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THE PARISIAN TYPE 45
the stage. To most directors the frame of the picture was still an imaginary proscenium arch. The story was told by the old rules of play writing. There were few camera movements or changes of camera angles to give added interest to the action; only an occasional subtitle helped break the monotony of the exaggerated pantomime. Griffith brought imagination and invention to the medium. He experimented and discovered new ways to improve the telling of a motion-picture story.
In the battle scenes of The Birth of a Nation he introduced the extreme long shot, intercut with medium and close shots to give a new dynamic power to his story. Intimate scenes were played in medium or close shots of a few seconds' duration, which intensified actions and reactions. His last-minute rescue in The Birth of a Nation became a standard pattern for action pictures. Cutting back and forth between the heroine, who was struggling to escape a fate worse than death, and the hero, who was riding to her rescue, he treated the audience to a dramatic experience that, though obvious today, was then unsurpassed for emotional impact.
At that time the camera was not mobile as it is today. Such a device as a close-up of a revolver lying on a desk, followed by a camera movement to include the hero sitting at the desk contemplating suicide, was unknown. But Griffith achieved similar effects by the use of the "iris." In a black screen a small iris opening would reveal the symbol or the key to the scene, then gradually the circle would widen to disclose the entire scene. And the same device was used in reverse.
Griffith is credited also with using the close-up to give additional punch to his scenes and the "fade" as a method of lowering the curtain at the conclusion of a sequence. And The Birth of a Nation was accompanied by a special orchestral score to heighten the drama of the scenes and to set the mood.
I realized that night that moving pictures could be just as important as stage plays and that movie actors no longer had to be ashamed of their profession. I went to sleep and dreamed that I