Truly Dreadful Film

Fresh and Exciting

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Having gotten criticized for the 'racist' content in his magnificent "Birth of a Nation", D. W. Griffith decided he was gonna show his audiences a thing or two. Thus, "Intolerance: A Sun Play of the Ages" was inspired. This amazing 3-hour 17-minute drama tells the story of humanity's intolerance throughout the ages, as demonstrated by 4 different stories: the Christ story, the fall of the Babylonian empire, the Renaissance French story, and the present, main story set at the time of the filmmaking. The Christ story is the shortest, at only about 15 or so minutes, the Renaissance story the second shortest, and the modern story and the fall of Babylon being the two longest.While this is extremely ambitious for 1916, and is mostly successful, there are some points to be made here. First of all, (and this could just be my problem) parts of this were confusing to me. This may be because I wasn't very familiar with some of the history: I was of course familiar with the Christ story, understanding the details of it, but the Renaissance French story got off slowly and had its confusing moments. The Babylonian story I needed some insight on, but after that I understood most of it. There are so, so, so, soooooooo many characters that it is difficult to understand who is who and such. The Boy, and the Dear One (in the modern story) stood out for me, but as for the Friendless One, she came out of nowhere in the story and became significant later on. There were various sexually harassing men and all these other people. It is very, very complex--not to be missed but at the same time, confusing if you aren't entirely familiar with the history.Now, let's get on to the details. Amazing sets, first of all--the sets in the Judean story and the sets in Babylon. Griffith was a real showoff--and in a good way. There's this amazing statue of Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess, which is simply amazing and looks as though it was made of stone (is it?) Later on in the Babylon sequence, there are these amazing moving camera shots of the Babylonian palace. The costumes too--amazing. This is as close as you're going to get to traveling back to old Babylon. Put together, this story looks amazing (though the fighting with the Persians scene went on a little too long). Plus, tons of actors--like, a couple thousand alone. It is all visually impressive and is truly a masterpiece.Something I've noticed the other reviewers have been saying here is that the story of Christ and the French Renaissance story could be taken out and are completely unnecessary. I disagree. Despite the fact the Babylonian and Modern stories have received the most attention, I found the other two interesting as well. The beautiful green tint of the french story was a joy to watch, and I also loved the way they portrayed De Medici--an intolerant idiot. The costumes of the same story I also thought looked cool. The Christ story--well, it wasn't detailed enough and barely only 15 minutes. They show a couple of his miracles and then cut to shots of him carrying the cross, and then there he is on it. Simply not enough, but it looked good for what was there.The shots of the woman rocking the cradle (sometimes taken from farther away, sometimes closer) are symbolic of Eternal Motherhood. They serve to link together the various episodes, and it is a very interesting way to do so. Lillian Gish, who acted in "Birth of a Nation" plays this role and while you never see her close up, her role may be the most important in all the film."Intolerance" is the sort of film which you get more and more out of every time you view it. Despite its length, I'm sure this isn't the only time I will be watching it. Because of the fact it is one of the greatest masterpieces of the era, (or maybe of all time???) it is not to be missed by ANYBODY. The message. the story...it's all stupendous. Worth 3 hours...really.

This has to be the worst movie ever made for a multitude of reasons and should not be watched by anyone who has any self respect. Nothing can redeem this film, not historical context, not the supposed innovations that came from it, and definitely not the story. Save yourself 3 plus hours of the worst film in history and watch better silent era films.

'Intolerance' is most definitely the best film by great innovator D.W. Griffith. And it was only possible because of his revoltingly racist 'The Birth of a Nation'. With more lavishing sets and extravagant battle scenes 'Intolerance' was unfortunately that expensive that it caused movie studio to go bankrupt.'Intolerance' was epic in many levels – it was technically superb, it's four parallel cross-cutting stories from different eras and again masterful (and quite gory, we don't see that many heads been cut off even in much newer movies) battle scenes. Each of them four stories could have been good film, but Griffith decided to connect them all with one theme – Intolerance. The connecting scenes with Lilian Gish as The Eternal Motherhood rocking the cradle of love was nice symbolic touch, and Griffith loved symbolism. 'Intolerance' is one of the best films about injustice, betrayal, and of course love, ever made. Griffith's visual style almost makes it a poem on celluloid.This film is awesome for one more reason – it has very strong female hero. In the Ancient Babylonian story The Mountain Girl played magnificent Constance Talmadge.*Quote from the film.

David Wark Griffith was a pioneer of cinema because he dared to explore in a time when people were playing it safe, when a film was a conservative medium (in the US, at least), try out something new, he was curious and adventurous, which in the end resulted in a few failures, but when he did it right, he paved the way that even modern day epics still walk today. Ben-Hur, The Gladiator, Gone With the Wind...Numerous Hollywood epics owe a lot to Intolerance, a classic that already in 1916 showed that a film can be long, all-encompassing and "larger than life", even when the silent era was not quite the best level for such an opulent scale.With almost three and a half hours of running time, Intolerance is no easy piece of entertainment, but I view it still as a fascinating document of its time, almost as an archaeological discovery of a film. The four stories form a simple, humble and wise message of man's hate towards man, offering love as the only way we can survive. Some may call it naive, but the message still stands, and people of today even thought of different titles - like patriotism or law and order - to make love more appealing to the masses, all just to make the society go on and not allow people to destroy themselves. The first story, set in Babylon, is easily my favorite, and you can feel the colors and opulent set-designs of the crew behind the black and white cinematography. The second story, revolving around Jesus Christ, is also fine, as is the third one, revolving around Huguenots who were persecuted by Catholics in France in 1572. Still, I must deduct one star from my review because the fourth and final story, set in modern times, simply did not do it for me. After so many expenses and great pains, the "modern" story seems almost nonchalant and too simplistic. Ignoring this and moving on, there is still so much to enjoy in this. Intolerance established the spectacle - which is sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing, depending on each film - and that should be respected.