Stagestruck Filmmaker: D. W. Griffith and the American Theatre

Given the scope of Richardss text, the attention to this storytelling, the ability to spin the tale, is missing, and the absence of Abramovis voice makes the account rather too straightforward. [...]the generous (and honed, told, and retold) stories of Abramovi function in this text as a propellant, pushing the reader towards the inevitable practical explorations. Engaging studies of individual films (including Judith of Bethulia, Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm) usefully reveal composite and evolving sources novels, theatrical scripts, vaudeville sketches, stage performances, dance styles, art works, contem -porary representational preferences. [...]Stagestruck Filmmaker proves wider than its titular brief as the account of the work of one remarkable filmmaker is repeatedly required to act as synecdochic expression of a broader story about the fluid traffic of people, perform -ance codes, dramatic material, and the modes of story telling between the American stage and American screen more generally in the period.