Firstly, this is 1909, exactly sixty years since Poe’s untimely death. This film is no further away from that event than we are from the deaths of, say, Eddie Cochran, or Buddy Holly. One of the actresses in the film (Clara T Bracy) was born in 1848, when Poe was very much alive. The past, though superficially unfamiliar, is not so far away as we may think.
Secondly, of course, this is D.W. Griffith. I’ve blogged a fair number of silent films by now but, yes, I’ve been avoiding him. The thing is, I realise he’s famous for being an innovator in film techniques. But he’s also well known for being incredibly racist in ways which caused real harm. And we’re not discussing his work being racist in the way we’d criticise something like, say, the brownface in Short Circuit. No: Birth of a Nation isn’t merely a racist film but actually caused the revival of the then-defunct Ku Klux Klan, causing decades of unspeakable terrorist violence. Arguably no film ever made has done more damage to the world and it’s unlikely I will ever choose to blog it. Even Triumph of the Will can at least claim not to be the direct cause of the evils it was documenting.
So Griffith is a problem, and a figure I regard with some wariness. I’m conscious I’ve chosen to watch a film of his with “safe” subject matter, meaning it doesn’t feature or mention anyone who doesn’t happen to be white. So I can say that, yes, the acting style is big, stages and melodramatic and yes, it’s just cameras pointed at a theatrical set. But the story is told with admirable clarity and there are some nice touches- the bored writer in the foreground at the publisher while Poe is rejected in the background is a delightful way of showing us how unappreciated he was.
This is, yes, a superior example of cinema for its time. But, I’m afraid, the name of its director carries a stench that infects all it touches.
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