Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

1916 "The Cruel Hand of Intolerance"
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
7.7| 3h17m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 04 September 1916 Released
Producted By: Triangle Film Corporation
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

... View More
Stream Online

The movie is currently not available onine

Director

Producted By

Triangle Film Corporation

Trailers & Images

Reviews

Jazzy_san Intolerance (which can be seen perhaps partly as a response to accusations of perpetuating racial stereotypes and glorifying the Klu Klux Klan in Birth of Nations) is considered by many to be his masterpiece, and indeed the greatest film of the whole silent era. Griffiths mammoth film, also subtitled: "A Sun-Play of the Ages" and "Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages.", consists of four distinct but parallel stories that demonstrated mankind's intolerance during four different ages in world history. Intolerance was a colossal undertaking filled with monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and thousands of extras.
statesofunrest This was an excellent film, though I think the version I watched was a shortened version (the one that anyone can watch on YouTube, coming in at 2 hours and 45 minutes or around there). It was a very good watch though I thought. Hugely entertaining and a terrific score to boot. It's not just a good silent film, but a great film in general. The only thing I didn't like was the Jesus story, not that I have anything against the person, just it felt like it was somewhat lacking and didn't really serve any purpose to the rest of the film. Also, everyone knows the Jesus story and it doesn't really help the movie to reiterate here what everyone already knows. Outside of that, I really liked everything else in the movie. Truly an epic picture, the battle scenes especially are top notch for its time. It's really too bad that this movie ended up bankrupting one of the greatest directors of all time, but really, what a film, for its time or any other.
thinbeach In terms costume, design, and size of action, this Griffith epic is rightly considered one of the towering films in cinema's history, for it is a marvel to look at for an audience of any era - with the re-construction of Babylonian sets including towering walls, carved sculptures, and chariots, as the backdrop to religious worship and army sieges. It conjures up all number of memorable images and features a range of impressive technical feats - such as dolly's and what look like crane shots, as well as many close ups - which were very rare for the time.Unfortunately however not nearly as much talent went into the script as the production. It attempts to tell four stories from four different eras and places in history, united by a single theme - that intolerance is bad. The problem is however, the film tells us this in opening title cards before the thing has even started, so that watching this film is not a journey of wonder and discovery and mystery and surprise, but the journey of watching a wealthy group of people make their point in a scripted way with re-creations of history that contain inaccuracies. On top of this, two of the four stories seem to just fall by the wayside and be largely forgotten about. It feels less like a fiction film than a documentary re-enactment, the purpose of which is to provide a moral which everybody understands to be true before they enter the theatre to watch this film anyway. The problem with corruption in politics and religion and wealth in our world, and through the ages, is not that people don't understand morals, it's that they don't act upon them for selfish reasons. This film just uses morals to try and leverage some gravitas. Well, it could have been told in half the time at least! It could have been told in ten minutes! They told it in the first few title cards! The acting is fairly poor throughout, without any suspense the plot really drags, and relies heavily on title cards to progress the pretty pictures, but ironically it is the most modern story, the one with the least impressive set and costume visuals, that is the most affecting, as they choose not to provide a history re-enactment, but set a story of twists and turns in motion, melodramatic as they are.Wikipedia will try to tell us "it has been called the first art film" - but that's rubbish, because all film is art, and Melies, to list just one, was there before Griffith, and Griffith himself made better art before this anyway. In my opinion this is the kind of film that will inspire more blockbusters than unique stories.
a-cinema-history Intolerance has been sometimes referred to as the Greatest film of all times. This is in my view an exaggeration, but Intolerance is definitely a milestone in cinema history.It is quite unique in its combination of five different stories only linked by their common reference to the theme of intolerance. 1) a contemporary melodrama showing how charities can be led by selfish motives and can have disastrous consequences; 2) the passion of Jesus Christ in Judea; 3) the events surrounding the 1573 St Bartholomew's Day massacre in France (substantial parts of this segment are lost), 4) the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia, 5) a pacifist epilogue showing the war raging at the time in Europe grinding to a halt with soldiers fraternizing, flowery fields blooming and children playing among abandoned canons. This pacifist message must be put back in the context of the discussions going on in America at the time about joining the war.Maybe because of this pacifist message just before the decision to go to war, Intolerance was released in September 1916 and the United States declared war to Germany in April 1917, maybe because the form of the film was too much ahead of its time with its distinct stories running in parallel, the film was a commercial failure; it could not recover the enormous production costs, particularly for the Babylonian segment.a-cinema-history.blogspot.com/2013/11