Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages
1916/USA 163m Dir: D.W. Griffith
Original Screenplay
D.W. Griffith faced, quite rightly, a lot of criticism for making The Birth of a Nation and he wasn't happy about this. His next film, Intolerance sought to fight against this, not existing as an apology but rather a criticism of people being intolerant of him. Even if Intolerance isn't an apology, it certainly paints a different picture of the filmmaker as it champions love rather than hate.
The film tells four stories from across history- the fall of the Babylonian empire to Persia, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in France, scenes from the life of Jesus and a contemporary melodrama. Unusually, these stories are intercut with each other throughout the film. There are brief moments where this does work well when drama is unfolding across different time periods but on the whole it just means it's difficult to access each individual story.
There are only a handful of Jesus scenes and I didn't really understand what they brought to the film as a whole. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre sections don't have a great deal of plot to them but they are really successful in showing a horrific historical event steeped in religious intolerance.
The Babylon sections take up much more of the film are visually the most impressive. There are utterly enormous sets filled with extras which still stand up superbly well. The amount of set and costume work that went into these scenes is incredible. The story revolves around a Persian plot to invade Babylon and take down Prince Belshazzar and the 'Mountain Girl' who accidentally discovers the plot. Though there's a religious angle to it, I wasn't sure that it really fit the theme that well and really it feels more about spectacle than story (though there are some great characters moments when the invasion actually happens).
The best section by far was the contemporary one which deals with issues of crime and poverty. There's quite a lot to it but the climax sees a woman's husband wrongly accused for murder and sent to the gallows with his wife facing a desperate race against time to save him. It's certainly on the melodramatic side but nonetheless it's a story full of emotion and tension that deals with themes that were relevant at the time and indeed still very much are.
It's a film which is flawed and the idea of intercutting various stories doesn't really work but it's impossible to deny it looks superb. The basic idea of love ending up beating hate is a strong one and it's a theme that feels very 2020.
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