Review of Orphans of the Storm

Orphans of the Storm is a controversial silent film from a very controversial director about a controversial topic. Set during the events of the French Revolution, the movie tells the story of two orphan sisters Henriette Girard (Lillian Gish) & Louise Girard (Dorothy Gish), who struggle to survive in extreme poverty France. As the events of the French Revolution, unfold, Louise goes blind from malnutrition, while Henriette is kidnapped by a lustful aristocrat. Could the two sisters find a way to reunite or would the trouble nation separate their love of each other, forever? Watch the movie to find out. Griffith often use the family theme in most of his major works. Families are often threatened, torn apart, reunited, destroyed, and created in his films. One can only guess at the motivations for this obsession with family from a man whose father died when he was ten, and who was never able to create a strong family relationship in his real life. D.W Griffith has often dealt with extreme depression, and abandoning issues with drinking. In many ways, the insolation from people in his own life, made D.W Griffith work harder to connect his films with the audience. You really do see it, here in this film. One of the greatest things, he did, was to set the events during the French Revolution rather than the pre-revolution Ancien Régime settlings of the original source material, the novel, 'The Two Orphans' written by Adolphe Philippe d'Ennery and Eugene Cormon. The events portray in the film really does mirror, what happens in Charles Dicken's novel, 'A Tale of Two Cities' and 'History of the French Revolution' by Thomas Carlyle in which D.W Griffith use as research. Still, there were some historical inaccurate, like how they portray revolution leader, George Danton. Widely disputed amongst many historians, Danton is a controversial figure that was often portray as an Abraham Lincoln type character. In truth, George Danton was not much a benevolent aristocrat, but a power hungry ruthless politician. In many ways, he was just as bad as Maximilien de Robespierre. Danton voted for the death of King Louis XVI and often agree with the tactics of the Reign of Terror which is clearly facts. It's twisted and distorted almost beyond recognition from honest truth. D.W Griffith often use the French Revolution as a metaphor of the Bolshevism Red October Revolution of 1917. On that note: While one could make a very broad connection, in terms of Bolsheviks being primarily of working-class membership and Robespierre being portray like a Stalin like figure. Still, there are huge different between the First French Republic and early Soviet Union. Both can be viewed as communism doctrine nations, but its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement of 19th-century Europe due to Industrial Revolution advanced technology. Socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the proletariat—a new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. In a way, it's nice to see D.W Griffith tackle an issue like that, at the same time, show the early paranoia of America has toward Communism. Another thing that Griffith did well is create a narrative film; when most films of the time had little to no direction. The acting under his direction is amazing for the most part. Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish are just beautiful. You see the emotional and physical suffering, both were able to portray during all the great close ups in the film. They do overdone the whole love thing, as it seem more incestuous lesbians than sisterhood. The supporting cast was just as good, with the rumbustious performance of Lucille La Verne as the female Fagan, and the strong portrayal of Danton by Monte Blue. Seeing how it's a silent film, they do kinda over act a bit, by overdoing their body language. It's get kinda goofy at times. Trying to outshine the German films being import at the time, the production values of this movie was epic in scale. The sets, the costumes, and film value were great. Lots of violent scenes like a child getting run over. Also it did had a lot of sex for a silent film. In many ways, some people believe Orphans of the Storm was the last great success that D.W Griffith had. Orphans of the Storm did turned a modest profit, but nothing as spectacular as his previous film, 1920's Way Down East. Griffith needed a success of those proportions to sustain his production costs and the expense of maintaining his own studio, and sadly, it didn't. It got worst for D.W Griffith, as his love affair with his top star Lillian Gish got sour. Gish sick of the continuing rivalry with movie starlet, Carol Dempster for Griffith's affections, left him. The aftermath of the movie cause D.W Griffith to drink even more heavily in alcohol to the point that it cause him, his life in 1948 due to cerebral hemorrhage. A lot of critics love to hate this movie do to the fact that the director is D.W Griffith. People describe him as a drunken, self-pitying, racist escapist, who egomania try to get his way. A lot of modern people love to hate his films, due to the change in attitude toward race. In 1915, D.W Griffith directed a film that would forever taint entire oeuvre and prevents any kind of objective analysis of his films with 'Birth of a Nation'. It got so bad, that in 1999, the Screen Directors' Guild removed his name from their lifetime achievement award. While, I don't agree with all of D.W Griffith's opinions. He's a very ignorant man who happened to be good at directing. He deserve more credit. Overall: While, the movie is indeed aged with some bad editing and dirt. It's watchable. This film is in the public domain and may be viewed in its entirety at YouTube. It's not hard to find. Check it out if you want to.