The restoration of Way Down East was undertaken by Peter Williamson under the supervision of Eileen Bowser, Curator of the Museum's Film Archive; the project as a whole has been overseen by Mary Lea Bandy, Director of the Department of Film.
It was based on a story that in 1920 was already considered hopelessly old-fashioned, with its innocent heroine seduced, abandoned and ostracized for giving birth to an illegitimate child. But fine naturalistic acting by Lillian Gish and the vitality of D. W. Griffith's editing made Way Down East Griffith's most popular film after Birth of a Nation--and one that still holds up as a fascinating example of his film style. Scott
Simmon curator of the Mary Pickford Theatre at the Library of Congress writes, “Less ambitious than Intolerance, less innovative than Birth of a Nation...Way Down East still has an absolute claim among Griffith's greatest films.... Through expansive film realism, the Griffith/Lillian Gish team redeem melodrama as form, not failure. And only The Wind rivals Way Down East among Gish's portrayals of interior torment and strength.” The melodrama also exemplifies Griffith's dual stance toward his victimized heroine, who tries to defend herself against a society of hypocrites. In the end, of course, failing to save her child from the cold, and cast adrift on an ice floe rushing toward a waterfall, she is saved by Richard Barthelmess in one of the most harrowing rescues on film, and a sequence that influenced a generation of filmmakers to come.
Way Down East suffered some of the vagaries typical of the silent film, and others that were not so typical--such as the substantial re-editing done by the director himself in preparing a sound release version. By the time the Museum of Modern Art received the film in the late 1930s, no print of the original could be found. When the Museum undertook the restoration in 1979, Technical Coordinator Peter Williamson had to work with no fewer than four different prints (two from the MoMA Archive, two from private collectors) in order to assemble an integral version as close as possible to Griffith's original, tinted version. Three invaluable resources were provided by the Library of Congress: Griffith's own, detailed shot analysis; his original score; and the expert advice of Gillian Anderson, Music Specialist in the Library's Music Division, who aided Williamson in matching shots to the score. “Griffith was musically quite knowledgeable,” Anderson notes, “and...the restoration worked out this well partly because Griffith did in fact orchestrate the music so closely with the images.” Because the score--composed and arranged by Louis Silvers and William Frederick Peters--is so integral to the film, the Museum of Modern Art has provided an adaptation for tonight's live organ accompaniment.
By making Way Down East available, the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film is both celebrating its 50th anniversary and dramatizing the ongoing commitment of archives around the world to the campaign for film perservation. Founded in 1935 as the Film Library, the Department of Film has been among the leaders in promoting public awareness of the art of film. It assembled the first film collection in any art museum, actively seeking donations at a time when most films virtually disappeared following their initial release. The Department also has sought to bring films of every variety before the public through an ambitious exhibitions program and its Circulating Film Library, which serves colleges and universities; it serves scholars through the Pinewood International Film Study Center and is currently expanding its publications program. During the 50th anniversary year, the Department will concentrate its efforts on a drive to complete the transferral of its Film Archive from unstable, nitrate-based stock to modern safety stock.