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__Broken Blossoms, or The Yellow Man and the Girl __(D.W. Griffith, May 1919) based on the novel by Thomas Burke, camera Billy Bitzer, with Lilian Gish and Richard Barthelmess for D.W. Griffith Productions/United Artists. ¹

‘This is a story of temple bells, which sound before the statue of Buddha at sunrise; a story of love and lovers; a story of tears. We may believe that there are no people like ‘Battling Burrows’ who whip the powerless with their vicious whip. But don’t we also use the whip of unkind words and actions? So perhaps Battling represents a warning.’ We are ‘ at the gateway to the East, the ‘bund’ of a major Chinese treaty port’ (the bund was the waterfront neighborhood in treaty ports like Shanghai, semi-colonial zones in China where Western powers exercised economic and legal power to facilitate trade, but which affected Chinese sovereignty). Now follows a romantic atmospheric drawing of street life in a Chinese port city with riksha’s, sedan chairs and American sailors. In a backward tracking shot (00:02:21), the camera follows Chinese girls walking down the street. A rich man gives money to poor children from a sedan chair. American sailors are a bit of a beast in a loud voice (in contrast to the much more reserved Chinese). We see ‘the yellow man in Buddha’s temple before he makes a planned trip abroad.’ He stands with a cleric who prays with a knotted string. He gives him ‘advice on how a young man should behave in the world, word for word as a loving parent or guardian would give in our own country.’ A monk strikes a bell as incense fumes fly through the temple and monks bow before the altar. ‘The yellow man dreams of bringing the glorious message of peace to the barbaric English, the sons of unrest and strife.’ He bows to the cleric, leaves the temple and ends up among some sailors in the street: ‘Don’t just throw punches. Buddha says: What you don’t want to happen to you, neither do it to anyone else.’ But the sailors immediately start fighting each other, causing the yellow man to roll backwards: ‘Just a nice brawl for the sailors, but the sensitive yellow man shrinks in fear.’ The sailors walk away and the yellow man stands up in amazement: ‘He is more convinced than ever that the great nations across the sea need the teachings of the gentle Buddha.

‘The day of departure for foreign shores.’ From 00:08:58 we see three backward tracking shots of the riksha in which the yellow man begins his journey.

‘It’s early morning in the Limehouse district of London, several years later.’ In a misty and washed-out blue-tinted image, the ‘waterfront’ comes into view. (Limehouse, named after the lime kilns in central London’s Docklands, formed the core of London’s docks and its international trade. Chinese and Asians in search of work ended up here). ‘Now Limehouse only knows him as a Chinese retailer’ named Cheng Huan. We get a glimpse of the street where the store is located. ‘The yellow man’s childhood dreams have been crushed by the sordid reality of life.’ Cheng Huan stands in front of his shop, thinking somberly. ‘His life has been broken into pieces in his new home.’ In a long mental POV sequence (00:10:54 - 00:12:45) we follow his thoughts: his life partly takes place in an opium den and in a rough game of chance, the opposite of what he came to the west for. We see an opium den in a brown-red hue, where a motley crew enjoys the opium. ‘Chinese, Malays and Indian sailors, where the Orient (=Asia) squats at the portals of the West’ (i.e. low and primitive). (This sentence comes from Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ in which he describes the ports where East and West meet). Chinese play their typical instruments while Chinese, Western sailors and prostitutes experience their opium buzz. In the background the yellow man is pulling on an opium pipe. A very Western girl is also lying on one of the benches (00:11:42). She later turns out to be Burrow’s girlfriend. ‘In this scarlet house of sin, does he ever hear the temple bells ringing?’ In mental POV within this mental POV sequence (00:12:17) we see the monk ringing the bell. From 00:12:50 to 00:13:45 the mental POV sequence continues: the yellow man is in the opium den smoking an opium pipe and we see him participating in a Chinese dice game: ‘Fantan, the goddess of chance.’ Things get pretty wild and Cheng grabs his fellow players tightly. After the mental POV sequence, Cheng Huan goes into his shop.

A sailboat sails past in a washed-out image of the harbour. We see: ‘the house of Lucy and Battling Burrows.’ The row of houses is on the water and there is a barque moored there. ‘Fifteen years ago, one of the boxer’s daughters placed a white bundle of rags in his arms. That’s how Lucy came to Limehouse’ (so Lucy is probably his grandchild). Battling sits at the table in his shabby home with his manager next to him. He pours a glass of drink. ‘Battling Burrows is a terrible brute, a gorilla from the wilds of East London, relishing his victory over the ‘Limehouse Tiger’.’ He takes another sip and pours himself another drink. In mental POV (00:15:23 – 00:15:48) he remembers how he punched the ‘Limehouse Tiger’ in the boxing ring to the crowd’s delight. The young woman from the opium den enters (00:16:18) and behaves very friendly towards the boxer, who seems to appreciate her charm very much. She’s apparently his girlfriend. ‘The manager’s complaints about booze and women enrage Battling – he cannot express his anger against him and saves his aggression for a weaker victim.’ We see Lucy walking past the houses near the harbor. ‘The girl. When she’s not serving as a punching bag to vent Battling’s anger, the bruised little body can be seen crawling around the Limehouse docks.’ She sits on a pile of bunches and thinks. ‘Lucy’s environment is rather depressing.’ Lucy visits an exhausted, married acquaintance who has a lot of children, toils at the washboard and has a sullen husband. ‘She tells her: Whatever you do, dear, never get married.’ ‘The prostitutes warn her against taking up their profession as well.’ Two ladies are standing on a street corner. One of them drops her mirror and Lucy picks it up and gives it back. The ladies warn Lucy, but she had no intention of living their life either.

‘In every group there is one who is weaker than the rest and therefore the butt of countless jokes and ill will. Lucy is one of them.’ Lucy walks timidly into her father’s house and he is drinking again. ‘Lucy, as usual, has to deal with Battling’s pent-up beastly rage.’ She looks at him in horror and he snaps at her. He asks her to close the door and follows her menacingly. She says: ‘Don’t hit me, don’t do that!’ He follows her around the table menacingly. ‘Please, Daddy! – Don’t do that!’ He slaps the table, continues to intimidate her and says to the frightened girl: ‘Show a smile, or can’t you?’ ‘Poor Lucy, who has never had a reason to smile, uses that as a sad excuse.’ But then she presses the corners of her mouth up with two fingers, creating a sad smile. Her father starts to drink the beer jug, has another aggressive attack and throws a spoon at Lucy: Just kidding, he gestures. ‘She has to wait while he eats’ and he eats from his knife, throws the cutlery and eats with his mouth open, but ‘cannot tolerate bad table manners.’ Lucy waits patiently while he spoons out his cup and removes stuck food from his mouth with his finger. He stands up and feints an attack on Lucy. ‘He orders tea at five o’clock’ and Lucy nods, she’ll take care of it. ‘Come on, give us another smile.’ And again she pushes up the corners of her mouth with two fingers. The boxer makes a few more rude comments and leaves. Lucy takes the leftovers from his plate and goes to eat them in the corner of the room.

A priest and his brother, also a priest, walk past Cheng Huan’s shop. He says to the yellow man: ‘My brother is leaving for China tomorrow to convert the pagans there.’ ‘I — I wish him luck’ Cheng Huan says. The priest gives Cheng a Christian booklet, entitled ‘Hell’. (The gentle, spiritual, peace-loving Oriental is bombarded with an intimidating text. Apparently the missionaries spread the faith by spreading fear, not by spreading love). Lucy sits in her shabby home, stuffing a sock. When she’s done, she puts on her hat to go ‘shopping’. But first she lifts a tile just in front of the door and takes out from underneath a package wrapped in paper containing a wad of tinfoil, a ribbon, a piece of silk and a letter: ‘Dear, This is not much, but it is all I have to leave you. Maybe it will be of use to you when you get married. The piece of silk and the ribbon… (apparently this is the legacy of her mother, the Battling girl). Lucy wipes the silk cloth, which represents her mother’s love, across her face (00:29:56) and puts it all back under the floor tile. She takes the tinfoil to the store along with some coins: ‘With the tinfoil she might be able to buy some extra ’s.’

Battling Burrows cheerfully enters the cafe and meets his girlfriend, while Lucy trudges down the street. She finds a piece of tinfoil on the sidewalk that she keeps. She is standing in front of Cheng Huan’s shop. ‘The yellow man looked at Lucy more often. Her beauty, which was otherwise lacking in all of Limehouse, struck him in his heart.’ We see Lucy standing in front of the shop window while Cheng watches her from inside. Lucy looks at (eyeball POV 00:32:57) dolls in the shop window. We now see through Cheng’s eyes the face of Lucy standing in front of the shop window (eyeball POV 00:33:17 ). Cheng smiles at ‘this child with a tear-streaked face.’ Across the street, ‘Evil Eye is watching.’ This is an unpleasant-looking Chinese lurking. ‘The Spirit of Beauty scatters its flowers across his room.’ (Lucy’s loveliness brings brightness to Cheng Huan’s life). Cheng Huan crosses the street from his shop, where Lucy is standing in front of the greengrocer’s shop. He sees how Lucy touches a flower (eyeball POV 00:34:51) but quickly lets go: love is not for her. Lucy sees the yellow man, who is acting shy, standing there while Evil Eyes watches them.

In the pub Battling gets another drink and his girlfriend also likes a sip. But there is the manager ‘who is shocked to find Battling back in the pub.’ Battling defends himself: ‘What do you expect from me – to pick violets?’ The girlfriend thinks that’s funny. Battling leaves with the manager. ‘Lucy’s love-hungry heart yearns desperately for the flower’ which she taps again (00:36:35). ‘But she doesn’t have enough silver paper for that.’ Fine then not and she turns away. Evil Eyes comes up to her and grabs her shawl. But now Cheng Huan comes to her rescue, he chases Evil Eyes away and Lucy heads back home. ‘The manager’s admonishment about Burrow’s uninhibited behavior causes him to have another tantrum when he returns home.’ Lucy, who has also just arrived home, gets the full brunt. The clock shows half past five and there is no tea yet. Lucy defends herself: ‘It’s not yet five o’clock, not five o’clock!’ But Burrows seethes with anger and gestures: I decide what time it is here. And he demands that dinner be put on the table: ‘his last supper before he goes to the training room on the other side of the river, to prepare for the revenge match against the ‘Limehouse Tiger’. ‘Lucy walks over with the pan and produces a smile by pressing the corners of her mouth with two fingers. But while serving food a ‘terrible accident’ occurs. Burrows burns his hand on the hot pan. Lucy is scared to death and panics about how she can make this right. She is terrified of the consequences. Battling stands in front of her threateningly: ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t do it on purpose. I’ll teach you!’ And he takes the whip from under the mattress. Lucy screams in fear and he enjoys the power he has. ‘Don’t do it, Daddy! If you hit me one too many times they will – they will hang you for it! She tries to distract him: ‘Oh, look! Daddy! There’s dirt on your boots!’ She bends down and submissively and in total panic, she cleans his boots with her skirt. But he drags her up by her arm, hurting her, drags her across the room and then beats her fiercely and incessantly with his whip.

Lucy lies in a hopeless pile of rags on the floor. Burrows sees the remains of the meal on the table and gestures: When is this mess going to be cleaned up? He’s done with it and wants to throw the coffee pot at her head, but decides not to and leaves. ‘An eternity later, Lucy stumbles, dazed and blinded, away from the house that has brought her nothing but suffering.’ Lucy rises from the floor, shattered, crawling across the floor. She pulls herself up from the table and leaves the house. Outside she wanders across the quay. Cheng Huan ‘has just returned from a meal of tea and noodles. He may still have a whiff of the lily pipe (opium pipe) in his brain’ and walks into his shop. Stumbling down the street, Lucy arrives at the shuttered shop. When she falls at the door, the door swings open. She sits there exhausted and dazed, tries to straighten up, stumbles into the store and falls down unconscious. Lucy is still lying in front of the counter when Cheng walks into the store and is surprised to find her. He wipes his eyes: yes, it’s real. And then Lucy wakes up and straightens up. She experiences ‘ the first tenderness she has ever known.’ Cheng has gotten a bowl of water and a cloth to tend to her bruises. ‘O, Lily flowers and plum blossoms! Oh, silver streams and starry skies in the twilight!’ He looks at the hurt girl for a long time with a tender look and elicits a smile on her face (00:47:14), which is real for once and not by raising the corners of her mouth with two fingers.

Cheng carries the girl to the dark upper floor and lays her on the bed. And then he lights the oil lamp, causing via stop-motion to simultaneously turn on the lamp and shine light on Lucy’s face (00:48:02). And he pours her a bowl of tea and gives her something to drink. He makes sure that ‘the room is decorated like for a princess.’ Lucy is lying comfortably under a blanket, in front of her bed is a table with a cloth and a teapot and cups on it. Cheng has ‘a magical cloak for Lucy, which he has saved from times gone by’ and now offers her. Lucy tries feebly to do the trick with two fingers in the corners of her mouth, but abandons it. He looks at her with compassion, she finds the Chinese robe beautiful and he stands close to her out of feelings of love. ‘She seems to be undergoing a transformation: warmth and light come into the dark rooms of her unbelieving, scared little heart.’ Behind the initially dark title, a violet illuminated surface appears with blooming blossoms in it, symbolizing the transition (00:49:45).

Lucy sits on the edge of the bed, dressed in the Chinese robe. Cheng Huan comes upstairs carrying a diadem and a mirror. He places the diadem in her hair and shows her the mirror in which she can admire herself. ‘Blue and yellow silk caresses her white skin and her beauty that has been hidden for so long shines like a poem.’ Lucy looks at herself in amazement and thinks she looks beautiful (close-up 00:51:04), but regrets that she cannot manage to smile. Yet she already looks much happier. Cheng has a weed jar for her from which a strong aroma rises. And he has a vase of flowers filmed in extreme close-up (00:52:15) that symbolizes his love for her. Lucy is enthusiastic, takes a flower from the vase (00:52:22) and places it on her chest. She plays directly into the camera, without breaking the fourth wall. And we see that she is still weakened. ‘He dreams of her chatter, her bird-like behavior, her sweet self, he considers them all his own.’ While he is lost in thought, Lucy looks at him disarmingly, tries to make contact and then caresses his face. ‘Why are you so sweet to me, Chinky?’ Cheng lets Lucy rest. ‘There he brings rays stolen from a moon full of emotions’ (a fleeting illumination in their gloomy world) and places them on her hair; and all night he squats beside her holding her dirty little hand .’ As the background of this title appear the rays of moonlight. Cheng plucks the rays of moonlight from the sky (00:54:08), holds them in his hands and pours them over the sleeping Lucy’s’ head. And he takes her hand and presses it to his cheek. Cheng Huan plays his flute while Lucy eats a bowl of soup in bed. ‘Playing his amber flute, Cheng gives this alabaster Cokney girl her love name: White Blossom.’

A gentleman in a bowler hat, ‘a friend of Battling, has some business to do in the yellow man’s shop.’ He comes to buy something, but Cheng has ‘no appropriate change for half a crown’ and goes to the neighbors across the street to change money. Meanwhile, Lucy gets out of bed and walks unsteadily through the room, bumping into a table and dropping a cup. The waiting man hears this (acoustic coupling 00:56:42) while looking upwards. Lucy picks up the pieces and crawls back into bed. The man wants to know what is going on upstairs, walks up the stairs and sees Lucy lying on the bed. He thinks that is a funny discovery. Cheng has now returned with the change. After paying, the man symbolically removes a a speck of dust from Cheng’s clothing (00:58:03). (Cheng acts like a saint, but keeps an underage girl hidden).‘Across the river, where Battling is training for his fight with the ammunition workers, the spy (The Spying One) arrives.’ He stands next to the ring, speaks to Battling and reveals the secret. In a short mental POV at 00:59:05 we see what he says: namely that Lucy is upstairs in bed with the Chinese. Battling goes into a frenzy and lashes out at the messenger. ‘Battling Discovers the Parent’s Rights – A Chinese Chases His Child! He will teach him a lesson!’ ‘Above all, Battling hates all who were not born in the same great country as himself.’ After dressing up, he accompanies the messenger. Meanwhile, ‘the girl wants to go back home – but decides to wait until tomorrow.’ Battling walks into the pub at a fast pace and gestures that he is done with it. ‘ Just wait until I fight tonight – Then I’ll get him!’

Cheng brought Lucy a doll. She wants that and she plays with it in close-up. And she takes the doll in her arms and hugs and kisses it. Battling appears in the ring before the fight, greets the crowd and looks disparagingly at his competitor. The fight begins and Battling has a formidable opponent in him. The audience is enthusiastic. In the second round, the opponent knocks Battling to the canvas, but he gets up in time and knocks his opponent down. But he also stands up again. The violent images of the match are intersected (relational cross-cut 01:04:45, 01:05:55) by the peaceful images of Lucy, in bed with her doll and Cheng standing there peacefully, although the images suggest that Cheng is somewhat jealous of the doll who gets all the love. Cheng, who stares closer and closer to Lucy, and Lucy, who steps back in some fear, emanates a certain threat. But Cheng pulls away and kisses a slip of Lucy’s dress. ‘His love remains a pure and sacred thing - even his worst enemies say so.’

Battling knocks out his opponent to the delight of the crowd and wins the match. After the match ‘he goes to restore his honor —?’ ‘The descending storm.’ Battling goes to his house with the spy and his manager. Lucy isn’t there. Cheng Huan has left his shop to get Lucy some flowers from the flower shop (01:08:55). The three men walk through the open door into Cheng’s shop and Battling goes upstairs. He sneaks over to the sleeping Lucy, who wakes up and sees her threatening father standing there: ‘You! With a dirty Chinese!’ Battling is in a boxing stance, approaching in extreme close-up (01:09:59) the (also in extreme close-up and heavily vignetted 01:10:05) terrified Lucy: ‘There’s nothing bad going on! There’s nothing bad going on! I fell through the open door - nothing bad happened!’ In the meantime, Cheng has bought his flowers, but he is held up for a while by the flower seller. Battling says: ‘I will teach you! I’ll teach you!’ He slaps the terrified Lucy and rips off her shawl. He tells her to get out of bed and take off the Chinese clothes: ‘Take those things off !’ Meanwhile, ‘Evil Eyes is investigating.’ He goes into Cheng’s shop, walks upstairs and knows enough. The terrified Lucy takes off her Chinese clothes and puts her rag dress back on. Meanwhile, the ‘concealing river mist has risen.’ The entire area is shrouded in haze. Battling rips the hair ornaments that Lucy received from Cheng from her head and throws them on the ground, as well as the dress, which he tramples. He then smashes the entire furniture to smithereens. Evil Eyes has reached Cheng and ‘is pleased to bring him the news’ that Battling is beating his house to pieces. Cheng jogs home. ‘Where is he?’ Battling shouts menacingly. Lucy tries to protect herself huddled and flees around the room. Terrified, she ducks behind a cupboard and then runs down the stairs, but outside she is held by the manager and the spy. She gestures them to let her go. Battling grabs her and drags her across the street, while the manager and the spy follow in the mist. Battling drags Lucy into his house and throws her across the room onto the bed. Meanwhile, Cheng has returned home with his flowers, where he sees the devastation upstairs. He drops the flowers when he sees the Chinese robe on the floor. He is desperate with grief.

Battling picks up his whip from the floor. ‘Don’t! Daddy! There was no harm done!’ He locks the door and goes to beat Lucy, but she hides in the pantry and locks the door. ‘Open that door, I tell you!’ Lucy screams in total panic. Cheng grabs a revolver and heads through the fog to Lucy’s house. Lucy screams: ‘Don’t do it, Daddy, don’t do it. They’ll hang you for it!’ She stands in the closet with the doll in her hand while her father attacks the door with an axe. Lucy nearly faints with fear and spins around the closet while Battling hacks wildly at the door. He breaks the door and is able to grab Lucy through the opening and drag her outside. He throws her on the bed like garbage and gives her a huge blow with the whip. Lucy lies on the bed, Battling realizes what he has done, drops the whip from his hands and starts drinking. Meanwhile, Lucy ‘lies dying, giving one last little smile to the world that has been so mean to her.’ Lucy lies there with her doll in her hand. She puts her two fingers in the corners of her mouth, tries to smile and dies. Cheng enters through the window, finds Lucy on the bed and looks at her for a long time. But then Battling appears in the room. He reacts furiously, but Cheng’s suppressed anger is also noticeable. After a stare-down, Battling picks up the ax from the ground, but at that moment Cheng shoots him dead with a series of shots. Cheng opens the door, picks up the dead Lucy and walks out with her into the mist. Meanwhile, the manager and the spy arrive at Battling’s house. They find that he is dead and go outside. Cheng takes Lucy to the destroyed upper floor, where he puts her to bed. She still has the doll in her hand and he covers her with the Chinese cloak.

At Scotland Yard, a bobby says to an inspector: ‘It’s better than last week - only forty thousand victims.’ The manager and the spy walk in, but are not spoken to directly. They have to wait a while. Cheng picks up the flower from the floor and places it on Lucy’s chest (01:24:57), looks around and sees the debris of his furniture (eyeball POV 01:25:25). He lights incense sticks and a candle and starts praying. He has placed a Buddha statue in a broken cupboard. The manager, the spy and a number of police officers arrive at Battling’s home and determine that he has been killed. Cheng strikes a bell, continues praying and picks up a dagger. ‘As he smiles goodbye to White Blossom, the tears of the ages rush down his heart.’ With the dagger he stabs himself in the heart and falls down. Meanwhile, the police officers enter Cheng Huan’s shop. The monk in the temple strikes a large bell a few times and in the harbor, as if depicted in a bromine oil print, ships pass by; life just goes on. The end.

Eyeball POV:

Lucy looks at (eyeball POV 00:32:57) dolls in the window. We then see through Cheng’s eyes the face of Lucy standing in front of the shop window (eyeball POV 00:33:17 )

Cheng Huan sees how Lucy touches a flower (eyeball POV 00:34:51) but quickly lets go: love is not for her.

Cheng looks around and sees the pieces of his furniture (eyeball POV 01:25:25).

Mental POV:

Cheng Huan stands in front of his shop, thinking somberly. ‘His life has been shattered into pieces in his new home.’ And we see what he is thinking: In a long mental POV sequence (00:10:54 - 00:12:45) he sees the opium den in a brown-red tint, where a colorful group of people, including Cheng Huan, are enjoying the opium. ‘In this scarlet house of sin, does he ever hear the temple bells ringing?’ In mental POV within this mental POV sequence (00:12:17) we see the monk ringing the bell. From 00:12:50 to 00:13:45 the mental POV sequence continues: the yellow man is in the opium den smoking an opium pipe and we see how he participates in a Chinese dice game. After the mental POV sequence, Cheng Huan goes into his shop.

Battling Burrows enjoys his victory over the ‘Limehouse Tiger’.’ In mental POV (00:15:23 – 00:15:48) he recalls punching the ‘Limehouse Tiger’ in the boxing ring to the crowd’s delight.’

The spy stands next to the ring, addresses Battling and reveals the secret. In a short mental POV at 00:59:05 we see what he says: namely that Lucy is upstairs in bed with the Chinese.

Relational cross-cut:

The violent images of the match are intersected (relational cross-cut 01:04:45, 01:05:55) by the peaceful images of Lucy, in bed with her doll and Cheng standing there peacefully (hard and violent vs gentle and peaceful).

Flowers as a sign of love:

Cheng Huan sees how Lucy taps a flower at the greengrocer (eyeball POV 00:34:51) but quickly lets go: love is not for her. ‘Lucy’s (love-hungry) heart yearns desperately for the flower’ which she taps again (00:36:35).

Cheng has a vase of flowers, filmed in extreme close-up, for Lucy (00:52:15) which symbolizes his love for her. Lucy is enthusiastic, takes a flower from the vase (00:52:22) and places it on her chest.

Cheng Huan has left his shop to get Lucy some flowers from the flower shop (01:08:55). Meanwhile, Cheng has returned home with his flowers, where he sees the devastation. He drops the flowers and is desperate with sadness. Cheng picks up the flower from the floor (01:24:57) and places it on Lucy’s chest as a token of his love.

Acoustic coupling:

Meanwhile, Lucy gets out of bed and bumps into a table, causing a cup to fall. The waiting man hears this (acoustic coupling 00:56:42) while looking upwards.

Artificial Light:

Cheng carries the girl to the dark upper floor and lays her on the bed. And then he lights the oil lamp; via stop-motion this simultaneously turns on the lamp and shines light on Lucy’s face (00:48:02).

Vignetting:

When giving the atmospheric image of the Chinese port city, Bitzer applies significant vignetting (00:01:54), which emphasizes that this is a strange world that is far away. The entire film was further shot with a mesh with a burn hole for the camera lens.

Tracking shot:

In a backward tracking shot (00:02:21), the camera follows Chinese girls walking down the street.

From 00:08:58 we see three backward tracking shots of the riksha in which the yellow man begins his journey.

Symbols:

Lucy wipes the silk cloth, representing her mother’s love, across her face (00:29:56).

In the dark rooms of her unbelieving, scared little heart comes warmth and light.’ Behind the initially dark title, a violet illuminated surface appears with blooming blossoms in it, symbolizing the transition from a fearful unsightly girl to a beautiful young woman (00:49:45).

After paying, the man symbolically removes a little dust from Cheng’s clothing (00:58:03). (Cheng acts like a saint, but keeps an underage girl hidden).

Mary Pickford pointed Griffith to the book ‘Limehouse Nights’ by Thomas Burke, which contained the story ‘The Chink and the Child’ about a stray child who was used as a punching bag by welterweight boxer Battling Burrows and who only survived until the age of twelve. Only the Chinese Cheng Huan saw her beauty and gave her love ². Also ‘Dream Street’ (D.W. Griffith, April 1921), an early film with partly synchronous sound, with Carol Dempster for D.W. Griffith Productions / United Artists ³ is also based on ‘Limehouse Nights’.

To portray the tender atmosphere of the relationship between the girl and the Chinese, Billy Bitzer opted for soft-focus by placing layers of gauze with a hole burned in the center in front of the lens ⁴. As lens he used a 75 mm Dalmeyer f 1.9 soft focus ‘Patent Portrait’ lens ⁵. By rotating the rear lens segment, the blur could be controlled. Other sources state that Hendrik Sartov was personally responsible for Gish’s dreamy images, although the subtitles clearly state ‘Photography by G.W. Bitzer’.

Lilian Gish was struck by the Spanish flu and rehearsals started with Carol Dempster as observer, but Gish resumed rehearsals before she had fully recovered. On the first day of recording, Lilian Gish was ready and Bitzer hurriedly got to work. The lights came on and after focusing on the lights in Lilian’s eyes, he started filming. Camera assistant Karl Brown warned after some time that the diffuse top lighting was not on and that Bitzer had forgotten to stop down. Bitzer would normally never have taken the risk of filming at full aperture and with only accent lighting and the shot seemed to have failed. But after development, the result was wonderful, a three-dimensional picture with beautiful backlight and side light, while by filming at full aperture a beautiful soft-focus quality was achieved. It was decided to shoot the entire film this way. The film was shot in 18 days on a limited budget ⁶. Adolph Zukor (Famous Players - Lasky Corporation and Artcraft, a subsidiary of Paramount) had financed the film but was dissatisfied with the result, a film ‘in which everyone dies’. In his eyes the film was not commercial enough. Griffith therefore bought the film for $ 250.000, released it through United Artists and sold the film as the first ‘Artfilm’, which no art lover should miss. The film grossed $ 700,000 in box office and was relative to the investment, with the exception of ‘Birth of a Nation’, Griffith’s highest grossing film.

Footnotes

1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3qHmAQzg9M ↩

2. Billy Bitzer, His Story, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1973, pg 204, 205 ↩

3. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgJwk11fbzk ↩

4. Billy Bitzer, His Story, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1973, pg 206 ↩

5. www.antiquecameras.net/softfocuslenses.html ↩

6. Billy Bitzer, His Story, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1973, pg 209, 210 ↩