In "Hearts of the World" (1918) D.W. Griffith during a scene in which soldiers are marching, used reversed direction cutting, which he had briefly used in "A Girl and Hard Trust (1912). Matching the screen direction when the camera cut had often preserved continuity in early silent cinema. The volume Motion Picture Directing, written in 1922 by Peter Milne, after having described D. W. Griffith's method of working without a script or continuity, then suprisingly adds that Griffith was not only interested with putting spectacle on the screen, but was attentive to the drama surrounding the characters, drama that might deepen or change the characters being developed, "He brought before the eye all the horrible realities of the battlefield, used them to dramatic prupose time and time again. And yet in the midst of all this spectacular action he never for once lost sight of the personal element of the story, this element represented on the battlefield by Robert Harron, who played the part of the young soldier." After filming “Hearts of the World”, D.W. Griffith featured actress Lillian Gish in another drama set during World War I, “The Great Love” (1918). The film is lost with no copies surviving. Photographed by G.W. Bitzer, it was produced by Famous Players Lasky.
Lillian and Dorothy GishD. W. GriffithD. W. Griffith