Forerunners

This chapter introduces a few key pioneer auteurs: D. W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, and F. W. Murnau. Griffith experimented freely in his early films, imaginatively expanding on work being done by other directors. He made innovations with editing, especially parallel montage, and, with The Birth of a Nation —a singularly racist film—introduced the long-form narrative. Eisenstein took the opposite tack, and instead of cross-cutting between two bits of action, created clashes of images in revolutionary montage form. Murnau was an heir to German Expressionism and its looming shadows and dark vision. But in the United States, he made Sunrise , a brilliant work about marriage, its tragedies, and consummate happiness.