Broken Blossoms

1919

Drama / Romance

Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 95% · 22 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 71% · 2.5K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 11729 11.7K

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Director

D.W. Griffith Photo
D.W. Griffith

Top cast

Lillian Gish Photo
Lillian Gish as Lucy - The Girl
Donald Crisp Photo
Donald Crisp as Battling Burrows
Richard Barthelmess Photo
Richard Barthelmess as Cheng Huan - The Yellow Man
Norman Selby Photo
Norman Selby as A Prizefighter

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Steffi_P 6 / 10

"With perhaps a whiff of the lilied pipe still in his brain"

After Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, this is probably DW Griffith's third best-known feature. This is perhaps in part because it conveniently counters the appalling racism of Birth, with its positive of portrayal of mixed-race relationships and condemnation of xenophobia. It is also among his shorter features and therefore easier to digest than those earlier epics. Unfortunately though it is not of the same high calibre as his mid-1910s successes.Although he had lead the way in the first half of the decade, by this point Griffith had been overtaken by younger talent, many of whom had been his students, and his work was already looking increasingly old-fashioned. However Griffith had not lost his own talent, and in its favour I will say Broken Blossoms has one of the most convincingly bleak portrayals of a setting in any film of this time. In the Spartan street scenes you can almost feel the cold and the sense of collective misery, while the cluttered interiors perfectly evoke poverty and squalor. Here and there he even adopts the low-key lighting patterns pioneered by Cecil B. DeMille. In contrast, when required Griffith will hit us with an image of great beauty and delicacy, such as his shot of Lillian Gish curled up on the shop floor. In this way he uses visual style to bring out the theme of the picture – rays of beauty amidst darkness and suffering.Where Broken Blossoms looks particularly dated however is in the acting style of the three leads. In contrast to the realism of the sets and many of the extras, Gish, Bathelmess and Crisp are nothing but hammy stereotypes, grimacing and waving their arms about like the supporting cast of a Keystone comedy. These performances, along with daft little devices such as Gish holding her smile up with her fingers, completely rob the film of its dignity. In its defence, it is possible Griffith had some method in encouraging such overacting – Gish's performance is toned down in her scenes with Bathlemess, suggesting her character is only her natural self when she is with him. Crisp too is at his most exaggerated when his is with Gish, as if his outbursts of anger towards her make him an animal. Still, this isn't really enough to counter the three of them putting on a ridiculous pantomime show the rest of the time.As a side note, it has been suggested that Griffith never used a point-of-view shot in his entire career. In fact, by 1919 they were fairly commonplace and while Griffith may have had trouble keeping up with the times there are a few of them in Broken Blossoms. When Bathelmess watches Gish from inside his shop, we see her framed in the window as he sees her, portrayed at her most beautiful and dignified. It is of great importance to the story that we experience his impression of her, and it shows again that in spite of everything Griffith was willing and able to utilise up-to-date cinematic technique.Broken Blossoms is no exception to the tried-and-tested formula of Griffith features, and as can be expected finishes with a climactic ride-to-the-rescue. The actual "ride" itself is a bit lacklustre here, but Griffith instead concentrates on his other favourite suspense scenario – the "sealed room". The device of a young woman trapped inside a room while some menacing man threatens her from outside goes back to Griffith's earliest shorts, and the version here is one of his best. Rather than framing Gish in the usual three-quarters shot in a full-size room as he had done in many Biograph shorts, Griffith instead squeezes her and the camera into a cramped cupboard, involving the audience in the sense of claustrophobia. The only downside to this sequence is that Donald Crisp clearly doesn't know how to use an axe properly.On balance, Broken Blossoms is not a terrible picture, but it is certainly among Griffith's weaker features. Some might say that it has to be considered a product of its time, but check out the sophistication of, say, DeMille's Male and Female, or Chaplin's First National shorts of the same year, and it's clear this is no valid defence. Broken Blossoms may have its moments, but it's no masterpiece.
Reviewed by TheLittleSongbird 8 / 10

Blossoms beautifully and far from broken

The more that has been seen of DW Griffith's (almost all of them seen being very good to masterpiece, caring not only for 'The Birth of a Nation'), the more interesting he and his work have become to me. He may not be one of my favourite ever directors, but he is one of the most innovative and influential silent film directors. Also have loved Lillian Gish more and more with each film seen of hers, again more to see but no other silent film actress was as expressive as her and so movingly.'Broken Blossoms' has been hailed as one of Griffith's best by many. Personally don't quite agree and do slightly prefer 'Orphans of the Storm' and 'Intolerance' as far as his feature films go ('Way Down East' needs a re-watch but remember thinking highly of that too). 'Broken Blossoms' is still extremely good and almost is one of his best, considering how many good things it has and how brilliantly the film executes them. It is interesting for being his most expensive film, or at least one of them, and perhaps his most ambitious in terms of characterisation.Despite there being so many fine things, there are drawbacks. 'Broken Blossoms' is a very rare case of Donald Crisp being the worst thing in any of his flms, when he usually is one of the best and a redeeming merits in his not so great films. Here he is made to uncharacteristically overact wildly and it jars with everything else, it was like watching a different Donald Crisp.Also felt that the music didn't gel with the setting or the mood, the film needed a more understated score that one not as over-emphatic.Conversely, it is truly hard to believe that 'Broken Blossoms' was only shot in eighteen days, when it looks so much better than a lot of films that took much longer to make (sorry if that sounds cliched, but it had to be said). It was an expensive production and it absolutely shows, especially in the quite stunning photography with inventive and quite advanced techniques not heavy on gimmicks, such as revolutionary use of tinted film stock. Griffith's direction is some of his most technically advanced and accomplished, while not having a "biting off more than he can chew" feel. The studio sets don't look like studio sets at all and the misty atmosphere and seediness can be felt, the expense obvious.Story is a very poignant and human one, with one of 'Broken Blossoms' biggest selling points being the delicately handled and beautifully developed central relationship, that has so much heart and emotion. The characterisation is some of the most complex of any Griffith film, perrhaps the most ambitious, with two compellingly real lead characters. Despite the unintentionally bizarre way he's made up, which some have also found distasteful, that doesn't stop Richard Barthelmess from giving a nobly sensitive performance. Even better is the always wonderful Gish showing perfectly why she was a Griffith prolific leading lady for very good reason. Not many silent film stars at the time did pathos as expressively and movingly as Gish.In summary, very good and very nearly great despite a disappointing Crisp and jarring score. 8/10
Reviewed by PCC0921 8 / 10

Griffith Makes a Course Correction.

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
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