Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2005 Sommario / Contents

“Real charities founded on love” follows immediately after the harsh look
into the unintended consequences – secret bootlegging and open
prostitution – arising from the sweep of organized vice overseen by the
Jenkins charity (a sequence that is itself moved to earlier in the film and
which still includes the infamous intertitle WHEN WOMEN CEASE TO
ATTRACT MEN THEY OFTEN TURN TO REFORM AS A SECOND
CHOICE). In the new sequence, the doors of the Salvation Army open to
provide A REFUGE FOR UNFORTUNATE WOMEN, with mothering
comfort from a character played by regular Griffith mother-figure Kate
Bruce. The film now also opens with a disclaimer and a defense: THIS
STORY DOES NOT REFER TO ESTABLISHED CHARITIES, COURTS AND
REFORMS – THE WORK OF SYMPATHETIC HUMANITY TO HELP THE
UNFORTUNATE – BUT RATHER TO THOSE WHO USE CHARITY AS A
CLOAK FOR SELF-GLORIFICATION, OR, AS IN SEVERAL CASES
CERTIFIED BY GOVERNMENTAL INVESTIGATION, FOR AUTOCRATIC
PURPOSE OF USING THEIR POWER, SECURED THROUGH VARIOUS
FOUNDATIONS,TO MAKE LAWS TO SUIT THEIR OWN WILL.
A subtler revision helps to fix a problem that may have bothered Griffith
or viewers, although it wasn’t mentioned in New York reviews of
Intolerance.The motivation for the “Friendless One” (Miriam Cooper) to
murder the “Musketeer” (Walter Long) looks slim in the original film –
beyond the single-word title JEALOUSY that introduces her spying on the
Musketeer as he puts the moves on the young wife (or the “Little Dear
One”, as Mae Marsh’s character is first dubbed) under the ploy that he
can help recover her baby.Two additional motivations for the murder are
suggested:An intertitle back in the mill town now identifies the Friendless
One as the Boy’s “first sweetheart”; and an additional scene placed
shortly before the killing shows a slap-and-kiss sexuality, shocking for its
era, between the Friendless One and the Musketeer, ending with his
beating her to the floor.
The most intense moments of The Mother and the Law arise from the
more explicit fate of the baby after it is placed in the foster-care ward.
A stark, disturbing image introduces a new scene through unexplained
preparations of a tiny wooden coffin, which leads to the bureaucratic
explanation given to the mother in the next room by the charity workers:
OWING TO YOUR LACK OF CARE OF THE BABY BEFORE WE TOOK IT,
IT HAS DIED. In a brilliant piece of narratively disconnected foreboding
(also missing from Intolerance), the Boy had earlier paused with the
prison work crew to stare down into a lingering shot of an open grave.
The baby’s death and this prison memento mori also combine to leave
audiences more in doubt about the ultimate outcome. A hanging of the
Boy would not be out of place in the film’s world up to that point.
There is a subtle evolution in the philosophy behind the revised film. In
several new titles the role of “fate” is now balanced by a social
explanation, usually with the addition of the word “environment”, as in
the justification for the Boy’s first theft of a drunk’s wallet in the city:THE
BOY CAUGHT IN THE MESHES OF AN ENVIRONMENT TOO STRONG
TO ESCAPE. One doesn’t miss those verb-form neologisms of
“intolerance” that had peppered the epic, as in its explanation that
STOLEN GOODS, PLANTED ON THE BOY, AND HIS BAD REPUTATION
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INTOLERATE HIM AWAY FOR A TERM. In The Mother and the Law a
different title comes before the Boy’s first incarceration: OUR PEOPLE,
FORCED BY THESE BITTER MISTAKES INTO AN ENVIRONMENT
WHERE THEY FOUNDER HELPLESSLY IN THE NETS OF FATE.
Mae Marsh’s performance, as overly busy as it sometimes is, represents
a spirited fight against those nets. Especially in sequences unseen in
Intolerance, her acting is amazingly complex. For that very reason those
scenes must have been too much for Intolerance, because they tend to
complicate characterization in place of the simpler narrative drive
needed to keep the epic’s four stories moving. In particular her two visits
to the Boy while he is in prison for the “frame-up” are models of
elaborate restraint, mixing joy at seeing him, feigned toughness, bits of
gentle mockery at their situation, and serious conversation (including
informing him of her pregnancy during the second visit). More darkly
subtle are Marsh’s series of reactions at her child’s coffin. As with Lillian
Gish at her infant’s death in The Mothering Heart, Griffith directs
young actresses to underplay this deepest of losses. Also adding to both
the story’s poignancy and its social logic is a court appearance to
determine the disposition of the baby after it is removed from its
mother’s home by the three women, who after all represent only a
private charity. The girl’s spitfire anger and physical rage at the larger
women in court is presented as obvious evidence of her emotional
unfitness.
Among other major scenes new to The Mother and the Law is a second
early street incident when the girl PERSISTS IN HER NEW WALK TO
WIN ADMIRERS. The Boy ends up having to fight a masher attracted
also by her inviting style, which she has copied from a woman on the
streets.The scene serves to introduce the neighborhood cop (Tom Wilson)
who in Intolerance appears at the end more abruptly interested in
helping our couple get at the truth behind the murder.Whether or not
the cop is fooled in this scene when the girl sits on a barrel to hide the
beaten masher, his interest in the couple has been established early, as
has the girl’s FIERCE VIRGINITY (an intertitle phrase hard to imagine
from any filmmaker but Griffith). Although other new scenes sometimes
disrupt continuity, they add greatly to the film’s charm.The sequence of
our couple at a dockside lumberyard (seen in a single lovely backlit shot
in Intolerance) is broken in two – divided by the marriage proposal at her
apartment doorway – so that the second part of the lumberyard
sequence can serve as their post-wedding walk (NOT A SHOWY PLACE
FOR A HONEYMOON – BUT AFTER ALL – – ).The newlywed husband
now claims, amusingly, not at all to care for the sexy walk that first
attracted him.
Current prints of The Mother and the Law end as does the Modern Story
in Intolerance, just after the Boy is freed from the hangman’s gallows, the
hood pulled from his head, his wife rousing him from his daze with a
passionate tousling of his hair. The Museum of Modern Art’s intertitle
records suggest that at some point the 1919 film may have ended with a
coda set 2 years later: Our reunited couple will have a new baby.
The Mother and the Law will always stand as a footnote to Intolerance.
But on its own it is easier to appreciate Griffith’s “Modern Story”: the
GRIFFITH