Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

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Reza
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Reza »

Sabin wrote:
Reza wrote
So the trustees of some asinine Ohio University board have taken it upon themselves to act like true saviours of the "black cause" - and that too by way of a 100 year old film. Don't these morons know the meaning of "context?"
Can you explain what you mean by "Don't these morons know the meaning of context?" Do you mean to say, "It was a 100 years ago, times were different then."?
Yes. Things were done and said with a lot of people believing it was right - sadly a lot of people in your country even today don't think there is anything wrong with what was depicted in Griffith's film. But banning books and films today because we dont like what was said and done is absurd. It's history. Cannot be changed. We can hope not to do it today but banning something wont make it go away. Watch things in the context of that time. Condemn it but don't ban it.

What's next? Trying to erase Hitler from every old newsreel, film or book?
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Sabin »

Reza wrote
So the trustees of some asinine Ohio University board have taken it upon themselves to act like true saviours of the "black cause" - and that too by way of a 100 year old film. Don't these morons know the meaning of "context?"
Can you explain what you mean by "Don't these morons know the meaning of context?" Do you mean to say, "It was a 100 years ago, times were different then."?
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Big Magilla »

That's a quote from film historian, Joseph McBride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McBride_(writer), co-writer of her 1984 AFI tribute. He makes the great point that the school may have removed Gish's name from the theatre but is happy to keep the bequest she left them.
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Precious Doll »

A great commentary on this by poster 'heartslience' on this debacle and the link he provides is worth reading. Its toward the end of the thread of D.W.Griffith: http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... =25&t=9600
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

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Precious Doll wrote:I was unaware that the Director's Guild stripped Griffith of some lifetime achievement award. Will Gish be next?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/m ... inema-ohio
So the trustees of some asinine Ohio University board have taken it upon themselves to act like true saviours of the "black cause" - and that too by way of a 100 year old film. Don't these morons know the meaning of "context"?

Amazing that they are even allowed to get away with this absurdity.
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Re: Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Big Magilla »

The DGA did not strip Griffith of his 1938 life achievement award in 1999. They stopped calling the award the D.W. Griffith Award.

Griffith was the father of film technique and the film that solidified his reputation was 1915's Birth of a Nation but that film, though a technical marvel, was criticized for its racism from the get-go. Griffith himself was so shocked by that, that he made 1916's Intolerance in retribution, a film that nearly bankrupted him.

Birth of a Nation is really two films in one. Had it ended with Lincoln's assassination it would still be a revered masterpiece. It's the reconstruction scenes in which the KKK is portrayed as heroic by one faction of the Cameron family that is hard to take. Still, Lillian Gish went to her grave three months before what would have been her 100th birthday saying that Griffith wasn't a racist.

The naming of the Gish Theatre was in recognition of the Gish sisters' acting legend. Lillian Gish amiably parted with Griffith in 1925, spent the next sixty plus years in distinguished productions on film, in theatre and on TV that had nothing to do with him. Of course removing their name from the theatre because of Lillian's participation in the 1915 film is absurd. But then so is most of what goes on in the world today.
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Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

Post by Precious Doll »

Whilst one cannot deny the D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) is problematic in the extreme I really do not understand why they simply couldn't remove stills from the film and replace them with the stills on display from other films that Lillian Gish appeared in. And to change the name of a theatre based on one film she appeared seems rather extreme. My goodness, the film is over one hundred year old (I haven't seen it in 35 years and didn't like it when I did) and Gish herself is from a completely different era as was Griffith. And it is from history that we can learn mistakes of the past and we can use them to improve things for the future. Trying to erase aspects of the past does change that the film did and does exist.

I was unaware that the Director's Guild stripped Griffith of some lifetime achievement award. Will Gish be next?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/m ... inema-ohio

I'm also linking an article from The Blade because some of the comments are quiet interesting:

https://www.toledoblade.com/local/educa ... 0190503175

I'd be thinking about buying Birth of a Nation on Blu Ray to revisit it as it is pretty much the only major Griffith film I've seen that I didn't like and a second viewing will allow me to view it with more historical context but I must say that every second film I watch nowadays made more than 10 years ago has something in it that makes me cringe. For example the blackface performance in Yankee Doodle Dandee - and it shouldn't because historical it is an accurate portrayal of the times that it was set.
Last edited by Precious Doll on Sat May 11, 2019 6:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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