D.W. Griffith
1919

Good melodrama. The print we watched in class was gorgeous; I love the colour tinting in those old films, the whole thing looks so lush.
Lillian Gish was amazing. She is what Gloria Swanson is talking about in Sunset Boulevard when she said "We had faces then."
The only thing, the thing that made it hard to watch and took away from the still-charming sentiment, was how much its attitude toward race has aged. For one thing, pretty much all the Chinese people in the film are actually Chinese. Except for the hero, Cheng Huan, who is referred to in the intertitles as "The Yellow Man" and is played by . Richard Barthelmess. He looks even less Asian next to all the actually Asian extras.
Lines like "Why are you so good to me, Chinky?" Meant to be affectionate. Now, kind of horrible.
Visually beautiful though.