20 Facts About DW Griffith

David Wark DW Griffith was an American film director.

DW Griffith is known to modern audiences primarily for directing the film The Birth of a Nation .

DW Griffith made his next film Intolerance as an answer to critics, who he felt unfairly maligned his work.

Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, DW Griffith founded the studio United Artists in 1919 with the goal of enabling actors and directors to make films on their own terms as opposed to the terms of commercial studios.

DW Griffith was born January 22,1875, on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, the son of Jacob Wark "Roaring Jake" DW Griffith, a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War who was elected as a Kentucky state legislator, and Mary Perkins .

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DW Griffith was raised as a Methodist, and he attended a one-room schoolhouse, where he was taught by his older sister Mattie.

DW Griffith'sfather died when he was 10, and the family struggled with poverty.

When DW Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky; there she opened a boarding house, which was unsuccessful.

DW Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore.

In 1908, DW Griffith accepted a role as a stage extra in Professional Jealousy for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he met cameraman Billy Bitzer, and his career in the film industry changed forever.

DW Griffith left Biograph because of company resistance to his goals and his cost overruns on the film.

DW Griffith directed and produced The Clansman through Reliance-Majestic Studios in 1915.

DW Griffith put a huge budget into the film's production that could not be recovered in its box office.

DW Griffith was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Life Wonderful failed at the box office.

When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with DW Griffith listed as producer, DW Griffith asked that his name be removed.

DW Griffith was for decades held in awe by many members of the film industry.

Gish and Barrymore found their old mentor's presence distracting and became self-conscious; in response, DW Griffith hid behind the scenery when the two were filming their scenes.

DW Griffith seems to have been the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his The Birth of a Nation .

In making Intolerance, DW Griffith opened up new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to traditional narrative.

DW Griffith has six films preserved on the United States National Film Registry deemed as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".