Letter: To My Old Master

Just in time for our screening of Griffith's Birth of a Nation, this extraordinary letter shows up on the "Letters of Note" blog from an ex-slave to an ex-master, in response to an offer of work back on the old farm. Jourdon Anderson wrote from Ohio to his former master, Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, with an incisive irony that Jonathan Swift or George Orwell might envy. Among other remarks:

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense.

D. W. Griffith - Intolerance 1916

The success of The Birth of a Nation inaugurated the age of Films as Art--and brought on the first great controversies about the political dimensions of film. Successful efforts to suppress Birth of a Nation because of its appalling interpretation of American history and its offensive treatment of African-American characters motivated Griffith only to a kind of reflexive self-pity: His intentions were so obviously good, who could possibly want to prevent audiences from free access to the beneficial effects of his art?
The great director found himself inspired to tell the story of Intolerance (of the kind that he felt he suffered from). A contemporary melodrama is intercut with tales of ancient Babylon, the suppression of Protestants in 16th-century France, and Griffith's own spin on the story of Jesus Christ. Some of the most elaborate sets in film history were constructed for this spectacle; some were tourist attractions in Los Angeles for years afterward. But compared to his less grandiose melodramas such as Broken Blossoms and Way Down East--which still convey great emotional power--the story-telling in Intolerance seems flaccid and uninspired. Over the decades, however, it has provided generations of film students with lessons in editing.

D. W. Griffith - Broken Blossoms 1919

Another true masterpiece of over-the-top melodrama, cross-cut narratives, amazing performances--and sentimentalized racism. (The story from which the film was adapted was called "The Chink and the Child.")

D. W. Griffith - The Birth of a Nation 1915

The entire film -- all three hours. Get comfortable.

D. W. Griffith - One is Business, the Other Crime

Griffith's racism and nostalgia for the pre-Civil War South make him appear to us as an extreme reactionary. But like many conservatives, he was also a populist. In this film, he takes the radical stance of comparing the activities of bankers and investment houses to theft. Significantly, he uses the essential language of cinema to cut back and forth between two opposed scenes, making the audience confront the comparison in ways that may cause them to change their view of society. This technique was later employed crucially by leftist filmmakers in Germany and the Soviet Union, and became the essential element in political filmmaking. But they were borrowing from Griffith.

D. W. Griffith - His Trust Fulfilled - Part Two 1911

Like many white Southerners (even now), Griffith romanticized the ante-bellum period as a social system that embodied conservative social values. Setting aside the brutality and constant debasement of slavery, Griffith emphasized self-sacrifice, loyalty, the "nobility" of labor . . .
In this popular short (you can find part on on Youtube here), a faithful former slave suffers terribly to fulfill a promise made to a master and see that his little charge makes a good marriage.

Significantly, Griffith uses inter-cutting to tell a story about the good old days of slavery--as he later did on a much grander scale in Birth of a Nation.

D. W. Griffith - What Drink Did 1909

Many of the early two-reelers -- 10-15 minutes each -- told a simple story derived from the stock situations of 19th-century stage melodrama, with an obvious moral lesson.
They were also often intended to encourage the "improvement" of the lower classes who attended cinemas in large number. The temperance movement that eventually led to Prohibition was stimulated by films like this one, and Women's Suffrage was helped along by images of intelligent, determined women in the movies