'The Unchanging Sea (1910)' feels too ambitious for its own good. Griffith was obviously trying to create some sort of epic love story, but the restrictions of early cinema were against him with just 14 minutes, he didn't have enough time to do anything special with the material. The film is based upon Charles Kingsley's poem "The Three Fishers," from which several passages are quoted throughout the film. Griffith aims for poignancy, as he did so successfully with 'A Corner in Wheat (1909),' and he accomplishes it well for at least the first half of the film, until a silly plot device intrudes to shatter the bittersweet realism that had been so admirably developed up until that point. The director's shot composition (with cinematographer G.W. Bitzer) is sporadically impressive, making good use of the rolling waves of the ocean. However, here Griffith's primitive editing becomes noticeably static, with very little creative variation in camera-work. Perhaps this repetition and familiarity was used deliberately to demonstrate how little the ocean landscape has changed relative to the film's human characters.
A fisherman (Arthur V. Johnson) launches out to sea, while his wife (Linda Arvidson) laments his departure. His companions are later found dead in the waves, and, for years, the wife considers her husband lost, raising their child (played by Mary Pickford as an adult) by herself. But wait the husband is actually alive! He washed up on the shore and was revived, but tragically lost his memory. I never realised that the age-old amnesia cliché was around as early as 1910, and its effectiveness has always been considerably low. Also, I must have missed a crucial establishing shot in the film, because I was under the impression that the Husband had washed up on the beach outside his hometown, and I just could comprehend how the couple could somehow go twenty years without seeing each other about {I was obviously mistaken with this interpretation, but perhaps this was caused by an editing issue on Griffith's part}. 'The Unchanging Sea (1910)' is an interesting Griffith Biograph with good photography and suitably understated acting, but the great director has certainly done a lot better.
A fisherman (Arthur V. Johnson) launches out to sea, while his wife (Linda Arvidson) laments his departure. His companions are later found dead in the waves, and, for years, the wife considers her husband lost, raising their child (played by Mary Pickford as an adult) by herself. But wait the husband is actually alive! He washed up on the shore and was revived, but tragically lost his memory. I never realised that the age-old amnesia cliché was around as early as 1910, and its effectiveness has always been considerably low. Also, I must have missed a crucial establishing shot in the film, because I was under the impression that the Husband had washed up on the beach outside his hometown, and I just could comprehend how the couple could somehow go twenty years without seeing each other about {I was obviously mistaken with this interpretation, but perhaps this was caused by an editing issue on Griffith's part}. 'The Unchanging Sea (1910)' is an interesting Griffith Biograph with good photography and suitably understated acting, but the great director has certainly done a lot better.