Intolerance (1916)
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96% of critics liked it
(24 reviews) -
75% of users liked it
(4,481 ratings)
Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives of… More Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives of a poor but happily married couple are disrupted by the misguided interference of a "social reform" group. A series of unfortunate circumstances culminates in the husband's being sentenced to the gallows, a fate averted by a nick-of-time rescue engineered by his wife. In the wake of the protests attending the racist content of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith wanted to demonstrate the dangers of intolerance. The Mother and the Law filled the bill to some extent, but it just wasn't "big" enough to suit his purposes. Thus, using The Mother and the Law as merely the base of the film, Griffith added three more plotlines and expanded his cinematic thesis to epic proportions. The four separate stories of Intolerance are symbolically linked by Lillian Gish as the Woman Who Rocks the Cradle ("uniter of the here and hereafter"). The "Modern Story" is essentially The Mother and the Law; the "French Story" details the persecution of the Huguenots by Catherine de Medici (Josephine Crowell); the "Biblical Story" relates the last days of Jesus Christ (Howard Gaye); and the "Babylonian Story" concerns the defeat of King Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) by the hordes of Cyrus the Persian (George Siegmann). Rather than being related chronologically, the four stories are told in parallel fashion, slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity. The action in the film's final two reels leaps back and forth in time between Babylon, Calvary, 15th century France, and contemporary California. Described by one historian as "the only film fugue," Intolerance baffled many filmgoers of 1916 -- and, indeed, it is still an exhausting, overwhelming experience, even for audiences accustomed to the split-second cutting and multilayered montage sequences popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and MTV. On a pure entertainment level, the Babylonian sequences are the most effective, played out against one of the largest, most elaborate exterior sets ever built for a single film. The most memorable character in this sequence is "The Mountain Girl," played by star on the rise Constance Talmadge; when the Babylonian scenes were re-released as a separate feature in 1919, Talmadge's tragic death scene was altered to accommodate a happily-ever-after denouement. Other superb performances are delivered by Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the Modern Story, and by Eugene Pallette and Margery Wilson in the French Story. Remarkably sophisticated in some scenes, appallingly naïve in others, Intolerance is a mixed bag dramatically, but one cannot deny that it is also a work of cinematic genius. The film did poorly upon its first release, not so much because its continuity was difficult to follow as because it preached a gospel of tolerance and pacifism to a nation preparing to enter World War I. Currently available prints of Intolerance run anywhere from 178 to 208 minutes; while it may be rough sledding at times, it remains essential viewing for any serious student of film technique. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- D.W. Griffith
- Written By
- Tod Browning, D.W. Griffith
- Genres
- Classics
- In Theaters
- Sep 5, 1916 Wide
Critic Reviews
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Variety Staff, Variety
Intolerance reflects much credit to the wizard director, for it required no small amount of genuine art to consistently blend actors, horses, monkeys, geese, doves, acrobats and ballets into a composite presentation of a film classic.
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, New York Times
The verdict Intolerance renders in the controversy concerning its maker is that he is a real wizard of lens and screen.
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
One of the great breakthroughs -- the Ulysses of the cinema -- and a powerful, moving experience in its own right.
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Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Influential landmark epic silent film.
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Donald J. Levit, ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Foreshadows what film could be -- spectacle reinforcing eternal themes of love and death -- and, at its best, would be.
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Cast
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Lillian Gish
as The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle
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Mae Marsh
as The Dear One
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Robert Harron
as The Boy
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Miriam Cooper
as The Friendless One
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Walter Long
as The Musketeer of the Slums
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Tully Marshall
as High Priest of Bel
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Alfred Paget
as Prince Belshazzar
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Spottiswood Aitken
as Brown Eyes' Father
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Mary Alden
as "Uplifter" and Reformer
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Frank Bennett
as Charles IX
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Monte Blue
as Strike Leader
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Lucille Brown
as "Uplifters"
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William Brown
as The Warden
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Kate Bruce
as Babylonian Mother
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Gino Corrado
as The Runner
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Josephine Crowell
as Catherine de Medici
- Ruth Darling
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Max Davidson
as The Kindly Neighbor
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Sam De Grasse
as Arthur Jenkins
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Edward Dillon
as Chief Detective
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Ted Duncan
as Captain of the Gate Bodyguard to the Pri...
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Pearl Elmore
as "Uplifters"
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Eagle Eye Cherry
as Barbarian Chieftain
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George Fawcett
as A Babylonian Judge
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Howard Gaye
as The Christ
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Olga Grey
as Mary Magdalene
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Ruth Handforth
as Brown Eyes' Mother
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Mildred Harris
as Harem Girl
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Joseph Henaberry
as Adm. Coligny
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Clyde Hopkins
as Jenkins Secretary
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Lillian Langdon
as Mary the Mother
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Roben Lawlor
as Judge
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William E. Lawrence
as Henry of Navarre
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Alberta Lee
as Wife of the Kindly Neighbor
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Jennifer Lee
as Woman at Jenkins' Employees' Dance
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Ralph Lewis
as The Governor
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Vera Lewis
as Mary T. Jenkins
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Elmo Lincoln
as Belshazzar's bodyguard
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Bessie Love
as The Bride of Cana
- Wilfred Lucas
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Mrs. Arthur Mackley
as "Uplifters"
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Marguerite Marsh
as A Debutante Guest at the Ball
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Felix Modjeska
as Bodyguard to the Princess
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Loyola O'Connor
as Attareo's Slave
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Eugene Pallette
as Prosper Latour
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Wallace Reid
as Boy Killed in the Fighting
- Alma Rubens
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A.D. Sears
as The Mercenary
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George Siegmann
as Cyrus the Persian
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Ruth St. Denis
as Solo Dancer
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Maxfield Stanley
as Count d'Anjou
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Pauline Starke
as Harem Girl
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Carl Stockdale
as King Nabonidus
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Constance Talmadge
as Girl from the Mountains
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Fred Turner
as The Girl's Father
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Gunther von Ritzau
as First Pharisee
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George Walsh
as The Bridegroom
- Eleanor Washington
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Winifred Westover
as The Favorite of Egibi
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Margery Wilson
as Brown Eyes
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Tom Wilson
as The Kindly Policeman
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Tod Browning
as Owner of the Racing Car
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Elmer Clifton
as The Rhapsode
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Donald Crisp
as Extra
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Lloyd Ingraham
as Judge of the Court
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Seena Owen
as Attarea the Prince's Beloved
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W.S. Van Dyke
as A Wedding Guest
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Erich von Stroheim
as Second Pharisee
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Barney Bernard
as Prosecutor
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Edmund Burns
as The 2nd Charioteer of the Priest of Bel
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Howard Scott
as A Babylonian Dandy
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Jack Cosgrove
as Chief Eunuch