One of the tricks D.W.Griffith liked to use is to re-act famous historical paintings or illustrations.
I actually like this myself very much,finding a common recognizable point of reference (no doubt lost on many who don't know originals that inspired Griffith) although it must be pointed that this leads to certain manipulation of the audience because soon they start to take this seriously as historical fact,but that's another story.
This is the 19. century painting of something that happened few hundred years ago in Paris. So its hardly contemporary,still it became world famous and for lot of people represents how they imagined morning after St.Bartholomew massacre looked like. Catherine de Medici stands at the gates of Louvre,looking like goddess of death over corpses of brutally killed huguenots and its a grim picture,fascinating in its subject,for me as horrible as WW2 photos of concentration camps.
Of course,we will never know how real Medici reacted on this and what exactly were the details behind the story,by all accounts she decided to kill her enemies before they kill her - if you look closer,she was a widow left with five children and facing two powerful families who were intriguing to get the crown.
D.W.Griffith faithfully reproduces this painting in "Intolerance" - because movie was so badly re-edit and cut later,we actually see this scene for a few seconds only but I recognized it immediately. Of course this was silent film so Josephine Crowell mugs like japanese kabuki actress,using exaggerated gestures and winking left and right,to convince contemporary audience how evil her character was. If somebody re-makes "Intolerance" today I am sure there would be a thousand different ways to portrait Catherine de Medici,some modern-day actress would probably made her look completely different,perhaps fascinated by all this death and (considering how religious she was) even feeling guilty,who knows?
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