Broken Blossoms

Lillian Gish Director: D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith

Overview

Considered one of D.W. Griffith's best films, the silent Broken Blossoms comes to DVD with a standard full-frame transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Supplemental materials include a filmed introduction from lead actress Lillian Gish, D.W. Griffith revealing his opinions on working with different actresses, and a recording of the 1919 song "Broken Blossoms." This is an excellent disc for anyone with an interest in the earliest days of film.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/10/2002
UPC:	0738329019624
Original Release:	1919
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kino Lorber
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	1,796

Special Features

Filmed introduction by Lillian Gish including excerpts from Gish's film Romola (1925 MGM); The complete text of Thomas Burke's original story; A recording of the 1919 song "Broken Blossoms" ; D.W. Griffith on leading ladies; About the score

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lillian Gish	Lucy Burrows
Richard Barthelmess	Cheng Haun, the Yellow Man
Donald Crisp	Battling Burrows
Edward Peil	Evil Eye
Arthur Howard	Burrow's Manager
George Andre Beranger	The Spying One
Ernest Butterworth	Actor
Kid McCoy	A Prizefighter
George Nichols	London Policeman
Karla Schramm	Actor
Wilbur Higby	London Policeman

Technical Credits

D.W. Griffith

D.W. Griffith	Director,Score Composer,Producer,Screenwriter
Billy Bitzer	Cinematographer
Karl Brown	Cinematographer
Louis F. Gottschalk	Score Composer
Hendrik Sartov	Cinematographer,Special Effects
James Smith	Editor

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Opening Titles [9:40]
2. Sordid Realities [4:24]
3. Battling [3:25]
4. The Girl [10:22]
5. The Shopping Trip [9:55]
6. The Usual Rage [6:30]
7. A Fateful Collapse [4:16]
8. Waking in Heaven [6:40]
9. Word Travels [12:24]
10. The Lowering Storm [6:27]
11. Lucy's Homecoming [9:39]
12. Sanctuary [5:29]

Menu

Side #1 --
   Feature Start
   Chapter Selection
   Special Features
      Introduction by Lillian Gish
      "The Chink & the Child" (The Complete Text by Thomas Burke)
      About the Score
      "Broken Blossoms" the Song
         Play Song
      D.W. Griffith on Leading Ladies

Editorial Reviews

One of the world's first art films and director D. W. Griffith's most affecting work, this exquisite silent melodrama emphasizes atmosphere and emotion over spectacle. Based on a story by Thomas Burke, Broken Blossoms stars Richard Barthelmess as a gentle, spiritually minded Chinese man who immigrates to London and takes a job as a shopkeeper in the city's seamy Limehouse district. There he falls in love with an ethereal waif (the incomparable Lillian Gish) and attempts, with tragic results, to rescue her from her violently abusive prizefighter father (Donald Crisp). Although not nearly as ugly and hysterical in its racism as Griffith's Birth of a Nation, Broken Blossoms is as reviled for the stereotyping of its Asian character as it is admired for its artistry. The Chinese protagonist portrayed by the Caucasian Barthelmess is referred to in title cards as "The Yellow Man" or "Chink" and portrayed as exotic, dissipated, effeminate, and slightly perverse in his sexless but fetishistic adoration of the very white and virginal Gish. Yet the doomed shopkeeper is a sympathetic and ultimately heroic character and is shown to be superior in every way to Crisp's brutal, brawling Englishman. And even if the film's story and sensibilities seem dated, Barthelmess and Gish bring a passion and sensitivity to their roles that make Broken Blossoms moving, universal, and timeless. When Griffith captures the actors in close-up (a technique still new at that point) as they exchange their first languid glances, the image of their faces framed in cameraman Billy Bitzer's iris is one of cinema's most primal and beautiful moments. The entire film has a heady, dreamlike quality: The London waterfront setting (painstakingly reconstructed on a studio back lot) is perpetually shrouded in shadows and fog; bursts of flowery, antiquated poetry adorn the title cards; delicate washes of color tint entire scenes -- deep blue for night, pinks and yellows to suggest sunrises and sunsets. Seductive as the opium the shopkeeper puffs from his "lilied pipe," Broken Blossoms still casts a lingering spell.

Barnes & Noble - Kryssa Schemmerling

Despite the great expense taken to recreate its London Limehouse-district setting, Broken Blossoms is one of D.W. Griffith's most intimate films, and some critics consider it his masterpiece. The director used his vast soundstage to tell the story of a young woman (Lillian Gish) whose love for a spiritual Chinese man (Richard Barthelmess) is thwarted by her abusive boxer father (Donald Crisp); the studio deemed the results too grim to be commercial, and Griffith was forced to buy Blossoms back and release it himself. The film is literally darker than anything the director had previously attempted: the controlled, non-location shoot allowed him to be more expressive with low light and shadow. In a pre-screening, the projectionist accidentally left on one of the theater's colored house lights, and Griffith liked the effect so much that he applied colored tints to subsequent prints. Aside from its technical achievements, Blossoms also features some of Gish's most evocative work. The actress' skills of gesture and pantomime are at their height, and her delicate, fragile performance deflects some of the attention away from Griffith's typically charismatic villain.

All Movie Guide - Michael Hastings

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