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Hearts of the World

Directed by D.W. Griffith

True Heart Susie

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Live Musical Accompaniment
Screening on Film
  • Hearts of the World

    Directed by D.W. Griffith.
    With Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Dorothy Gish.
    US, 1918, 35mm, black & white, silent, 98 min.
    Print source: HFA

Following the success of Intolerance, D.W. Griffith was commissioned by the British government to craft a film which would encourage U.S. entry into World War I. Hearts of the World follows the travails of two American families living in France who are drawn into the horrors of battle when Germany invades France and bombards their once-tranquil village. Lillian Gish stars as Marie, the plucky daughter who falls for Douglas, her neighbor. The idealistic couple is forced to postpone their planned nuptials when he volunteers for the French army and risks his life battling the Germans. More than mere propaganda, the film ranks as one of Griffith's greatest achievements thanks to his honest depiction of war and its toll.

  • True Heart Susie

    Directed by D.W. Griffith.
    With Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Clarine Seymour.
    US, 1919, 35mm, black & white, silent, 70 min.
    Print source: HFA

This pastoral romance is the last film in which Griffith draws directly upon his warmest memories of a bucolic childhood, and final reflection on a quickly vanishing America. Without the intervention of subplots, chases, sexually imperiled heroines, and the rest of his beloved melodramatic preoccupations, Griffith employs an urban/country dialectic, a typical strategy of the time, to valorize the virtues of the country girl (Gish) who carefully waits for her man to return to his senses after being "corrupted" by a city woman.

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