5. Intolerance 1916

Directed by D. W. Griffith

Synopsis

The film is set in 4 different eras. Ancient Babylon, the events of the Passion of Christ, St. Bartholomew's Massacre and Modern Times (1916). All the stories share the fact that they are set in a time of great intolerance, three of them (those which aren't about Jesus) are romances which are adversely affected by said intolerance. The stories to which more prominence is given are the one set in modern times, where a woman is left alone after her husband is arrested and her child gets taken away by "social services"; and that set in Babylon where a mountain girl uncovers a plot to bring down the King due to religious differences.

Review

This is a truly amazing film. Not only is it probably the first non-linear film but it also has sets that look truly spectacular even today. The scenes set in the Babylonian Palace are amazing pieces of set and costume design in a scale that was never seen before and probably since. They are amazing even to a 2006 jaded eye. The above picutre is of one of them, there's difficulty in having an idea of the size, you only believe it is not a painting because people move in all different levels of it, in the balconies etc.. The use of tracking shots by Griffith, starting really high up and zooming into particular people on that set are particularly impressive.

The battle scenes in Babylon are also particularly impressive, with 3,000 extras as well as realistic effect of beheadings etc.. Real nice.

The film cost 2 million dollars to make in 1916, a completely unheard of amout of money at the time. Because of its techinque of fast cutting between scenes and thousands of years back and forth it left the audiences a bit confused, which then caused the film to flop and Griffiths company to be bankrupt.

Also, this film has kind of tried to atone for the problems that Birth of a Nation had. It is a film about the evils of Intolerance, probably made as a reply to the criticisms of Birth of a Nation. The message is not offensive in the least and it is really quite interesting for 1916, fighting the hipocrisy of "charity associations" and the idea of religious intolerance.

If I had a criticism to make of this film it would be that two of the stories seem a bit tacked on. Both the Ancient Judea and the Massacre story seem to have been put there as an afterthought and are not nearly as fleshed out as the two other stories. Still this film is fucking impressive. See it! Really.

You can get it for free at MovieFlix

Final Rating

9/10

Trivia

Wow...just wow.

Griffith... come back... all is forgiven.

From IMDB:

The Babylonian orgy sequence alone cost $200,000 when it was shot. That's nearly twice the overall budget of The Birth of a Nation (1915), another D.W. Griffith film and, at the time, the record holder for most expensive picture ever made.

Jenkins and his foundation are modeled after John D. Rockefeller and his own foundation. The massacre of workers at the beginning of the movie is modeled after the Ludlow massacre of 1914, in which Rockefeller was involved.

During filming of the battle sequences, many of the extras got so into their characters that they caused real injury to each other. At the end of one shooting day, a total of sixty injuries were treated at the production's hospital tent.

After filming wrapped, the Los Angeles Fire Department cited the Babylonian set as a fire hazard and ordered it to be torn down. Griffith discovered that he had run out of money and was therefore unable to finance its demolition. The set stood derelict and crumbling for a nearly four year period until it was finally taken down in 1919. By then, it had fallen apart enough for it to be dismantled at a sufficiently low cost.

The massive life-size set of the great Wall of Babylon, seen in the fourth story of the silent film, was placed at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard (in Hollywood, California USA) when the movie was completed. It became a notable landmark for many years during Hollywood's golden era.