Intolerance Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Intolerance
Director: D.W Griffith
Year: 1916
Country: US
Language: English

After the incredibly controversial Birth of A Nation, the great D.W Griffith had one hell of a time trying to convince filmgoers and critics that he wasn't a racist bigot. Even though his film was meant as a mirror to show America's views a lot of people back then and even nowadays just couldn't understand the message. So Griifth decided that he would make a film to counter the backlash, he spared no expense at his million dollar (at the time that was pretty expensive for a film) epic known as Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages. Though the film never came close to breaking even in sales, it now is regarded as one of Griffith's masterpieces.

Griffith's Intolerance is a very tame film which was essentially about what he was trying to say in Birth of A Nation; Intolerance towards others can lead to the downfall of mankind. Intolerance is about the terrible effects intolerance has, examining it through various historical eras. In Ancient Bablyon, a girl from the mountains gets caught in a rivalry based on religion which leads to the downfall of her city. In Judea, the hypocritical Pharisees condemn Jesus Christ. Another story in Paris shows the downfall of a couple and lastly a modern day (1916) story shows another couple being torn apart by social reformers.

Part of the reason this film never came close to breaking even in sales may be the film's length, at 163 minutes (2.7 hours) It was far to long for audiences of the late 1910's to sit through, even modern audiences have a rough time sitting though that long of a silent film. Griffith was also far too ahead of his time in terms of storytelling, cutting from one story to another and then crosscutting within the stories as well which proved difficult for film-goers to follow.

The production values of Intolerance were tremendous, it was indeed an epic before the term "epic" was coined. Gigantic sets were created such as the Babylon set which remains a landmark in Hollywood today. 3,000+ extras were needed for extraordinary crowd scenes which then needed elaborate costumes if Griffith was going to attempt to make his film look aesthetically as realistic as possible. The script itself was complicated, it needed to be edited over and over, it was still being worked on even as production time rolled in. Intolerance may have been too big a project for anybody to take on, but if anybody could do it, it was D.W Griffith.

In conclusion, this film is a remarkable one of a kind epic that shows just how talented D.W Griffith really was. The scope, scale and magnitude of this film has never been reached and will never be reached. The emotional intensity of each story is difficult to mimic and though the film is very centered on Christianity I think people of any religion can enjoy this. The only problem I have this is that it may be exhaustive to watch and it's unlikely a film you'll want to re-watch in the near future. Still, it's quite an important film. Praise it! 4/5