Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life Review

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Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life ReviewCharles Affron's biography of Lillian Gish is well researched. He has consulted various documents which were unavailable prior to Gish's death and thus, in many ways, provides a more detailed picture than that provided hitherto. His book is clearly concerned to debunk some of the myths surrounding Gish's life. He spends a great deal of time showing that Gish presented an idealized picture of her life and that many of the autobiographical incidents she related were untrue. This is fine up to a point. It is good to know the truth and it is not as if Gish hid anything really serious. Hers were the white lies of someone in a business concerned with the presentation of images. If she lied about her age, how many other actors have done likewise? Where Affron's revisionism becomes more serious however, is in his criticism of Gish's silent pictures. Unfortunately his late twentieth century perspective continually informs his judgement and he can be rather sneering of her work especially her films with D.W. Griffith. Calling Way Down East a parody of melodrama shows that Affron does not particularly care for it as a film. The problem is that what makes Gish an important figure is her silent pictures and especially her acting for Griffith. If Affron is correct in his criticism of Gish for trying to keep alive the memory of Griffith, then it should be asked why he should wish to keep alive the memory of Gish by writing this biography.
The difficulty that Affron has as a biographer is that Gish's last truly important starring role was in The Wind (1928) yet she lived until 1993. His account of what she did in the interim is somewhat dull. For the most part it consists of descriptions of long forgotten theatrical productions and small film parts. He does not really capture what she did on a day-to-day basis. When he does move beyond her acting it is merely to criticise her politics. Affron seems to object that she was a Republican and was friends with Eisenhower and the Reagans. This merely betrays that Affron has allowed his own politics to unfairly cloud his judgement of Gish's life.
This is really the worst feature of Affron's book. His politically correct sensibility makes him ill suited to write about someone who grew up in a different age. Criticising silent films for not conforming to the attitudes of late twentieth-century academia is like criticising Henry VIII for spousal abuse and equally pointless. Lillian Gish was the greatest actress of the silent era, but Affron's book, though informative, misses something about her, for he is stuck in his own time.Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life Overview

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