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Broken Blossoms

Live Piano Accompaniment Composed and Performed by Yakov Gubanov
Screening on Film
Directed by D.W. Griffith.
With Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp.
US, 1919, 35mm, black & white, silent, 80 min.

This story of father-daughter abuse and interracial love in London’s dockside district is one of Griffith’s most powerful films, with great performances from Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess (as a Chinese man), and Donald Crisp (as Gish’s brutal prizefighter father). The shock of World War I, which had just ended when the film was made, can be felt behind this simple domestic story, and rarely have violence and its opposite, compassion, been depicted so vividly on the screen. Griffith’s studio decor is wonderfully realistic, and his storytelling and editing tense and beautifully controlled.

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