Griffith, D(avid) W(ark) (1875–1948)

US film director. He was an influential figure in the development of cinema as an art. He made hundreds of one-reelers 1908–13, in which he pioneered the techniques of masking, fade-out, flashback, crosscut, close-up, and long shot. After much experimentation with photography and new techniques, he directed The Birth of a Nation (1915), about the aftermath of the Civil War, later criticized as degrading to African-Americans.

His other films include the epic Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1922), and The Struggle (1931). He was a cofounder of United Artists in 1919. He made two unsuccessful sound films and subsequently lived forgotten in Hollywood until his death.