"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Girl of the Day - Very Oldy, But Very Goody


Looking back, I think I've noted Mary Pickford and Clara Bow on The Regular Guy Believes, but I don't think I've ever mentioned Lillian Gish, who was arguably the greatest actress of the silent film era.   She, of course, appeared, in Griffith's landmark Birth of a Nation, but she also starred in several other Griffith films, notably Intolerance and Way Down East.  Here is the famous climax of Way Down East, in which Gish floats toward a waterfall on an ice floe (flip ahead to about 7:50 in the video)... it's absurd as a matter of physics, but brilliant as movie-making, particularly in the era before special effects:

No comments:

Post a Comment