Directed by: DW Griffith
Written by: Thomas Burke & DW Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp
I had some reservations about Broken Blossoms during the intro credits as one of the main characters was called 'The Yellow Man'. The film starts off in China, and while it casts Asian actors to play Asian people, I was unsure of The Yellow Man. At times he looked Asian, and at times he looked like a Caucasian playing an Asian. He's also referred to as a "chink" after moving to Limestone, in London. Even Lucy, the girl he nurses back to health says to him, "Why are you so good to me chinky?". I was shocked by how casually the slur was thrown around. Especially because The Yellow Man is technically the hero of the story, and the film sympathises with him. Perhaps "chink" was not a slur in 1919, or perhaps racism was less of an issue for audiences.
A point of interest in regards to this idea is that when Battling Burrows discovers that Lucy has been staying with The Yellow Man (Burrows is a drunken lout of a boxer who found Lucy as a baby and has been raising and terrorising her), the film tells us that there is nothing he hates more than people who weren't born in his country. This reads to me as motivation for him to assault The Yellow Man rather than getting the audience to sympathise with the villain in any way. Although I felt that his anger towards Lucy at the end of the film was because he thought they had slept together and he had sullied her, rather than him just hating foreigners.
This is the third movie by DW Griffith I have seen (The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance being the other two), and I have a general feeling of his aesthetic as a filmmaker. His inter-titles have a poetry to them. He names characters after archetypes or characteristics and uses the text to talk about their yearning or internal motivations. Broken Blossoms helped me see one of the strengths of silent film. Using the inter-titles, you can set up a scene with the emotion and action you are after and then let the moving image pay off what you have set up. What the actors are saying to each other doesn't matter because the audience knows what is supposed to be happening. The tragedy of this story is amplified by how lovingly Griffith talks about these characters as the events are playing out. It also helps that the cinematography is excellent in capturing the emotions of our main three characters and the interactions between them.
Donald Crisp who plays Battling Burrows is a magnetic screen presence. His rage is palpable. You would think a boxer would be able to get rid of his pent up aggression, but no, Lucy faces the brunt of it, even after a match. She lives in constant terror that this man will kill her, and sadly that's exactly what ends up happening. That The Yellow Man kills Burrows almost means nothing because the horrible death of Lucy has already happened, and a swift death for Burrows doesn't feel like justice. Even worse, before the police arrive, The Yellow Man commits suicide next to the body of Lucy, who he loves. The film ends and makes one wonder what was it all for?
Is it meant to show us just how unfair life is for so many people? How even someone with such beauty, or a man trained for peace in the ways of the Buddha can be knocked around by fate and meet a sad and untimely end? Is it showing the horrors of abuse and racism? Is it meant to show that even through tragedy love between two unlikely people can blossom? There's a line in the film about The Yellow Man's love being so innocent and pure that even his enemies have to admit to it. Is it a film about naivety? The Yellow Man seems to be adrift in life, having lost his way after moving to Limestone. Lucy is a teenager and has nothing that brings her joy. Burrows despite being a good boxer is nothing but a personification of rage and terror. I wanted to cheer for Lucy and The Yellow Man but it's not like they have a relationship so I don't see comparisons to Romeo & Juliet and the idea of star-crossed lovers. When the film ended I was shocked and saddened by the outcome.
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more confused I am about what Broken Blossoms is actually trying to say.
Personal enjoyment: ★★★
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