While it should be amazing to me that this was filmed in 1909, I think it reflects a reality that was reflected before this and would be after - I think that the reckoning for the rich as well as the poor would come most of all 20 years after this - and it's a vicious cycle of a struggle.
I think what amazed me the most is to see such a leap from the filmmaking that was happening at the time to what occurs here, where Griffith gets a handle on his parallel editing and yet he knows how to hold on to a shot for long enough to get us invested into the struggle of the working man as well as to see the frivolity of the rich; the opening two shots which show two men getting ready for work (with two women of varying ages standing by, stoic like), and then walking slowly back and forth, as if in a daze, doing the work in the wheat fields that drain away their lives.
The story for what it is is not very complicated: Griffith cuts from the perspective of the wealthy, making their big deals and in the stock market (there's one scene with a bunch of traders in a room acting like the climax of Trading Places), and poor working class having to wait in a long line for prices for their wheat that have gone up from 5 to 10 cents(!) There's a point of poetic irony that comes up where one particular man who is told in writing that he is now the head of the WORLD and has 4 million to his fortunes falls into a wheat pit and, well, dies. It could be silly, but it works because of the cross-cutting, how we see all this wheat falling on this man in this pit, and ultimately his fate at the end will be the same as the man on the field going back and forth in complete sorrow: death comes to us all, no matter what you do.
I think the direction here and the pioneering sense of editing triumphs over all, and while it has a story it's actually strongest at evoking this sense of complete class disparity: the rich are getting richer, and the poor are staying the same (if they're lucky, which it doesn't seem to be), and if nothing else comes to pass for change then perhaps revolution will have to come... this feels radical for 1909, or it may be just what people wanted to see. I'd be curious to see the reactions of the audience from a century ago, before Russia went into its Bolshevik revolution and of course before worker unions took hold.
I think what amazed me the most is to see such a leap from the filmmaking that was happening at the time to what occurs here, where Griffith gets a handle on his parallel editing and yet he knows how to hold on to a shot for long enough to get us invested into the struggle of the working man as well as to see the frivolity of the rich; the opening two shots which show two men getting ready for work (with two women of varying ages standing by, stoic like), and then walking slowly back and forth, as if in a daze, doing the work in the wheat fields that drain away their lives.
The story for what it is is not very complicated: Griffith cuts from the perspective of the wealthy, making their big deals and in the stock market (there's one scene with a bunch of traders in a room acting like the climax of Trading Places), and poor working class having to wait in a long line for prices for their wheat that have gone up from 5 to 10 cents(!) There's a point of poetic irony that comes up where one particular man who is told in writing that he is now the head of the WORLD and has 4 million to his fortunes falls into a wheat pit and, well, dies. It could be silly, but it works because of the cross-cutting, how we see all this wheat falling on this man in this pit, and ultimately his fate at the end will be the same as the man on the field going back and forth in complete sorrow: death comes to us all, no matter what you do.
I think the direction here and the pioneering sense of editing triumphs over all, and while it has a story it's actually strongest at evoking this sense of complete class disparity: the rich are getting richer, and the poor are staying the same (if they're lucky, which it doesn't seem to be), and if nothing else comes to pass for change then perhaps revolution will have to come... this feels radical for 1909, or it may be just what people wanted to see. I'd be curious to see the reactions of the audience from a century ago, before Russia went into its Bolshevik revolution and of course before worker unions took hold.