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Broken Blossoms
(1915) - Directed by D.W. Griffith
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Melodrama
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(1915) - Directed by D.W. Griffith
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Melodrama
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"They'll HANG yer!"
I'm going to give D.W. Griffith a score today, since I found myself in the mood for silent movies, and I found one of his shorter movies on Tubi: Broken Blossoms. This one's much shorter than the other one I found there: Intolerance, so I'm gonna start with this one. But this will be a short review.
Broken Blossoms centers around three people: an abusive boxer, a girl abused by her father, and a Chinese Buddhist who wants to spread the words of peace throughout the crime-ridden American streets. Eventually, he comes across the girl and does what he can to protect her. But things end badly when the father gets the wrong idea about their relationship.
I can only imagine how heavy this must've been in the 1910's. Not only is this story of abuse towards young women realistic, but certain directorial approaches bring out the absolute worst in this theme, such as having the angry father facing the camera in a menacing way. And even though this guy wasn't the best actor, he did a good enough job where it counted. So throughout this story, one would be expecting our Chinese hero to swoop in and save the girl, only to be sorely disappointed.
The thing I was most disappointed in was the fact that this movie is being tagged as a romance. They're BARELY anything happening between Cheng and Lucy. They see each other once and suddenly this is supposed to convince me that this is blossoming into a real relationship? I knew the story was simple and had some power because of it, but this is a bit much in the vein of simplicity, and worth at least a full star off of the score. In fact, more of the story was about boxing.
This review can't possibly be as analytical as my review for The Birth of a Nation because there isn't much to analyze. Broken Blossoms had a lot of potential, but without fleshing out all the other elements needed to compete with the giants of its time, this movie's gonna remain a novelty for silent movie fans to only possibly check out, and likely if they're admirers of D.W. Griffith's technical achievements, many of which have already been seen in earlier movies. It's a heartbreaking story, but only because of two people, where the third one, our nomad, has practically no effect on most of the movie.
= 63
D.W. Griffith's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 1 Bad)
The Birth of a Nation: 77
Broken Blossoms: 63
Home, Sweet Home: 35
Score: 59.33 / 3
D.W. Griffith debuts on the Best Directors list at #243 between Andrew V. McLaglen and Dominic Sena.
Broken Blossoms centers around three people: an abusive boxer, a girl abused by her father, and a Chinese Buddhist who wants to spread the words of peace throughout the crime-ridden American streets. Eventually, he comes across the girl and does what he can to protect her. But things end badly when the father gets the wrong idea about their relationship.
I can only imagine how heavy this must've been in the 1910's. Not only is this story of abuse towards young women realistic, but certain directorial approaches bring out the absolute worst in this theme, such as having the angry father facing the camera in a menacing way. And even though this guy wasn't the best actor, he did a good enough job where it counted. So throughout this story, one would be expecting our Chinese hero to swoop in and save the girl, only to be sorely disappointed.
The thing I was most disappointed in was the fact that this movie is being tagged as a romance. They're BARELY anything happening between Cheng and Lucy. They see each other once and suddenly this is supposed to convince me that this is blossoming into a real relationship? I knew the story was simple and had some power because of it, but this is a bit much in the vein of simplicity, and worth at least a full star off of the score. In fact, more of the story was about boxing.
This review can't possibly be as analytical as my review for The Birth of a Nation because there isn't much to analyze. Broken Blossoms had a lot of potential, but without fleshing out all the other elements needed to compete with the giants of its time, this movie's gonna remain a novelty for silent movie fans to only possibly check out, and likely if they're admirers of D.W. Griffith's technical achievements, many of which have already been seen in earlier movies. It's a heartbreaking story, but only because of two people, where the third one, our nomad, has practically no effect on most of the movie.
= 63
D.W. Griffith's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 1 Bad)
The Birth of a Nation: 77
Broken Blossoms: 63
Home, Sweet Home: 35
Score: 59.33 / 3
D.W. Griffith debuts on the Best Directors list at #243 between Andrew V. McLaglen and Dominic Sena.