D. W. Griffith - Legacy

Legacy

Motion picture legend Charles Chaplin called Griffith "The Teacher of us All". This sentiment was widely shared. Filmmakers as diverse as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock Orson Welles, Lev Kuleshov Jean Renoir Cecil B. DeMille King Vidor Carl Theodor Dreyer and Sergei Eisenstein have spoken of their respect for the director of Intolerance. Orson Welles said "I have never really hated Hollywood except for its treatment of D. W. Griffith. No town, no industry, no profession, no art form owes so much to a single man."

Griffith seems to have been the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his The Birth of a Nation (1915). His early shorts, such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), the first "gangster film," show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood and tension. In making Intolerance, the director opened up new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to traditional narrative.

• In 1953, the Directors Guild of America instituted the D. W. Griffith Award, its highest honor.
• 1975, Griffith was honored on a ten-cent postage stamp by the United States.
• On December 15, 1999, DGA President Jack Shea and the DGA National Board announced that the award would be renamed as the "DGA Lifetime Achievement Award." Although Griffith was extremely talented, they felt his film The Birth of a Nation had "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes," and that it was better not to have the top award in his name.

• In 2008 the Hollywood Heritage Museum hosted a screening of Griffith's earliest films, to commemorate the centennial since his start in film.
• On January 22, 2009 the Oldham History Center in La Grange, Kentucky opened a 15 seat theatre in Griffith's honor. The theatre features a library of available Griffith films.