Broken Blossoms
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Broken Blossoms is a 1919 film directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The film paints an intimate portrait of Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess), a kind hearted Chinese man, and his love for a poor abused girl named Lucy (Lillian Gish).
Plot
Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) leaves his native China to spread the word of the Buddha in the western world. His optimism fades as he is faced with the brutal reality of London’s gritty innercity. However, his mission is realized in his devotion to the “broken blossom” Lucy Burrows (Lillian Gish), the unwanted and abused child of boxer Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp).
After being beaten and discarded one evening by her raging father, Lucy finds sanctuary in Cheng’s home, the beautiful and exotic room above his shop. As Cheng nurses Lucy back to health, the two form a romantic bond as two unwanted outcasts of society. All goes astray for the young lovers when Lucy’s father gets wind of his daughters’ whereabouts and in a drunken rage drags her back to their home to punish her. Fearing for her life Lucy locks herself inside a closet to escape her contemptuous father.
By the time Cheng arrives to rescue his beloved, it is too late. Lucy’s lifeless body lies on her modest bed as Battling has a drink in the other room. As Cheng gazes at Lucy’s youthful face which, in spite of the circumstances, beams with innocence and even the slightest hint of a smile, Battling enters the room to make his escape. The two stand for a long while, exchanging spiteful glances, until Battling lunges for Cheng with a hatchet, who returns the sentiment by shooting Burrows repeatedly with his handgun. After returning to his home with Lucy’s body, Cheng builds a shrine to Buddha and takes his own life with a knife to the stomach.
Background and style
Unlike Griffith’s more extravagant earlier works like Birth of a Nation or Intolerance, Broken Blossoms is a small-scale film that uses controlled studio environments to create a more intimate effect.
The film was adapted from “The Chink and the Girl”, a story from Thomas Burke’s Limehouse Nights. Griffith came upon the story by way of actress Mary Pickford who saw the similarities between Griffith’s and Burk’s artistic style (Schickel, 189). Preliminary work on the film began in November of 1918, and production ran smoothly (Williams, 109); the limited action and entirely indoor execution made for a rapid principal shooting of only eighteen days (Barry, 28). The six weeks of rehearsal time allowed Gish and Barthelmess to explore their characters and develop a relationship (Schickel, 391). Griffiths was known for his willingness to collaborate with his actors and on many occasions join them in research outings (Williams 112; Schickel, 391).
The visual style of Broken Blossoms emphasises the seedy Limehouse streets with their dark shadows, drug addicts and drunkards, contrasting them with the beauty of Cheng and Lucy’s love as expressed by Cheng’s decorative apartment. Conversely, the Burrows' bare cell reeks of oppression and hostility. Richard Schickel goes so far as 5to credit theis gritty realism with inspring “the likes of Pabst, Stiller, von Sternberg, and others, [and then] re-emerging in the United States in the sound era, in the genre identified as Film Noir" (Schickel, 394).
Reception
Broken Blossoms premiered in May, 1919, at the George M. Cohen Theatre in New York City as part of the D.W. Griffith Repertory Season (Barry, 29). According to Lillian Gish's autobiography, theaters were decorated with flowers, moon lanterns and beautiful Chinese brocaded draperies for the premiere. Critics and audiences were pleased with Griffith’s follow-up film to his 1916 epic Intolerance (O’Dell 127). Contrasting with Intolerance’s grand story, set and length, Griffith charmed audiences by the delicacy with which Broken Blossom’s handled such a complex subject.
- “ Reviewers found it ‘Surprising in its simplicity’…the acting seemed nine days’ wonder -no one talked of anything but Lillian’s smile, Lillian turned like a tormented animal in a trap, of Barthelmess’ convincing restraint. Few pictures have enjoyed greater or more lasting succes d’estime.” (Barry 28).
Themes
At the time of Broken Blossoms' release the world was coming to terms with life following the worst war in history to date. The film's overwhelming theme of tolerance amongst the people of the world is echoed in many of Griffiths amendments to Burke’s original story. Burke’s sordid oriental character starts out as just a young Shanghai drifter pressed into naval service, and ends up vegetating in Limehouse amid opium dens and whorehouses; but in the film, Cheng is a Buddhist missionary whose initial goal is to spread the word of Buddha and peace (although he's also shown frequenting opium dens when he's depressed). Even at his lowest point, he still prevents his gambling companions from fighting.Griffith also makes a blatant reference to the horrors of war when a police officer reading the newspaper (just before learning of the main characters demise) remarks “Better than last week, only 40,000 casualties.”, referring to the death-count of soldiers fighting in World War I (Schickel).
Cruelty and injustice against the innocent are a recurring theme in Griffith's films and are graphically portrayed here. The introductory card says, "We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking the helpless with brutal whip - but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning."
The explicit scenes of child abuse nauseated backers when Griffith gave them a preview of the film; according to Lillian Gish in interviews, one of them left the room to vomit. She said Griffith himself was sickened while directing her in the closet scene.
The 'closet scene'
The most-discussed scene in Broken Blossoms is Lillian Gish’s “closet” scene. Here Gish performs Lucy's horror by writhing in the claustrophobic space like a tortured animal who knows there is no escape (Schickel 392). There is more then one anecdote about the filming of the “closet” scene, Richard Schickel writes:
- “It is heartbreaking – yet for the most part quite delicately controlled by the actress. Barthelmess reports that her hysteria was induced by Griffith’s taunting of her. Gish, on her part, claims that she improvised the child’s tortured movements on the spot and that when she finished the scene there was a hush on stage, broken finally by Griffith’s exclamation, ‘My god, why didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?’” (392).
External links
- Burke, Thomas. [The Chink and the Child.]
- [In-depth analysis of Broken Blossoms at filmsite.org]
References
- Barry, Iris. "D.W. Griffith: American Film Master." New York: Museum of Modern Art Press, 2002. ISBN 0870706837.
- O’Dell, Paul. "Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood." Manchester: Castle Books, 1970. ISBN 0498077187.
- Schickel, Richard. "D.W. Griffith: an American Film Life." New York: Proscenium Publishers Inc, 1984. ISBN 087910080X.
- Simmon, Scott. "The Films of D.W. Griffith." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521388201.
- Williams, Martin. "Griffith: First Artist of the Movies." Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1980. ISBN 0195026853.
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