Title: IntoleranceGenre: Drama
IMDB User Score: 8.1/10 Stars
Year: 1916
Language: English
Format: Black & White, Silent
Length: 163 Minutes
Director: D.W. Griffith
Producer: D.W. Griffith
Screenplay: Tod Browning, D.W. Griffith
Photography: G.W. Bitzer, Karl Brown
Music: Joseph Carl Breil, Carl Davis, D.W. Griffith
Cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Mary Alden, Frank Bennet, Barney Bernard, Monte Blue, Lucille Browne, Tod Browning, William H. Brown, Edmund Burns, William E. Cassidy, Elmer Clifton, Miriam Cooper, Jack Cosgrave, Josephine Crowell, Dore Davidson, Sam De Grasse, Edward Dillon, Pearl Elmore, Lillian Gish, Ruth Handforth, Robert Harron, Joseph Henabery, Chandler House, Lloyd Ingraham, W.E. Lawrence, Ralph Lewis, Vera Lewis, Elmo Lincoln, Walter Long, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Tully Marshall, Mae Marsh, Marguerite Marsh, John P. McCarthy, A.W. McClure, Seena Owen, Alfred Paget, Eugene Pallette, Georgia Pearce, Nilly Quirk, Wallace Reid, Allan Sears, George Siegmann, Maxfield Stanley, Carl Stockdale, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Constance Talmadge, F.A. Turner, W.S. Van Dyke, Geunther von Ritzau, Erich von Stroheim, George Walsh, Eleanor Washington, Margery Wilson, Tom Wilson
Oscar: No
Oscar Nomination: No
Budget: $2,000,000
Revenue: ?
Reason it’s Significant:
- Revolutionary structure of cutting between many different parallel stories, rather than following a single story. This was unheard of at the time of the film’s release.
- So expensive to produce that it caused the Triangle Film Corporation to go bankrupt.
- Features an unheard of number of hired extras (up to estimated 3000 people on screen at some points)
- The ultimate D.W. Griffith film in terms of screenwriting and shot design. Taking the time period into consideration; the scale of this film has never been equaled.
- Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
- Lead to the invention of false eyelashes
The next Griffith film on the list is a direct response to the criticism he received for his part in making The Birth of a Nation (1915). After being accused (probably wrongly) of being a racist and a bigot, Griffith answered in grand style by creating a film that is the ultimate testament to human understanding and acceptance. And he went BIG. The scale of this film is incredible to behold, even by today’s standards. The film is split into 4 stories, each from different time periods of history. The film jumps between each story at random intervals, increasing in pace as the film reaches its climax, and each story is chock full of thousands upon thousands of extras and HUGE set pieces. Of particular note are the Babylon sequences, which are just gigantic. There is no way you would ever see crowd scenes this large today without CGI assistance. One scene in particular stands out in my mind: A massive Persian army marches upon the gates of Babylon and all the audience can see is a wave of people stretching as far as the eye can see. It reminded me immensely of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), but instead of an army of CGI orcs it was an army of real life people
In fact, you can really see the effects in general really starting to come together for the industry in this film. I was quite shocked when, during one of the battle scenes, a soldier ran up and decapitated another man right in front of the camera. Yes, it looked fake, but it didn’t look TERRIBLE as I would have expected a film made in 1916 to look. There were no sudden jump cuts or other sloppy editing methods to safely remove an actor from the shot, just well made prosthetics and a cleverly maneuvered camera. The acting in the film was also quite good, particurally in the “modern” story, and you could tell that a sense of pacing was beginning to be established for directors during this time period. This movie in general flowed much better than the narrative of Birth of a Nation.
However, I am not without complaints when it comes to this movie. My biggest complaint is the framing story that connects the four tales in the film. Every time the narrative jumps from one time period to the next we are treated to this shot of a woman rocking her baby in a large cradle. Now, I’m not really sure if Griffith was trying to create some deep symbolism here or what the hell that is, but there is absolutely no explanation for it. At all. The exact same shot flickers into few during every scene change, and, towards the end (when the scene changes begin to ramp up in frequency) the shot is so fast that it looks like a subliminal message. I don’t know what it means, but its really, really creepy and comparatively random. Several times towards the end I had to stop and ask just what the hell was going on. There was just much better ways, to transition between stories like that, and I do not blame 1916 movie goers for their confusion and the resulting lack of revenue.
My second complaint is how self-righteous this film is. Towards the end it’s literally just cramming moral lessons down your throat. I know Griffith was combating accusations of racism, but he didn’t have to be so incredibly blatant about it. Good movies will leave the moral message up to the viewer, allowing the audience to decide what they want to take away from the film. Griffith’s approach here lacks all subtlety, and frankly, becomes a bit annoying. I came here to watch a movie, not attend church.
While the film is not without its problems, it certainly is worth watching for the artistic merit alone. Some people have called this the most ambitious film ever created. They may be right. The final product certainly reflects a level of ambition that is almost extinct in modern cinema.
Producer: D.W. Griffith
Screenplay: Tod Browning, D.W. Griffith
Photography: G.W. Bitzer, Karl Brown
Music: Joseph Carl Breil, Carl Davis, D.W. Griffith
Cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Mary Alden, Frank Bennet, Barney Bernard, Monte Blue, Lucille Browne, Tod Browning, William H. Brown, Edmund Burns, William E. Cassidy, Elmer Clifton, Miriam Cooper, Jack Cosgrave, Josephine Crowell, Dore Davidson, Sam De Grasse, Edward Dillon, Pearl Elmore, Lillian Gish, Ruth Handforth, Robert Harron, Joseph Henabery, Chandler House, Lloyd Ingraham, W.E. Lawrence, Ralph Lewis, Vera Lewis, Elmo Lincoln, Walter Long, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Tully Marshall, Mae Marsh, Marguerite Marsh, John P. McCarthy, A.W. McClure, Seena Owen, Alfred Paget, Eugene Pallette, Georgia Pearce, Nilly Quirk, Wallace Reid, Allan Sears, George Siegmann, Maxfield Stanley, Carl Stockdale, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Constance Talmadge, F.A. Turner, W.S. Van Dyke, Geunther von Ritzau, Erich von Stroheim, George Walsh, Eleanor Washington, Margery Wilson, Tom Wilson
Oscar: No
Oscar Nomination: No
Budget: $2,000,000
Revenue: ?
Reason it’s Significant:
- Revolutionary structure of cutting between many different parallel stories, rather than following a single story. This was unheard of at the time of the film’s release.
- So expensive to produce that it caused the Triangle Film Corporation to go bankrupt.
- Features an unheard of number of hired extras (up to estimated 3000 people on screen at some points)
- The ultimate D.W. Griffith film in terms of screenwriting and shot design. Taking the time period into consideration; the scale of this film has never been equaled.
- Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
- Lead to the invention of false eyelashes
The next Griffith film on the list is a direct response to the criticism he received for his part in making The Birth of a Nation (1915). After being accused (probably wrongly) of being a racist and a bigot, Griffith answered in grand style by creating a film that is the ultimate testament to human understanding and acceptance. And he went BIG. The scale of this film is incredible to behold, even by today’s standards. The film is split into 4 stories, each from different time periods of history. The film jumps between each story at random intervals, increasing in pace as the film reaches its climax, and each story is chock full of thousands upon thousands of extras and HUGE set pieces. Of particular note are the Babylon sequences, which are just gigantic. There is no way you would ever see crowd scenes this large today without CGI assistance. One scene in particular stands out in my mind: A massive Persian army marches upon the gates of Babylon and all the audience can see is a wave of people stretching as far as the eye can see. It reminded me immensely of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), but instead of an army of CGI orcs it was an army of real life people
In fact, you can really see the effects in general really starting to come together for the industry in this film. I was quite shocked when, during one of the battle scenes, a soldier ran up and decapitated another man right in front of the camera. Yes, it looked fake, but it didn’t look TERRIBLE as I would have expected a film made in 1916 to look. There were no sudden jump cuts or other sloppy editing methods to safely remove an actor from the shot, just well made prosthetics and a cleverly maneuvered camera. The acting in the film was also quite good, particurally in the “modern” story, and you could tell that a sense of pacing was beginning to be established for directors during this time period. This movie in general flowed much better than the narrative of Birth of a Nation.
However, I am not without complaints when it comes to this movie. My biggest complaint is the framing story that connects the four tales in the film. Every time the narrative jumps from one time period to the next we are treated to this shot of a woman rocking her baby in a large cradle. Now, I’m not really sure if Griffith was trying to create some deep symbolism here or what the hell that is, but there is absolutely no explanation for it. At all. The exact same shot flickers into few during every scene change, and, towards the end (when the scene changes begin to ramp up in frequency) the shot is so fast that it looks like a subliminal message. I don’t know what it means, but its really, really creepy and comparatively random. Several times towards the end I had to stop and ask just what the hell was going on. There was just much better ways, to transition between stories like that, and I do not blame 1916 movie goers for their confusion and the resulting lack of revenue.
My second complaint is how self-righteous this film is. Towards the end it’s literally just cramming moral lessons down your throat. I know Griffith was combating accusations of racism, but he didn’t have to be so incredibly blatant about it. Good movies will leave the moral message up to the viewer, allowing the audience to decide what they want to take away from the film. Griffith’s approach here lacks all subtlety, and frankly, becomes a bit annoying. I came here to watch a movie, not attend church.
While the film is not without its problems, it certainly is worth watching for the artistic merit alone. Some people have called this the most ambitious film ever created. They may be right. The final product certainly reflects a level of ambition that is almost extinct in modern cinema.
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