Intolerance (film)

• Release Date: 1916
• Director(s): D.W. Griffith
• Writer(s): D.W. Griffith
• Principal Actors and Roles: Lillian Gish (The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle / Eternal Mother); Elmer Clifton (The Rhapsode); Howard Gaye (Jesus Christ / Cardinal de Lorraine); Seena Owen (The Princess Beloved); Alfred Paget (Prince Belshazzar); Constance Talmadge (Marguerite de Navarre / The Mountain Girl)

Intolerance is a silent film released in 1916 that spans the course of 2,500 years, interlacing four distinct yet parallel stories from various time periods—the fall of Babylon, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and a fictional storyline in 1914 United States—each narrative showcasing the enduring nature of mankind’s intolerance.

The idea for Intolerance emerged from the backlash that Griffith received for his previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915). That film, set during the American Civil War, sparked controversy and incited outrage for using white actors in blackface to portray African Americans, and parts had also been censored. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted unsuccessfully to have the film banned for promoting dangerous stereotypes. Griffith resented the film’s reception, and sought to create a film that showcased the deep-rooted intolerance of all humans. Intolerance was not an apology film, but rather a demonstration of why The Birth of a Nation should have been tolerated and uncensored.

Seeking to create a piece that would highlight the social injustices faced by working-class people, Griffith began the storyline for Intolerance with the modern American plotline. Originally titled The Mother and the Law, Griffith envisioned this story as a smaller part of a larger picture that contained three other plotlines.

Plot

The film intertwines four separate stories from four notable periods in time, repeatedly cutting back and forth for the entirety of the 210-minute picture. The different epochs are linked together using footage of a mother rocking a cradle, a symbol of the passing of time and birth of new generations. The film’s oldest narrative takes place in ancient Babylon in 539 BCE, depicting the high priest scheming with Cyrus the Great of Persia to bring about Prince Belshazzar’s and the city’s downfall. The conflicting parties differ over their gods of worship, Ishtar and Bel-Marduk, and Cyrus the Great’s intolerance leads to the city’s demise.

The next plot is set in 27 CE and illustrates how intolerance led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ—the shortest of the four narratives. The third story takes place in France in 1572 during the rule of Queen Catherine and the Catholic monarchy. This piece highlights the intolerance of the Catholic royals toward the Huguenots (French Protestants), and Catherine’s manipulation of son Charles IX into orchestrating a massacre of the country’s prominent Huguenots.

The modern American story serves as the film’s centerpiece, and is set in 1914, following a young, working-class couple—The Boy and The Dear One. When The Boy and his colleagues have their wages cut by the mill’s owner, they organize a strike. However, the strike is quickly quelled and The Boy and The Dear One must leave the city in search of new employment. Unfortunately, their move leads them into poverty and The Boy becomes involved in a crime ring led by the Musketeer of the Slums. The Boy and The Dear One marry and have a child, and The Boy tries to leave his life of crime behind, but this angers the Musketeer. The Boy is framed by the Musketeer and sent to prison, leaving behind The Dear One, who has her child taken from her. When The Boy is released from prison, he finds the Musketeer assaulting The Dear One, and in the ensuing struggle, the Musketeer’s ex-lover shoots and kills the crime leader. She escapes, but The Boy is charged with committing the murder and sentenced to hang, although at the last minute, is exonerated.

Significance

Although the exact budget for Intolerance is unknown, it is estimated to have cost about $47 million when adjusted for inflation, an amount that was extremely high for its time. The expense is evident in the film’s monumental sets and detailed period costumes. In particular, the film’s outdoor sets, especially the set for Babylon (which accounted for one-third of the production’s total cost) were the largest scale sets ever crafted for a Hollywood film. The Babylon sequences are noted as particularly memorable for their impressive scale, substantial use of extras (10,000), as well as live elephants and cameras mounted on cranes.

Griffith chose to leave many of his characters nameless, using identifiers such as "The Boy." Griffith believed this choice allowed the characters to represent more than their individual selves, and instead embody their more general human type counterparts. In addition, to highlight the differences in the time periods and feelings they evoked, Griffith tinted the colors of each era differently—Babylon in as a grayish green, the Judean story in blue, France in sepia, and the modern American story in an amber hue. Griffith’s editing style was considered unconventional for its time, but influenced later filmmakers, particularly in Europe.

When Intolerance opened in theatres, it was not received well by critics and audiences. It performed so poorly at the box office that it was declared a failure and a flop. The failure was so big that the Triangle Film Corporation had to be put up for sale, and Griffith removed the film from distribution after twenty-two weeks. As a result, no complete version of the original film that played in theatres is available. However, because Griffith was notorious for re-editing his own films, several different versions of the film exist today.

Despite the film’s poor reception at the time of its initial release, opinions of Intolerance have vastly improved and it is now considered to be a masterpiece, and one of the best films of the silent era. Intolerance was one of the first twenty-five films that were selected for preservation in 1989 in the United States National Film Registry. The Library of Congress selected the film, deeming it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Bibliography

Dirks, Tim. "Intolerance (1916)." AMC Filmsite. American Movie Classics, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. <http://www.filmsite.org/into.html>.

Drew, William M. D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision. Jefferson: McFarland Classics, 2001. Print.

Everson, William K. American Silent Film. New York: Da Capo, 1998. Print.

Shepherd, David J. The Bible on Silent Film: Spectacle, Story and Scripture in the Early Cinema. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. Print.

Simmon, Scott. The Films of D. W. Griffith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.

Stokes, Melvyn. D.W. Griffith’s the Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.