Broken Blossoms (1919) is director D. W. Griffith's most tragic, serious, poetic, intricate, and melodramatic film. Griffith, considered the first master of feature film directors, made this powerful screen masterpiece. This silent film tells the story of a mystical, fragile romance in London's foggy slums between a young, gentle, opium-addicted Chinese man (Cheng Huan) and an illegitimate Cockney waif (Lillian Gish), who is abused and ultimately killed by her brutish, bigoted prize-fighting father. The purest dreams of the couple, both 'broken blossoms', are destroyed by sordid reality of racism. [The film's tale, in part, inspired director Federico Fellini's classic drama La Strada (1954) with three similar character roles.]
Its small-scale, fragile and sensitive nature was a surprise to audiences, because this soft-focus, ethereal film was a sharp contrast to Griffith's earlier epic films (all with Lillian Gish in varying roles) – the controversial blockbuster and monumental The Birth of a Nation (1915), the spectacular Intolerance (1916) and his extravagant World War I film shot on location in France and England, Hearts of the World (1918).
The film was adapted from a story taken from Thomas Burke's book Limehouse Nights. Lillian Gish's unforgettable performance brought intense critical acclaim to the film, although its main subject areas include child abuse, an inter-racial love affair (one of its first film renderings), drug use, racial bigotry, and murder motivated by revenge.
Clasificación [ CM DVD 00694 Disponible en DVD, 4 Piso BJB)