I was in no hurry to see this movie. It’s been physically at the top of many lists of mine for a while due to it being the earliest film on my lists. I keep deciding that life’s too short though. I really hated The Birth of a Nation, director D.W. Griffith’s film before Intolerance. I respect the filmmaking of it, I guess, but the prominent racism of the story took all the focus. I’ve seen Intolerance called a corrective in a lot of ways. Apparently Griffith made a point to say it was not meant as an apology for The Birth of a Nation though, which isn’t very comforting.
Anyway, I spent a week taking a different decade(ish) each day and watching a few films from then. It felt like as good a time as any to check Intolerance off the list. And it’s true. This movie isn’t racist. A low bar. The filmmaking for 1916 – over a century ago! – is pretty impressive. I appreciate the ambition of the 4 storylines with a thematic linking. Even in this primitive form though, it really feels like Griffith was a blockbuster director for his time. The film is handsomely dressed and staged. The scale of the production is grand. I wasn’t that captivated by the performances or characters though. This feels like a movie where the focus was on what Griffith could do technologically more than creating a fulfilling movie. Or maybe I’m just no good at watching silent films. That’s a distinct possibility.
One thing that threw me off is that one story takes place in 1914. That’s like making a movie about the COVID shutdown right now. 1914 isn’t a period piece in this movie. That was reflecting the present day. My brain literally couldn’t process that. I kept turning that into a period story like all the others. Even the 1920s I can imagine as a real, modernly documented time. Anything before that can only be a period piece for me.
Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend
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