This is about the fifth D.W.
Griffith is able to paint a sweet little picture on this very limited canvass. There are only four or five settings.
As It Is in Life (1910) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A rather strange film from D.W.
"As It Is in Life" is an American silent black-and-white film from 105 years ago. The version I watched runs for 12 minutes and the whole thing is basically about a father-daughter relationship and how it changes as they both grow older.
George Nichols plays a newly widowed father who devotes his life to providing for his small daughter by working in a pigeon farm. Years later, when she returns from school, Dad expects her to care for him in his limp-ridden twilight years and is aggrieved to discover that she has found herself a young man.
This sweet and simple Biograph short comes from the middle period in Griffith's career at the studio. Having spent most of 1909 developing his handling of action, he now began to turn his attention more and more to drama and poignancy.
What I like about this film is studying it as a time capsule of history. The story is basically of a father not able to marry another woman after his first wife's death because he can't afford to do so.
