Review of Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919) by Daniel K — 07 Jan 2009

This is the start of the end for Griffith. After scaling artistic heights with the masterpieces 'The Birth of a Nation' and 'Intolerance', and affecting both sides of the box office coin, he finally washed his hands of the epic and concentrated on smaller, more personal stories. This is where Griffith meets his undoing.

With his epics, Griffith could slip in his Victorian sensibilities under our noses whilst aweing us with astounding set-pieces and editing techniques that still impress even 90+ years on. But with these smaller stories, Griffith goes back to his roots as a film maker by picking out these dime-store melodramas and attempting to elavte them to the same Olympian status as his genuine masterpieces. Put simply: it doesn't work.

Still not quite in the clear after the white supremacism championed in 'Birth', Griffith tries to persuade us again that he's colour-blind, but he does it in a very ambiguous way. Richard Barthelmess' 'Yellow Man' appears to be an entirely racist creation, but actually holds a surprising amount of dignity. He's kind, helpful and caring, and, as most people seem to forget, he's the story's hero. Mirroring Christian missionaries who sailed to China hoping to singlehandedly convert almost a billion people, so the Yellow Man comes to Britain trying to spread his words of peace, only to fall on depressingly accurate deaf ears. Yes Barthelmess' performance is composed of racial stereotypes, but for the most part it's one of restrained manner and only once does he succumb to the hysterical emoting audiences of the day seemed to crave.

His romance with Gish's 'Lucy' is also a major breakthrough, since Lucy herself doesn't reject the Man's subtle, poignant advances. In her miserable existence she manages to find real solace in the calmness and tenderness of her Eastern friend.

Kudos to Griffith for also shooting part of the film in a recreated Chinese set. For most people of the time this was the first time they had seen a Chinese community as close to real life as possible, which must have been a wondrous cultural experience. It looks a bit hokey nowadays but still has nothing offensive in the frame.

One real joy is Donald Crisp as juggernaut 'Battling Burrows'. Built out of bricks it seems and with a head the size of a crate and inch thick eyebrows he makes for a convincing East End nutcase. A large element of his performance may be caricature but there's no doubting his intensely threatening presence. As for Lillian Gish, she gets a decently meatier role than her epic damsels and now, with the spotlight firmly on her, she can show off her more hefty acting ability. With a Marilyn Monroe-like skill to inexplicably look younger as she gets older her tiny little creature is one of immense pity, made all the more powerful by her genuinely astonishing beauty. 'Lucy' may be a bit thin and vague, but she's still one of cinema's poorest victims, fleshed out by a joyously professional performance.

So where do we stand at the end of the day? Griffith has given us a very mixed-bag in terms of racial representation, but at least the amount of talent in front of the camera makes the proceedings interesting and, at times, emotionally moving. A curious melodrama, one of a breed dated even in its day, where wild escapism was preferred over the growing angst and darkness about to swirl into the Cinema of Shadows.