The Griffith Project: Essays on D.W. Griffith (12)

Usai, Paolo Cherchi; Rowell, Cnythia

ISBN 10: 1844572684 / ISBN 13: 9781844572687

Published by British Film Inst, 2008

About this Item

In a hardcover with cream spine and cream and dark blue boards, gilt titles to spine and front, there is an ISBN label to the bottom of the back. No dust jacket. 215 pp. with a number of black and white photographs. The book is in as new condition. the cover is free of shelf-wear, the binding is tight and the pages clean and unmarked.

Seller Inventory # 912837

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Griffith Project: Essays on D.W. Griffith (12)
• Publisher: British Film Inst
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844572684
• ISBN 13: 9781844572687
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

In early 1996, an international group of 35 specialists in silent cinema volunteered to write commentaries on more than six hundred films directed, written, produced and supervised by D.W. Griffith – or featuring him as a performer – for the eleven-volume series The Griffith Project, the largest monograph ever assembled on an individual film director, in conjunction with the massive retrospective held at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival from 1996 to 2008. All authors involved in The Griffith Project were bound to strict editorial rules, most notably the fact that all titles in the series would be assigned to them in pre-determined groups rather than as a result of their own individual preference for this or that specific entry.

The patience and commitment demonstrated by all scholars in this endeavor requires at least a symbolic recognition. We therefore invited the members of the project team to write an essay on a (D.W. Griffith-related) topic of their own choice. The papers included in this volume constitute the response to our carte blanche invitation. Our offer was also extended to other experts on D.W. Griffith who, for various reasons, were unable to participate in The Griffith Project but consistently supported it with their generous advice and insight.

This volume brings The Griffith Project to completion, as 2008 sees the last installment of the D.W. Griffith program at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival with the screening of his films produced between 1925 and 1931. Not surprisingly, twelve years of research on D.W. Griffith have unearthed an impressive wealth of knowledge but also an equally amazing array of new questions, certainly enough of them to fill several more volumes. Some of them (including the increasingly complex issue of D.W. Griffith’s role as production supervisor) are only introduced or barely mentioned here, but we are confident that what we have called the “Griffith Project” will continue – at the Giornate and elsewhere – with more research and newly found or preserved prints.

About the Author

PAOLO CHERCHI USAI is Director of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. He is co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House (Rochester, New York). He directed the experimental feature film Passio (2007). His latest book is David Wark Griffith (Editrice Il Castoro, 2008).