Amazon.com Essential Video
In what may have been his most brilliant surprise, D.W. Griffith transformed an archaic melodrama about a wronged woman into a transcendent love story of redemption. Lillian Gish plays an innocent New Englander seduced by an urbane charmer (Lowell Sherman), who arranges a mock marriage and then abandons her when she's pregnant. When the baby dies from illness, Gish leaves the city and changes her identity. She finds herself reborn in the pastoral splendor of a farming community, catching the adoring eye of a young idealist (Richard Barthelmess), only to have the past come back to haunt her. Griffith made two kinds of films: spectacles and love stories. It's the tremulous love stories such as
Way Down East that have endured the best. This 1920 film is a triumph of humanity over cruelty, a work that brilliantly conveys emotion through environment. The famous climax on the floating river of ice is still amazing--especially since it uses no special effects.
--Bill Desowitz
On the DVD
Mastered in HD from the Museum of Modern Art's 35mm restoration, with original coolor tints
Score compiled from historic photoplay music, performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Notes on Lottie Blair Parker's original play
Photos of William Brady's 1903 stage version
Film clip: The ice floe sequence of the Edison Studio's production of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Image gallery, including the original souvenir program book
Notes on the preparation of the music score
