Intolerance (movie)
Intolerance is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith in 1916. The film, considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era, was made in response to critics, who claimed that Griffith's 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation, was racist.
One of the most spectacular films of all time, Intolerance was a colossal undertaking filled with monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and requiring more than 3,000 extras. The film consisted of four distinct but parallel stories that demonstrated mankind's intolerance during four different ages in world history. The timeline covered approximately 2,500 years, beginning with:
- The "Babylonian" period (539 BC) depicted the fall of Babylon as a result of a new but powerful religion filled with intolerance;
- the "Judean" era (circa 27 AD), recounts how intolerance led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ;
- The French Renaissance (1572), tells of the failure of the Edict of Toleration that led to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre;
- Modern America (1914), demonstrated how various forms of intolerance helped ruin the lives of Americans.
Actual costs to produce Intolerance are unknown, but best estimates range close to $2 million (around $33 million in today's dollars), an astronomical sum in 1916 that the movie was by far the most expensive made at that point. When the movie became a flop at the box-office, the burden was so great that his famed Allan Dwan, Erich von Stroheim, Christy Cabanne, Tod Browning, Jack Conway, Victor Fleming, W.S. Van Dyke, Elmer Clifton, Monte Blue, Mike Siebert, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
A detailed account of the film?s making is told in the William M. Drew 1986 book titled
