I can't say I've seen a whole lot of DW Griffith's films because I've only seen four (and then this one) and the guy made like 300 of them. Some difficulties in this review deal with the fact that I kind of generalize my statements to his oeuvre when I haven't seen much but a tiny percent of them. So my apologies beforehand.
This film strikes me as one of the more real and humble versions of his work. His women-in-distress films are well-made and interesting, and his Civil War and southern films are well-done too, but of course the poor guy's cinema is plagued with the hindsight knowledge about a political philosophy that lost a war and has been in decline since.
This film seems much more personal and humanistic to the films of his that I've seen, and I'm glad to know it because it opens Griffith's work up to further audience. To be sure, lack of courage and grief occurs often in war (and should), and stuff like the events in this film actually happened all the time during the Civil War.
This movie is sort of an American Mulan, showing that sometimes the women had to take up the banner and press forward men's bravery. The main story about the foolish brother definitely reinforces the Man's Man aspect of what war should be regarded as, but again, this kind of stuff happened a lot. This film is pretty tragic in its remembrance of that.
--PolarisDiB
This film strikes me as one of the more real and humble versions of his work. His women-in-distress films are well-made and interesting, and his Civil War and southern films are well-done too, but of course the poor guy's cinema is plagued with the hindsight knowledge about a political philosophy that lost a war and has been in decline since.
This film seems much more personal and humanistic to the films of his that I've seen, and I'm glad to know it because it opens Griffith's work up to further audience. To be sure, lack of courage and grief occurs often in war (and should), and stuff like the events in this film actually happened all the time during the Civil War.
This movie is sort of an American Mulan, showing that sometimes the women had to take up the banner and press forward men's bravery. The main story about the foolish brother definitely reinforces the Man's Man aspect of what war should be regarded as, but again, this kind of stuff happened a lot. This film is pretty tragic in its remembrance of that.
--PolarisDiB