1916 - (5) Intolerance

D. W. Griffiths' second entry on the list! Let's see if he's still doing a poor job of being politically correct...

Title: Intolerance
Instructor: D.W Griffith
Year: 1916
Runtime (My version): Just below 3 hrs.

Seen: Spring / Summer 2009

How i got this: I think this was a torrent? Maybe I got it from the same website as Les Vampires actually, but I can't remember.

Plot Outline: Using multiple parallel storylines, this movie tells us exactly how much misery and human tragedy intolerance in one form on the other can bring. With parallel storylines, this movie deals with genocide in France, the fall of Babylon, a family man framed for murder and even a bit with Jesus himself.

First impression: I liked the first Griffith one, but this might be boring...
But on second thought: I just got my mind blown by a movie that's more than 90 years old.

General comments: If you thought Birth of a Nation was epic, then prepare to get your mind blown by Intolerance. This impressive even by todays standards. Some scenes are so massive that literally over a thousand extras must be involved. Everything is insanely well done, and it shows that this was a movie that broke all records as far as budget and models goes. A city wall was built in hollywood, just to make this movie. A city wall so big people could walk on it, and lay siege to it. They just don't do this kind of stuff anymore.

The stories are quite involving, especially the story of the former criminal, who starts a family, just to see his past catch up on him. They supplement eachother, and serves the director well in making a suspenseful movie by cross-cutting between them. I feel that the french part is kinda lacking in some ways, but that might be mainly because the two main stories are so well told.


Also, this must have been the first movie to introduce a couple of things. Let's take for example the siege tower. I wonder how many movies have a siege tower that isn't made entirely on computer... This movie has a real one of course. Also, this movie shows people losing heads in swordfights, brutal! Finally this movie may just have been the first to do the "car chasing a train in order to overtake it and get to a crossing in front of it" scene.


This is not just a good story, it's also eye-candy, and should have been quite capable of blowing peoples minds back in the day.


This has to be seen to be believed.

Music: Nice music in my version, fits the story quite well.

Pictures: Cutting edge, one has to wonder just how expensive this was back then.

Essentially this is: An example of how a silent doesn't have to be primitive as far as pictures and props go.

Why you should see this: This brings a new meaning to the term epic.
Why you shouldn't see this: Well, even if you dislike silents, this should be given a try.


Honorable mention: All the extras! A lot of people were injured during the filming of the battle scenes, and the resulting scenes are just brilliant. Apparently being on camera made people do silly things even then.

Final rating: 84% Mainly because of the grandness of Griffiths vision for this movie. Go see!

BTW: Oh, and theres Nudity, partial at least!