Hearts of the World

Representative of all the innocent HEARTS OF THE WORLD, two American families living in a picturesque French village experience the horror & devastation of the Great War.

This rarely seen film is the result of a somewhat surprising collaboration between the British government & genius American filmmaker D.W. Griffith. With the hideous World War still burning across Europe, the old men in Downing Street thought it would be well if filmed propaganda was produced which might help induce America into joining The Effort.

After his tremendous achievements with THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) & INTOLERANCE (1916), it was obvious that Griffith was the world's foremost cinematic director. A devout pacifist, he undertook the difficult challenge of turning battlefield horrors into a story suitable for the screen. That accomplished, Griffith actually took some of his cast & crew across the dangerous Atlantic to London (and a meeting with Prime Minister David Lloyd George) and then it was on to France for some quick filming at the front lines.

All of which proved unnecessary. Infuriated by Berlin's unrestricted use of submarine warfare, America declared war on Germany in April of 1917, months before HEARTS OF THE WORLD could be completed back in Hollywood.

While not as innovative or groundbreaking as its two celebrated predecessors, HEARTS OF THE WORLD can stand on its own merits. Filled with Griffith's special touches, its principle value exists in its revelation of his contemporaneous feelings about the War, even as the conflict still raged. He bestowed on it sequences as poignant and harrowing as any in his oeuvre. Who can forget Lillian Gish on her wedding day, driven mad by the bombardment, preparing to spend her bridal night alongside the corpse of her betrothed? Or the sight of three little boys secretly burying their dead mother in a cellar, so her body would not be disgraced by the enemy. Griffith assures scenes such as these are not easily banished from the viewer's memory.

Besides the numinous Miss Gish, appreciation should be extended to Bobby Harron as the film's stalwart hero; this fine young actor would die in 1920 of an accidental gunshot wound, not a suicide as is usually reported. Dorothy Gish plays a feisty, comedic role, giving the film a light touch at welcome intervals. Josephine Crowell & Kate Bruce are memorable as the two tragic mothers, both victims of the war.

Also appearing are a couple of stars in embryo: a young Sir Noël Coward is the extra pushing the wheelbarrow containing Miss Lillian's luggage in her first scene. Technical Supervisor Erich von Stroheim is easily recognizable as a bald German officer; he would eventually dominate Hollywood's silent films of the 1920's, using the full force of his own, rather bizarre, genius.

Special appreciation should be paid to the splendid cinematography of Billy Bitzer, who performed yeoman service for Griffith in several of his epics.

A scene in the Anne book, Rilla of Ingleside, had a mention of the principal characters going to see this movie in 1918, in a theater in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

This is a superb telling of war and how it affects the "common people." It begins with life in a small French village and how people go about their daily lives. This is the story of two Americans (Lillian Gish and Robert Harron) who meet and fall in love. But during their courtship Lillian's sister (Dorothy) takes a liking to Robert (called The Boy on the movie title cards) and tries to take him which leads to some interesting scenes. She finally realizes she can't have him and decides to take what she can have.

There are good action battle scenes that very well show the chaos that is a battle. Chaos reigns supreme again when the town is bombed and the citizens have to flee. They have to try and pack then get out and still survive the bombing. Then there are those that don't want to leave. The movie does a good job of showing the horrors of death and the impact that has on people.

War is about people. We tend to forget that (today's news refers to the impact on non-soldiers as 'collateral damage'). D.W. Griffith shows that impact. And yet, when it is over, how quickly we again look for the bright side of life and that is how it should be.

One of the great features of this film is the limited use of title cards. They are used mostly as background filler and very little for conversations (much like Sunrise). Yet you know what is going on and the emotions of the moment. There is nothing mechanical about the acting. 8/10

I just returned from a screening of Hearts of the World at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This screening showed a restored version of the film with live piano accompaniment by the brilliant pianist, Donald Sosin. The film itself was quite spectacular but it was made even more so by the incredible artistry of Donald Sosin. He played for the entire 2 1/2 hours, without a break, and with just a few notated markings. He presented a very operatic treatment of the story, which suited the plot perfectly. I was fascinated by his ability to improvise many musical themes and leitmotivs-all with such great flare and virtuosity. I must admit that these silent films can have very fragile plots but with the right kind of music accompanying them, they take on real substance and even nuance. MOMA should be congratulated for taking silent films so seriously and making sure that they all receive live musical accompaniment

What we have here is one of the first generation of propaganda pictures. A few of these appeared in the final years of the First World War, after the US had joined the conflict and just as young Hollywood was beginning to realise the influential power of its medium. This was a war in which nineteenth century pomp and nationalism combined with twentieth century military technology, and as such it was sold with an aggressive and hypocritical zeal.

Hearts of the World happens to be directed by DW Griffith, who had probably done more than anyone else to make the industry what it now was. It appears however that the soft-hearted humanitarian didn't quite have it in him to be a gung-ho warmonger. On the one hand he does make the Germans out to be a bunch of barbaric would-be rapists, but this is actually a fairly restrained portrayal compared to your average recruitment poster of the time, as well as many other movies on other subjects – check out for example the super-ugly anarchist in 1928 white Russian film Tempest. Griffith even seems to be working in a message of sympathy, throwing us some near identical close-ups of a German soldier and Bobby Haron in the first battle scene. And rather than getting us all excited about the business of killing people, Griffith focuses much more on the possibilities of peace and safe homecoming. This is in fact laid on a little too heavily in the early intertitles, the street on which the characters live being called Rue de la Paix (Road of Peace), and a title pointing out that the goslings Lillian Gish fondles are "harmless". Griffith would have been better off relying upon the strength of his images.

And the images here are strong as always. Griffith's scenes of rural idyll are a far more succinct evocation of peace and happiness than his words. A particularly beautiful moment typical of the director is when Gish and Haron meet by the wall of his house, with the actress neatly framed amid ivy creepers like a little portrait. Griffith employs some of his oldest cinematic tricks, for example having villainous George Siegmann walking towards us, showing his actions and mannerisms as he approaches, and finally giving us a menacing close-up as he brushes past the camera, all within one shot. As always one of the director's greatest strengths is the way in which he orchestrates a sequence. Take for example the point at which war is declared and the men go off to fight. We get some busy and intense shots of soldiers marching off and tearful goodbyes, cutting dynamically from one vignette to another. The whole thing ends however with a slow and simple shot of Gish putting away her wedding dress, a poignant ritardando to the frenzy that went before it.

This is one of a handful of features in which both the Gish sisters Lillian and Dorothy appeared. As was usually the case, younger sister Dorothy plays a comical secondary character, alongside a comical secondary actor (Robert Anderson) to form a comical secondary romantic story. She spends most of this picture huffing indignantly and waddling around. It's not a very funny act. Even Lillian is not especially good in this one, her performance being largely wide-eyed innocence or wild hysterics. This was a problem in Broken Blossoms (1919) too, and I think it has a lot to do with her being put into girlish roles that were beneath her. In the early 1910s Griffith seemed to be wanting the actress to grow up quick, putting her in very mature roles in Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Mothering Heart. Perhaps influenced by the more popular Mary Pickford, who had around this time rather disturbingly reverted to child roles, Gish went through a phase of playing it young and cutesy. It didn't suit her, and the poor characterisation really harms this picture.

Hearts of the World is, in an odd kind of way, everything that the typical wartime propaganda picture is – naïve, formulaic and painfully idealistic. But it has also has the propaganda movie's capacity for well-made action sequences, and these are among the pictures few saving graces. Griffith has not lost his touch at putting together a rousing finale, mixing the big canvas (explosions, hordes of soldiers) with the small (Haron's little brothers sheltering together from the melee) in a cross-cutting extravaganza. The story may be a little weaker this time round, as Griffith's stories increasingly would be, but the pioneering director has lost none of his ability to move and excite with the power of his images.