Orphans Of The Storm Overview:

Orphans Of The Storm (1921) was a Drama - Silent Films Film directed by D.W. Griffith and produced by D.W. Griffith.

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Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At ? Orphans of the Storm (1921)

By Lea Stans on Aug 21, 2023 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At ? Orphans of the Storm (1921) Lillian and Dorothy Gish in Orphans of the Storm (1921) The early 1920s in the U.S.A. was a time of changing tastes and fashions, when society was trying to bounce back in the aftermath of World War I and focus on enjoying life... Read full article


The Gish Sisters Blogathon: Orphans of the Storm, Dorothy and Lillian Together

By Bernardo Villela on Sep 12, 2013 From The Movie Rat

Introduction Firstly, my apologies for this post being late, and to subscribers who may have seen this post come up raw, unfinished and unedited. I’ll do my best to keep that kind of thing from happening again (it’s already happened far too often). My goal in this post for this blogathon... Read full article


?rf?s da Tempestade / Orphans of the Storm (1921)

By L? on Sep 7, 2013 From Critica Retro

?rf?s da Tempestade / Orphans of the Storm (1921) Dia cinco de setembro foi comemorado aqui no Brasil o Dia do Irm?o. Eu n?o tenho irm?os, mas se tivesse gostaria que minha rela??o com ele / ela fosse igual a da de duas famosas irm?s do cinema mudo: Lillian e Dorothy Gish. Juntas ou separadas... Read full article


?rf?s da Tempestade / Orphans of the Storm (1921)

By L? on Sep 7, 2013 From Critica Retro

?rf?s da Tempestade / Orphans of the Storm (1921) Dia cinco de setembro foi comemorado aqui no Brasil o Dia do Irm?o. Eu n?o tenho irm?os, mas se tivesse gostaria que minha rela??o com ele / ela fosse igual a da de duas famosas irm?s do cinema mudo: Lillian e Dorothy Gish. Juntas ou separadas... Read full article


Conservatism in Revolution: The Gish sisters in D. W. Griffith's ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1921)

By Margaret Perry on Aug 14, 2012 From The Great Katharine Hepburn

Conservatism in Revolution: The Gish sisters in D. W. Griffith's ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1921) This post is written in conjunction with the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and ScribeHard on Film. It is also my contribution to Eternity of Dream's Speec... Read full article


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D.W. Griffith used this movie as a means of commenting, obliquely, on contemporary politics of his time. He drew parallels between the anarchist mobs that overthrew the French aristocrats, and what he says in opening titles to the film are the present American dangers of succumbing to the kind of "anarchy and Bolshevism" he perceived in the recent Russian Revolution. It is a great historical irony that those Bolsheviks Griffith railed against were quite smitten with the director's incomparable ways of generating film tension in crosscutting as well as his cinematic means of conveying good and evil via sophisticated editing and framing techniques. As the father of film syntax Griffith was an enormous influence on the Soviet filmmakers Sergei M. Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, who were inspired by many of his films including the anti-Bolshevik Orphans of the Storm.
Lillian Gish first suggested D.W. Griffith film the enormously popular play "The Two Orphans," which had been translated into 40 languages, thinking of her sister Dorothy Gish in the role of Henriette. Interestingly, Griffith cast Dorothy as Louise, the passive blind victim, when it was Lillian who was best known for playing helpless heroines. Most who knew her would attest that Dorothy was the more vivacious and strong willed of the two sisters. Lillian had written of her sister in 1927 "She is laughter, even on the cloudy days of life; nothing bothers her or saddens her or concerns her lastingly."
D.W. Griffith decided to enlarge the scope of the melodrama by weaving in historical details from the French Revolution including the historical figures Danton and Robespierre. He made every effort to be true to real events and took additional inspiration from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and History of the French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle, which Lillian Gish noted every major player in the film studied. Carlyle's book was, in fact, also a major influence on Dickens, who took the incident of an aristocrat's carriage running over a small child from Carlyle's book
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Also directed by D.W. Griffith




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Also produced by D.W. Griffith




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Also released in 1921




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