Broken Blossoms

D.W.Griffith returns for another one and it would appear that he was still fighting with the demons left over from A Birth of a Nation (1915). He again tried to deal with the fires of racism, but this time with a love story and another appearance by Lillian Gish, in Broken Blossoms (1919). This film's title is actually "Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl". "Yellow Man" refers to the Asian man, Cheng Huan, who falls in love with Gish's Lucy. Right off the bat we get exposed to old time racist terms. The "C" word makes an appearance too. But, Griffith does use this film as a tool to teach a lesson to those who are evil or just plain bad.

It covers a lot of domestic/controversial issues, such as, interracial relationships, child abuse, racism and bullying. It is a hope that this film was the first stepping stone to finding tolerance in the world. It also is a telling lesson about, no matter how civilized you are, you can still do a lot of wrong. Huan (Barthelmess), leaves his homeland to go to England to spread the wisdom of the Buddha to the West and the Anglo-Saxons. It is the biggest mistake he would make in his life. It is a telling story about how the good guy finishes last. The man who comes to the civilized world to try and help make those people better, finds out that he is in the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing but torment befalls him.

Huan assigns himself the job to look after a young woman (Gish), who is terrorized and beaten by her boxer father (Crisp), on a daily basis. Huan has to deal with snitches and liars who align themselves with the evil boxer and in the end finds himself falling into the same dark abyss that he tried to teach others to stay away from. This is an amazing story and has been told many times since, but being that this is a pioneering effort, makes it all the more powerful. True, there are parts that are slow and even boring, but it is that tense situation that starts to build and build until the terrifying and sad end.

8.1 (B MyGrade) = 8 IMDB

This has been one of my all-time favourite films since I taped it off UK Channel 4 1st October 1988 on its second showing, one to savour and revel in every few years. There really is no choice: the only version worth seeing is this one, the Brownlow & Gill UK remaster with Louis F. Gottchalk's themes lushly orchestrated by David Cullen and Carl Davis and the Thames Silents Orchestra. From a good silent film Broken Blossoms is beautifully transformed into a work of Art, the merger of the music and Billy Bitzer's visuals can be so striking. And the intelligent tinting was gorgeous too. Over the years I've even played it just for the music sometimes!

The story? Depressed Chinese ex-missionary in London falls under the spell of listless poverty-stricken beautiful white 15 yo daughter of violent boxer. The crafty and base whites think the worst, but we know that the yellow man's love remained pure - even his worst foe says this ... I know that most people today would hoot at the acting abilities displayed: Lillian Gish's pathetic submissiveness, Donald Crisp's over the top savage expressions and Richard Barthelmess's determinedly serious inscrutability, but appreciation of silent melodramas as a genre is really required rather than simply selecting just one film to watch, such as this. And then again some people have to get over a white man playing a Chinese man whilst simultaneously approving of miscegenation in these much more enlightened times! Would these same people be bothered if a Chinese played a white man? Along with Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, this was Griffiths' best work, pinnacles of the cinema.

Utterly spellbinding poetic stuff for the enlightened, dreadful if your favourites are cgi-riddled and no older than 6 months. And don't expect a remotely happy ending! The beauty that all the world missed smote him to the heart (paraphrase).

"In this scarlet house of sin, does he ever hear the temple bells?" Broken Blossoms is the movie I use to introduce people to silent film who only know it from Chaplin shorts or Birth of a Nation. It is one of the most sensitive movies ever made, in my opinion, and is usually overlooked in any top 100 movie listing. I fear the oversight is due to the listers not having actually seen it.

The version I have--which is now sadly out of print--is the Thames Video version with Lillian Gish's introduction. It is also the one with the original Louis Gotshalk score, pieces of which are sometimes heard on other versions, but the impact of the full orchestral Gotshalk score is overwhelming on an already exquisite film. If you have a chance to see this version, by all means do so.

In answer to a question in another posting, the movie WAS originally tinted--it was part of the "epic poetry" attempt and was quite common with a lot of Griffith work--even back to "A Corner in Wheat".

While I am an immense Gish fan, a lot has already been said about Miss Lillian in the other comments, so I will concentrate on Dick Bartlemess as Chen Huan. The quote above accompanied by his sad look as he leans against the wall of his curio shop tell it all: wrecked youthful enthusiasm--his despair only temporarily abated by the "pipe" in the Limehouse opium dens. His dreams of youth, all packed away in his garret, are only brought out when the one thing that gives him hope that is goodness amidst all the squalor stumbles into his shop.

Only after Lucy arrives can Chen Huan allow himself to dream--to return to golden days of learning, beauty and goodness and ideals. He literally places his dreams of his lost youth on the trembling body of Lucy, but it such a pristine ideal he dare not "defame" it, or it too will disappear like all his other dreams. He must observe it from afar--almost ephemeral. He knows what Hell is like (even before he was shown the booklet by the Christian Brothers). His hell is his lost heart, his lost love. "Bits and pieces of his shattered life." Almost invariably when I find someone to share the movie with me, they are amazed how well it is made and how well it's core story stands up to today. The particulars of Chinese, Cockney and London are not the point; it is a story of hope and despair, of lovers and dreamers. A mature story for a mature audience.

I often wonder if it could be made today. As open as we think we are, I wonder if the basic story could be told again. No matter--it's been told--excellently

It is rather interesting to compare the silent D.W. Griffith BROKEN BLOSSOMS with its inspiration: the 1916 Thomas Burke short story The Chink And The Child, published in Limehouse Nights (Grant Richards Limited, London). Griffith has deliberately left out, added and changed parts of the story in his film. When Burke's collection of Limehouse stories was published it was feared that the book would be barred by the censor. Recently books by Vere Stacpoole (The Blue Lagoon) and D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow) has been suppressed, as 'frankness in fiction was frowned upon...' (John Gawsworth - Foreword to: The Best Stories of Thomas Burke, Phoenix House, London, 1950). There were enough worrying themes in the story: its sadism, the utterly impossible interracial love affair and the girl's youth. In Burke's story Lucy is found in an opium joint, where a prostitute has taken her to make a profit out of the virgin. Cheng rescues the 'alabaster Cockney child' - she is only twelve - to bring her '...love and death.' Burke's poetic prose is not always graphic: «He took her hand and kissed it; repeated the kiss upon her cheek and lip and little bosom, twining his fingers in her hair. Docilely, and echoing the smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled him almost to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly. ... And she was his; her sweet self and her prattle, and her birdlike ways were all his own. Oh, beautifully they loved. ...» Nevertheless elsewhere Burke clarifies the nature of their relation as « It may be that he forgot that he was in London and not in Tuan-tsen. It may be that he did not care. Of that nothing can be told. All that is known is that his love was a pure and holy thing.» Griffith's additions vary from Lucy's artificial smile to Cheng's religious mission. The Christian missionary is also Griffith's invention. He has a dig at Western Christian morality sending missionaries around the world while there's still enough to be done in Battling Burrows's own home town. Near the end Cheng kills Battling Burrows with a handgun as in any American western. In Burke's London Limehouse nights a snake deals with Battling Burrows. Was such a venomous revenge not personal enough to Griffith's American taste?

The subjects this film deals with are ugly, but the whole thing is done in a beautiful way.

Subjects dealt with are racism, poverty and the reasons why.

The way Griffith deals with these subjects is the contrasts settings. Look at the room above the Chinaman's shop: opulent, festooned with the finest oriental silk. Compare that with the stark squalor of the abode of Lucy and her bruiser of a father. Then there is the education and sophistication of the orientals compared to the simplistic, ill-thought-out racial prejudice of Battling and his cronies.

I also enjoyed the boxing match. Very realistic - not the fantastic nonsense of your Rocky-type bout where a man all but beaten to a jelly suddenly pulls some heavy punches from nowhere and wins the fight.

The acting, as has been mentioned elsewhere, is terrific from all three of the principal characters. Also, their characters are well-drawn. Even Battling Burrows - complete with cauliflower ear - is more than a mere heavy: he boxes for a living, he drinks, he lives in a slum with few worldly possessions. Why?

I find it hard to believe that the films they make nowadays are nowhere near as good as this. Whatever happened to progress?

This film spawned the famous song "Limehouse Blues."