#20 - A CORNER IN WHEAT (1909)

Directed by - D.W. Griffith (USA)

We end this admittedly very Western list of films on the working class with one of the best films by one of the most controversial filmmakers of all time. And this is because D.W. Griffith is synonymous with racism in cinema, this being represented by his epic-scale feature The Birth of a Nation, America's first blockbuster. This film has somehow gone on to shadow many of his cinematic achievements, and simply bringing his name up is bound to inspire polarizing reactions. 

To some extent, it even seems wrong to speak of Griffith as a man who could empathize with the poor, working classes. This came from his own poverty, which he experienced at a young age. Indeed, many of his early works for Biograph (he was shooting an average of two and a half a week for a number of years) deal with very real social themes and issues - domestic violence, the temptation of crime, the exploitation of workers and so on. The most remarkable of these films was certainly A Corner in Wheat, which at a length of 15 minutes has the power of his over three hour epic films, which he would make years later. It certainly marked him as a serious filmmaker, among the many others who were turning in movies at his same rate around the same time. 

The film juxtaposes scenes of poor, working class people unable to buy bread as a result of wealthy tycoons cornering the world market of wheat. Impossible to think anyone unable to feel deeply touched by the power of the sequence where the camera remains on the sad breadline, with the actors remaining still if not for the fact that they are breathing. Or by the power of the unfolding tragedy of the events that unravel throughout its duration, relentlessly. 

On a cinematic, historical standpoint, A Corner in Wheat actually predated the collision montage that would be forever associated by Soviet filmmakers, such as Eisenstein and Vertov. The impact that it offers to this film, remarkably made in the first decade of the 1900s (over 100 years ago!) makes it absolutely timeless.