D. W. Griffith has been credited with inventing Hollywood, not only as the location for the institution of American filmmaking, but also as a significant commercial element of American culture and as an identifiable set of formal and narrative conventions. In 1907, the Edison Company hired him to write scenarios and act in a film directed by the influential Edwin S. Porter. By 1908 Griffith was a full-time director with American Biograph, a rival of the Edison Company, for whom he made some 450 movies by 1913, when he left the company because it would not let him do a feature-length film.
When Griffith first began to direct, most films consisted of a series of static scenes, single takes in long shot, usually of events from the popular press or stage, which might be linked by intertitles. Narrative details were difficult to discern, and clear, logical connections between shots or scenes were virtually nonexistent. Griffith much more regularly made use of expressive devices like close-ups, cross-cutting between parallel stories or simultaneous actions, and flashbacks than his predecessor, Porter. He also hired younger actors who were able to adapt to a style of acting that was better suited to the camera than the broad style popular on the stage. Film directors in France and Denmark were making similar decisions and their films were screened in the United States, just as Griffith's films were being exported. Critics continue to debate the originality of Griffith's use of the techniques that became those of classic realist Hollywood cinema, although they acknowledge that he had a key role in disseminating them.
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