Intolerance (1916)

While I'm still on a D.W.Griffith roll,decided to continue with his next movie "Intolerance" supposedly made as reaction to criticism of his previous work.

Because "Birth of the Nation" was such a huge success,no expenses were spared in financing what must be the biggest movie extravaganza of all times - if you think mass scenes in 1915. masterpiece were huge,think again - this time Griffith topped himself with enormous sets towering over Hollywood and mass scenes were breath-taking in scope and dimensions - where today movie makers simply use computer animation and tricks to create illusion of thousands,Griffith literally used thousands of actors to re-act ancient Babylon (and that was just one part of the story).

The vision is fine,but unfortunately Griffith bite more than he could chew this time - you might even call it megalomanic - instead of focusing on one story,he goes simultaneously into four different periods in history to hammer home his idea that human nature basically never changes. What could easily have been four movies he presents as four chapters - its like "Birth of the Nation" times four - it ended up being such a long saga that audience at the times were not prepared to watch it and although it wasn't disaster,it could never re-pay finances invested in its realization,therefore Griffith was forced to abandon such a large projects and focus on relatively smaller-scale stories without battlefields,horses,elephants and trains running. Who knows how he felt about it,but we can guess he never gave up in his desire to prove brilliance of this movie to the world and later played with it forever,shortened it,re-edited everything,cut into pieces and glued again,in the process some parts were forever lost and what we can see today is similar to ancient sculpture broken into pieces and somehow put together by archeologists who can only guess about its real appearance.

Four stories follow characters in modern time,ancient Babylon,Jerusalem and 16. century Paris - all four have spectacular mass scenes,thousands of actors and sets that were inspired by famous paintings (for example,the morning after St.Bartholomew massacre Queen Catherine de Medici stands at the gates of Louvre among slaughtered corpses of huguenots,this scene actually faithfully re-acts historical painting). Unfortunately,because of film re-editing,cuts and later patchwork, stories set in Jerusalem and Paris are all but lost (we get only several tantalizing glimpses into what they looked like) and what was left are stories set in Babylon and modern times,still exciting enough as they were but clearly these are pieces of broken mirror that nobody was able to put together again.

Personally I found the movie way overlong and had to stop at certain point and watch the rest another time (contemporary audience in 1916. must have been overwhelmed with all this) but after few days when I decided to see the rest,I actually enjoyed it very much and had to re-think my opinion. Even in this brutally edited version it still has huge appeal,excellent actors,brilliant historical costumes and lots of visual details to enjoy - I don't see how these four stories could have been more shortened (if he tried to make it into 2-hours movie it would be simply incomprehensible) so my conclusion is - five stars all the way,no matter how shortened or tampered with. I found myself thinking about the movie days after I watched it,so it truly left strong impression on me.

Is it better than "Birth of the Nation"? Well,it's oranges and apples - "Birth" was first and covered just one story,here we have four. "Intolerance" ended up being broken into hundred pieces while "Birth" survives relatively intact. But if you ask me,"Intolerance" is unforgettable while "Birth" comes as racist embarrassment today,something we have to admit but don't want to really remember. So,five stars for "Intolerance".