seemingly taken through a round eye-hole—had been developed by Bitzer during his long career at the Biograph Company. When he tried to create a lens shade from an old glue can, he discovered that this improvised shade darkened the corners of the frame. Later, looking for different-sized openings for different lenses, he used a larger can to which he attached a diaphragm from an old still camera. Attached to the lens and operated by an ordinary electrical switch, this diaphragm could be closed or opened to create an “iris in” or “iris out” effect.79
Bitzer insisted in his autobiography that The Birth of a Nation had been shot only in sunlight, with the only exception being “the carpenter-made model of the burning of Atlanta, which had to have special lighting to make it look real.” Gish, by contrast, remembered that, overriding Bitzer’s pessimistic objections, “Mr. Griffith would order bonfires lit and film some amazing night scenes.”80 While both Bitzer and Gish agreed that most photography was done during the daylight hours, and Bitzer’s recollection that there was no electric light equipment in the California studio appears to have been correct,81 there clearly was more night photography, lit by bonfires and/or flares, than Bitzer later recalled. Scenes shot in this way included the celebrations (themselves around a bonfire) in Piedmont before the Confederate troops set off for war, the refugees fleeing from a burning Atlanta, and the later stages of the battle of Petersburg (intertitled “the battle goes on into the night,” shot 438).82
Thirty years after he had photographed The Birth of a Nation, Bitzer wrote about the experience, and at that time his hand still showed faded blue powder specks from shooting the battlefield scenes. Not only had the men in the trenches being firing their guns straight at him, but to have them within camera range, the fireworks men had exploded their smoke bombs (representing bursting artillery and mortar shells) close to Bitzer himself.83 Photographing the Klan rides also had its hazardous side. Griffith insisted on shooting these chases from every angle. Sometimes this involved Bitzer and Griffith careering ahead of the white-robed Klansmen in a fast automobile.84 On another occasion, Griffith had Bitzer and his camera positioned in a ditch to photograph the Klansmen and their horses leaping overhead. Although some of the cast (Walthall in particular) were superb horsemen and the Klan rides were led by expert riders, the horses that had been rented were mostly not of very high quality. At one point, Griffith, “waving his arms and yelling madly” had to intervene to save Bitzer from being trampled underfoot. One horse, blinded by a Klansman’s sheet, still managed to kick in the side of the camera, which Bitzer had to repair with tape before he could use it again.85
Without electric lights, Bitzer at times had to resort to improvisation: shooting the scene of Lincoln’s assassination in broad sunlight, he faced the problem of picking out from other people the black-clad figure of John Wilkes Booth (Raoul Walsh) as he crept along the wall. His simple solution, according to Karl Brown, was to use a full-length mirror to focus the sun’s reflected rays on Booth and “follow him wherever he went, just like a spotlight in a theater.”86 In later years, Bitzer argued that the very technological limitations he had faced in shooting The Birth of a Nation—the lack of electric lights, his “practically one lense[d]” Pathé camera, and “the old slow emulsion orthochromatic film”—had combined to produce an impression of historical “realism” in shots of battles, Lincoln’s assassination, and Lee’s surrender.87 In effect, the “limited half tones” of the film stock gave such shots an “antique, or period” look that effectively reproduced the “hard brilliant quality” of what were commonly perceived by Americans as the most accurate and authentic visual records of the Civil War era: the photographs of Matthew Brady.88
The set of Ford’s Theatre before the filming of Lincoln’s assassination. Natural light only was used for this sequence. The man in the white suit is Griffith. (Epoch/The Kobal Collection)
Continuing Financial Problems
Griffith had originally estimated that The Clansman could be made for $40,000. He actually scheduled production of the picture—renting land for shooting the battle sequences and placing orders for essential items—before receiving the final assurance from the Aitkens that they had succeeded in raising the first $25,000. Once that assurance was forthcoming, of course, Griffith had the Aitken brothers where he wanted them. As the costs of the movie began to spiral out of control, they had only two choices: to cancel the whole project and lose completely the money already invested, or to continue to bankroll what at times must have seemed to them the director’s mad folly. In the short term, however, the news that the film was now in production made it easier to raise the remaining $15,000 of the promised $40,000.89
As production accelerated, it rapidly became clear that $40,000 had been a considerable underestimate. Griffith was far from cost conscious; Billy Bitzer remembered him acting “as if the budget we were supposed to follow did not exist.” At one point, Griffith apparently planned to end his film with a flock of angels suspended over a battlefield. He was sublimely unconcerned over the cost needed to achieve this effect, and with fifty telegraph poles (each costing $60) already being erected for shooting the scene, decided to drop the idea in favor of a different ending.90 When Harry and Roy Aitken came out to Los Angeles in late summer 1914, Griffith broke the news to them that he needed more money to finish the film. While his initial reaction was to tell Griffith to finish the film for the $40,000 already provided, Harry later relented and raised a further $19,000. At the same time, he made it very clear that there would be no more money from the Aitken brothers and that Griffith ought to complete and market the film on the basis of the $59,000 already advanced.91
In addition to directing the film, Griffith now found himself having to raise the money to finish it. Gish and other members of Griffith’s regular company were reasonably happy to do without paychecks for several weeks, confident (or at least hopeful) that they would be paid in the end.92 But raising the money to pay extras was a recurring problem: Adela Rogers St. John would later remember Griffith, with the support of the paper’s drama editor, passing the hat around the city room of the Los Angeles Herald to meet one payroll bill. On another occasion Bitzer was persuaded to dip into his own savings to pay the wages for the extras.93 Eventually, to cover these and other costs, Griffith adopted the policy of selling stock in the film itself. His biggest coup was persuading William Clune, owner of Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles, to advance $15,000 in return for stock, the California rights to the film, and Griffith’s promise to have the West Coast première in Clune’s theater. Bitzer eventually invested $7,000 in the film.94 Robert J. Goldstein, whose firm provided most of the costumes and uniforms used in the movie, accepted $3,000 of stock in lieu of payment and invested a further $3,000 of his own money.95 Other investors included O. Wimpenny, who ran a small restaurant near the studio ($3,000), Dr. E. J. Banzhof, the brother of Griffith’s lawyer ($5,000), L. Hampton ($5,000), Mrs. Mae B. Ranger ($5,000), R. J. Huntingdon ($3,000), and J. Harrison (£1,000).96 The offer of stock in return for money or services became so common that Bitzer at one point was authorized to offer an interest in the picture to one of the studio’s neighbors “for the use of our overflow negro mob scenes.”97
In effect, therefore, there were two syndicates at work in financing the film: the one originally put together by the Aitken brothers and the one assembled by Griffith. Harry Aitken,
informed by accountant J. C. Epping that Griffith was offering investors stock in the picture, was far from pleased. It complicated the business of who owned The Clansman. Griffith, moreover, now formed the David W. Griffith Corporation and when the film was completed he copyrighted it in the name of this company. From Aitken’s point of view, the director had “no monetary interest” in the movie, so his right to do this was at best questionable.98 Aitken, however, had an ace up his sleeve: Griffith would need him and his contacts to distribute and exhibit the completed film. Because the Majestic studio, despite having been founded by the Aitkens, had turned down the opportunity of making the film, Harry Aitken decided not to distribute it through his regular company, the Mutual, but instead to organize a new company specifically for The Clansman.99 On February 8, 1915, the day of The Clansman’s West Coast première, the Epoch Producing Corporation was incorporated at Eddyville, Ulster County, New York. On March 2, the day before the East Coast opening at the Liberty Theater in New York, Harry Aitken became president of the new company and Griffith vice-president. The Epoch Producing Company was not simply a vehicle for distributing Griffith’s film. It was also, from the Aitkens’ point of view, a means of regularizing the issues of financing and ownership surrounding the picture. All the investors surrendered their rights in The Clansman to Epoch, receiving in return stock proportionate to the size of their investment. (As part of the deal, the Aitkens and other shareholders agreed to surrender $5,000 of stock so that Griffith could purchase it.) All investors were to be reimbursed for the amounts actually invested from the movie’s first receipts. After that, 25 percent of the receipts were to be paid to Thomas Dixon with the balance to be divided between the David W. Griffith Corporation and the remaining investors.100
Griffith as Director
There is a good deal of evidence that Griffith found work on The Clansman project a liberating experience. Bitzer noted that his “directorial personality” changed completely: “Where heretofore he was wont to refer to films as sausages, he now seemed to say, ‘We have something worthwhile and valuable in this drama of the Civil War.’”101 Clearly, Griffith sensed that the film offered the opportunity for a great step forward in cinematic art. Bitzer, having worked closely with Griffith for so long, was well able to “see and feel his eagerness.” But others who knew him less well, including Joseph Henabery and Karl Brown, would also recall that he seemed energetic and full of delight.102 The fact that the movie was about the Civil War era was also crucial. Griffith, passionately interested in the period, virtually “lived” every minute of the saga during shooting. He was at times obsessive over the accuracy of details, insisting, for example, that the horse playing Robert E. Lee’s famous horse “Traveller” be exactly the same kind of dappled gray as the original. “You’d think we were back in 1864–5,” commented Bitzer. “Of course, in Griffith’s mind we were.”103
Griffith was thirty-nine years old when he began filming The Clansman. He was a tall man (almost six feet in height). His most prominent physical feature, according to Joseph Henabery, was his “large, hooked nose” although this became really apparent only in profile.104 He habitually wore wide-brimmed hats, partly to protect himself from the sun on location and partly to balance “his jutting nose and strong chin.” He was, however, beginning to lose his hair and someone had told him that hats were bad for the scalp, so his hats had their tops sliced off. (Lillian Gish would remember him watching the filming, one leg crossed over the other, unconsciously massaging the top of his head.)105 Griffith habitually dressed in street clothes, Henabery recalled, normally “rather casual-looking tweeds, in a color that would be suitable if he had to work in dirty surroundings.” He always wore a jacket, never appearing shirt-sleeved.106
The formality with which the director dressed was also visible in his relationships with others on set. He used Christian names only with Billy Bitzer and Joe Aller. Lillian Gish was always “Miss Geeesh,” in Griffith’s idiosyncratic pronunciation (he also said “boom” for bomb and “gell” for girl).107 He had “a strong, deep voice” and usually spoke slowly and with assurance. At times, however, when he wanted to encourage a degree of overstatement in a scene, he could “become histrionic, almost hammy in his utterances.” For the most part, Griffith seemed very much in control of himself, seldom displaying anger or exasperation; this made his rare “blow-ups” (as Bitzer termed them) even more startling.108 On these occasions, he might explode with rage against all his actors or even set out to subdue a misbehaving extra with his fists. But in the main, he avoided such temperamental excess.109
To cope with the daytime pressures of filming, the long hours of the night spent sitting without moving in the projection room, and the constant financial anxieties, Griffith resorted to a variety of stratagems. One was physical activity. He repeatedly shadow-boxed on his own, throwing a series of punches at a phantom opponent. At other times, according to Karl Brown, he would dance with Lillian Gish or challenge a member of the working crew to a footrace. Although he carefully maintained his authority, Griffith was not above helping with the physical labor involved in filming, including the creation of sets. Finally, as a means of letting off steam, he would declaim poetry, sing loudly, or give vent (especially during the shooting of the Klan sequences) to his own version of the rebel yell.110
Most days, during the filming of The Birth of a Nation, Bitzer collected Griffith from the Alexandria Hotel at seven-thirty in the morning in a chauffeured company car. It was only a short ride to the studio and Griffith, impeccably dressed as always, was on the set before eight. By this stage, Bitzer’s assistant, Karl Brown, had prepared all the necessary equipment. Griffith now gave Bitzer his instructions and he set up the camera in the proper position for the scene to be shot. Under Bitzer’s guidance, Brown put down the lines, marking the area within which the actors could move and still be viewed by the camera. While these preparations were being made, Griffith often shadow-boxed by himself. The cast, already rehearsed and now in costume, waited. Once everything was ready, Griffith took his seat, in an ordinary kitchen chair, usually directly in front of Bitzer’s camera. There was a final rehearsal of the scene to be shot and then Griffith would call “fade in” to start shooting. From time to time, as filming progressed, he would call out directions, using a large megaphone with big scenes, such as the ball on the eve of war.111
Griffith, with no apparent shooting script, worked out complete scenes in advance in his mind. The film as a whole was to have a balance between large “action” sequences (the battle scenes, the Klan rides) and smaller, domestic scenes. One of the most successful of the latter was the “Little Colonel’s” homecoming at the end of the war. It was introduced by a shot of Flora arranging little strips of raw cotton (“Southern ermine”) on top of her dress. As Joseph Henabery later commented,
The childish idea of self-adornment provided a bit of pathetic humor because the scene conveyed the idea that a once affluent family was in dire straits … It developed a degree of sympathy for the plight of the family. It [also] told of a young girl’s desire to appear at her best before her brother, that they were dear to each other, which made the hurt of the brother most intense when the little sister met her tragic end.112
Griffith wanted the actual shot of the “Little Colonel’s” return to be played very slowly, to build up the emotional intensity.113 Once he meets Little Sister, they inspect each other’s clothes and twice embrace. When Ben finally reaches the door of his home, all that can be seen is his back and two arms that draw him into the house. Because of the discretion of this shot, much is left to the audience’s imagination. The “Little Colonel’s” return, indeed, becomes generalized, perhaps even mythologized. “Instead of it being one woman,” Karl Brown noted, “it was every woman welcoming her returning hero.”114
While Griffith had worked out much of the film in his mind before shooting began, he was also able to improvise. According to Lillian Gish, “whenever he saw a spontaneous gesture that looked
good—like the soldier’s leaning on his gun and looking at me during the hospital scene—he would call Billy over to film it.” On another occasion, when the cannons and their crews from the Artillery Corps in Los Angeles, hired for the sequence dealing with Sherman’s march to the sea, were late in arriving, Griffith noticed “a little family group (the Burns family) on a hill near us [—] a mother and some children who were really eating what I suppose was a thin breakfast.” On his instructions, Bitzer later wrote,
I inched the camera unobtrusively up to them, all the while pretending we were after shots of the valley below. Later, the combined scenes, edited by Jimmy and Rose Smith, would vary the long panorama shot [of the march] with this little intimate picture of a mother and her children caught in the grip of war. It was one of the touches that made The Birth so real and convincing.115
Griffith discussed his ideas on important scenes with most members of the cast, making them feel involved. He also emphasized the need to develop distinct, and also contrasting, characterizations. An ex-actor himself, he knew how to handle actors and secure the best possible performance from them. Naturally, his tactics varied according to the age and experience of the actor concerned. Dealing with young, untrained players, he gave them instructions “almost like an elementary school teacher.” He would sometimes act out the part for them, usually in an exaggerated way. With the more experienced actors, none of this was necessary. Dealing with Henry Walthall, for example, Griffith “would simply tell him the substance of the scene without telling him how to act.”116 Occasionally, he would scold particular actors, but he would offer real praise when their work improved. According to Gish, when an actor did well in a scene, Griffith would hug him and insist—in his own, highly personal language—“That’s a darb!”117
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