Juan Monroy — Assignment: D.W. Griffith and Narrative Form

Prompt

Watch at least three films listed below and write a 500-word essay that compares how D.W. Griffith uses editing to create narrative conflict in each film. Your paper should address no fewer than two of the following topics:

the setting of the story
the issue of family
gender roles
crime and the law
framing, on-screen and off-screen space

Films by Griffith

The Sealed Room (D.W. Griffith, 1909, 11 min.)
The Unchanging Sea (D.W. Griffith, 1910, 13 min.)
The Usurer (D.W. Griffith, 1910, 18 min.)
His Trust (D.W. Griffth, 1911, 14 min.)
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (D.W. Griffith, 1912, 18 min.)
An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith, 1912, 15 min.)
The Painted Lady (D.W. Griffith, 1912, 12 min.)
One is Business, The Other Crime (D.W. Griffith, 1912, 15 min.)
Death’s Marathon (D.W. Griffith, 1913, 15 min.)
The Burglar’s Dilemma (D.W. Griffith, 1912, 15 min.)
The Girl and Her Trust (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1912, 17 min.)
The Mothering Heart (D.W. Griffith, 1913, 23 min.)

These screenings are available on the DVD set: Biograph Shorts: Griffith Masterworks (Kino Video, 2002). It is available on reserve at Rosenthal Library and for sale on Amazon.

Submission Guidelines

Your paper must be typed, double-spaced, and have page numbers.
Your paper must submitted in two forms:
- Bring a stapled, hard copy to class.
- Upload a PDF of your paper to the Assignments section of Blackboard.
Your paper is due in class on March 14.
Please cite any sources you used, such as:

For direct quotes

”Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua" (Gunning 14).

When paraphrasing

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.(Thompson and Bordwell 31).