Inverted Narratives: New Directions in Story-Telling (1910-1943)

Early directors D.W. Griffith and Lois Weber develop the radical language of cinema narrative through audience-friendly melodramas made for nickelodeon theaters. Experimental fantasies are depicted in such independent productions as Moonland (c. 1926), Lullaby (1929), and The Bridge (1929-30). Depression-era films by socially-conscious filmmakers reshape drama as demonstrated in Josef Berne’s brooding Black Dawn (1933) and Strand and Hurwitz’s biting Native Land (1937-41): each picture a raw reality. Parody and satire find their mark in Theodore Huff’s Little Geezer (1932) and Barlow, Hay, and Le Roy’s Even as You and I (1937). David Bradley’s Sredni Vashtar by Saki (1940-43) boasts an inadvertent post-modern attitude.