Seymour Stern: American Film Critic, Guardian and Prophet

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Rehearsal for a long shot of the Union Army on the march in The Birth Of A Nation

Throughout 1945 and 1946 and then again in 1948, Stern taught film courses on the subjects of the history of film and Griffith at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Stern's association with the Griffith legend continued to grow, and in the 1950's Films In Review, under the editorial leadership of Henry Hart, published a series of articles by Stern on the subject of Griffith: "Griffith and Poe" (1951); "11 East 14th Street" (1952); "The Cold War Against D.W. Griffith" (1956); "Biographical Hogwash, Parts I & II" (1959) and "The Soviet Director's Debt To D.W. Griffith" (1959).

Mae Marsh and Henry Walthall The Birth of a Nation 1915

Another area of activity in the'50's was as the result of the efforts of Gideon Bachmann, of the publication Cinemages, who hired Stern to produce a lengthy dissertation on THE BIRTH OF A NATION in 1955 on behalf of The Group For Film Study, Inc., a New York City based organization which aimed at imparting an understanding of the significance and importance, artistically as well as historically, of individual films whose screenings they would sponsor.⁴

On into the 1960's, Stern's name became more and more closely linked to that of Griffith. One of the products of this association became of the rarest and most sought after of all of Stern's writings.

Entitled "D.W. Griffith, Part I: THE BIRTH OF A NATION," the 210 page monograph was published in 1965 in the Jonas Mekas publication, Film Culture and dealt with the production of the epic cinema milestone in a fashion more comprehensive than any previous effort undertaken by any individual on any film.

Ostensibly done to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film's original release, the published piece specified that a Part II would be soon forthcoming; lamentably, it never appeared.

As the 100th anniversary of Griffith's birth approached, Stern was invited by Ms. Sally Dixon curator of the Film section of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, to come to the institute to write and lecture on Griffith, which Stern did do in late 1974 and again in 1975.

As a result of these projects on behalf of the Carnegie Institute, Stern produced a series of eleven programs on Griffith and his films.

These programs became an integral part of the Institute's retrospective screenings of Griffith films at Pittsburgh's Museum of Art.

The first of the eleven programs concerned itself with "The Biograph Years" and covered THE ADVENTURES OF DOLLIE (1908); EDGAR ALLAN POE (1909); THE LONELY VILLA (1909); PIPPA PASSES (1909); A CORNER IN WHEAT (1909); RAMONA (1910); THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY (1912); THE MASSACRE (1912), THE NEW YORK HAT (1912); JUDITH OF BETHULIA (1913); THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE (1914) and HOME SWEET HOME (1914).

Succeeding programs were for Griffith's productions of THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), INTOLERANCE (1916);⁵  5 HEARTS OF THE WORLD (1918); BROKEN BLOSSOMS (1919); WAY DOWN EAST (1920); DREAM STREET (1921); ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1921); THE WHITE ROSE (1923); AMERICA (1924) and ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL (1924).

Also in 1975, the publication of P. Adams Sitney's edition of The Essential Cinema: Essays on the Films in the Collection of Anthology Film Archives brought to print Stern's brilliant essay on Griffith's INTOLERANCE.

Ironically, publication of this piece or a version of it had been promised some years before its appearance in the Sitney work.

D.W. Griffith on the set of Intolerance, 1916 actresses Mae Marsh & Miriam Cooper -click to view video-

The promise had been made in the pages of the same Film Culture publication that had similarlv promoted the imminent release of the Part II of Stern's conipedium on THE BIRTH OF A NATION.

For the time being, I'm afraid, lost amongst the hundreds of microfilm files in our universities and libraries that contain the resources of our leading newspapers and magazines of the past, lies the bulk of the creative writings of Seymour W. Stern.

What lies lost is not just the developmental stages of his early work on Griffith but development of his theories on filmmaking as an art form.

What is essentially completely unknown today is the assistance that was rendered by Stern to some of Hollywood’s leading producers and directors in teaching them about the creativity of camera movements in the years after the coming of sound to the theatres.