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Product Description ------------------- In the span of five years, pioneering director D.W. Griffith delivered some 450 films for the Biograph Company at a rate of two or three films per week. One and two reels in length, these works showed the filmmaker inventing, borrowing, and perfecting techniques he later used to memorable effect in "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," "Way Down East" and "Orphans of the Storm." But the Biographs were more than that; they helped shape cinematic narrative for generations to come. Plots are simple and direct, revealing an extraordinary dramatic talent of brilliant force, and Griffith assembled the foremost film ensemble of his day, including Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, and Mae Marsh. Among the 22 titles included on this landmark release are such widely recognized masterworks as "The Musketeers of Pig Alley," "The Battle at Elderbush Gulch," "The New York Hat," and "A Corner in Wheat." Collectively, these compact and exciting shorts provide an unparalleled record of American life at the turn of the 20th century. .com ---- Dollar for dollar, D.W. Griffith: Years of Discovery is one of the finest DVD sets ever produced. A must-have for students and scholars of early film, this two-disc, 22-film collection offers a comprehensive primer on Griffith's innovative filmmaking for American Biograph in the years prior to his epic 1915 masterpiece The Birth of a Nation. Combined with extensive commentary by noted film historian Russell Merritt, each of these films represents some kind of advancement for Griffith and the art of cinematic storytelling, from the sympathetic (yet still stereotypical) depiction of Native Americans (The Redman's View, 1909) to Griffith's fullest embrace of the burgeoning Western genre in 1914's ambitious Battle at Elderbush Gulch. In the intervening years, Griffith would refine his pioneering use of parallel editing, social protest (in such "film editorials" as 1909's A Corner in Wheat), flashback structure (The House of Darkness, 1913), and Freudian subtext (The Painted Lady, 1912). These films also chart the progression of stellar personnel drawn to Griffith's prolific mastery. Future comedy king Mack Sennett appears in 1909's Those Awful Hats; silent film legends Lillian and Dorothy Gish began their 10-year collaboration with Griffith in 1912's The Unseen Enemy; and The New York Hat (1912) was written by legendary screenwriter Anita Loos. Most of the Griffith Biographs were by Griffith's pioneering cameraman G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, and other silent-era favorites (Blanche Sweet, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore) can be seen among the casts. More importantly, these cinematic milestones represent the cream of Griffith's massive 450-film crop for Biograph, eliminating any doubt that he was the supreme innovator of fiction filmmaking. What's more, they remain as entertaining as they are historically significant, making this collection a bona fide treasure. --Jeff Shannon