Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
About Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
Four stories are cut against one another. In 1914 the Dear One and the Boy are split by reformers and a false charge. In Judea the Pharisees move against Jesus, and the story reaches the crucifixion. In France in 1572 the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre separates Brown Eyes and Prosper Latour. In Babylon in 539 BC the high priest turns on Prince Belshazzar, and the Persians take the city. A woman rocking a cradle returns between the stories. Each story had its own tint.
Cast & crew
More about Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
D. W. Griffith directed, produced, and edited, with James Smith and Rose Smith. Anita Loos, Tod Browning, and Frank E. Woods are among the writers. Billy Bitzer and Karl Brown photographed it. Joseph Carl Breil wrote the music. It premiered in the United States on 5 September 1916. The original release ran 210 minutes. Most surviving cuts run 197 minutes. The Babylon set on Sunset Boulevard had walls about 300 feet high, with streets standing in for Judea and medieval France. Griffith made it after attacks on The Birth of a Nation. He said it was an answer to those critics, not an apology.
Themes
Background
Griffith answered the NAACP and other critics of The Birth of a Nation by making a film about intolerance. He did not treat it as an apology for the earlier picture.
Look
Billy Bitzer and Karl Brown shot the four stories. The Babylon walls on Sunset were about 300 feet high.
Music
Joseph Carl Breil composed the score used with the silent picture.
Preservation
Selected for the National Film Registry in 1989. Surviving cuts are usually 197 minutes, against a 210-minute original. Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Mae Marsh plays the Dear One. Robert Harron plays the Boy. Howard Gaye plays the Nazarene. Margery Wilson plays Brown Eyes. Alfred Paget plays Belshazzar. Constance Talmadge plays the Mountain Girl.
- Lillian Gish is the top-billed player. The linking image is the woman with the cradle.
- In the 1958 World Expo film poll it placed seventh.
- The Library of Congress named it to the National Film Registry in 1989.
- Copies are on the Internet Archive and on Wikimedia Commons.
Scenes
- The Persian army enters Babylon after the high priest's break with Belshazzar.
- The cradle shot returns as the four stories change.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Intolerance)
