The Birth Of A Nation And Greed :: essays research papers

The progress of the depiction industry was remarkably fast in the first quarter of this century. I have chosen two films namely The stock of a farming (1915) and cupidity (1924) for comparison and contrast to show how much the industry had evolved at heart the terse span of nine years. These two films are chosen for the short time span between them. This short time span bequeath enable us to evaluate the development of the film industry in terms of the psychological build-up of the plot and the characters, cinematic qualities and the gradual acceptance of ironies in the films on the part of the American auditory modality.D.W Griffiths The Birth of a Nation and Erich Von Stroheims Greed are both films adapted from novels written by Thomas Dixon and rude Norris respectively. However one of the differences between these two films lies in the sympathetic characters portrayed. In The Birth of a Nation, the characters are portrayed as either exclusively good or evil. One could easily distinguish between the heroes and villains in the film. For example, the hero in the film, Ben Stoneman is portrayed as courageous, loving and righteous as opposed to the villains Lynch (the false reformer) and Gus (the black soldier), who are portrayed as scheming and lustful. This lopsided depiction of human nature is not realistic, as humans cannot be either wholly good or wholly evil. This is an example of idealism with clear influences from Pollyanna stories, which was well accepted by the audience then. Thus a realistic depiction of humans should be that of characterization their strengths and weaknesses. The characters in Von Stroheims Greed, on the other hand, possess this practical depiction of humans. In this film the characters are a real portrayal of real human beings with imperfections and weaknesses. McTeague for instance, is portrayed as kind and gentle towards animals yet violent by nature. Marcus, McTeagues friend and later his foe, is portrayed as a humor ous, witty further at the same time scheming and harbors grudges against McTeague. Comparing these characters to the ones in The Birth of a Nation, clearly the characters in Greed are much more realistic, painting a true picture of the complexity of human nature. It is besides a break from the then prevailing norm in Hollywoods films of demonstrate only one-sided nature of the characters, which is either wholly good or wholly bad.In addition to that, Von Stroheim also showed the psychological development of his characters.