Director: D. W. Griffith
Year: 1916
Runtime: 2:47
Source: Amazon
I knew of Griffith because of Birth of a Nation, the first true blockbuster film, known for both its innovative technique and explicit racism. However, I wasn't aware that there was significant backlash at the time from the NAACP, which led to at least a few cities censoring or banning the film. Intolerance was intended as a response to those critics. But despite its theme of love conquering the intolerance of others, it's certainly not an apology from the director. The title is an outright rebuke to his liberal critics - in his eyes, they're the intolerant ones.
In the case of Intolerance, though, the direct object of Griffith's scorn is not African-Americans or the NAACP, but rather the women-led Reform movement, fighting for prohibition and, implicitly, women's rights. Intolerance contains four concurrently-told stories from different eras, all to some extent centering around the effects of "intolerant" people - in the modern tale, it's the hypocritical Reformer who, by swaying wealthy tycoons into charity, ends up depriving their low-level employees of hard-earned wages, and in the process puts the lead characters into destitution. (It's not that hard to see parallels with current conservative logic - although, somewhat surprisingly, the government doesn't play a role in this strange scenario.) Griffith even explicitly refers to the Reformists as unattractive women incapable of finding men on their own, undercutting the theme of his grand epic.
Despite all this, I feel bad leading with my modern criticisms, because despite this heavy-handedness this film is the most accomplished and emotionally moving film so far on this list. Certainly, there have been plenty of words written about Griffith's technique, but what struck me the most is the incredible performances he could get from his actors, in particular the strong self-willed women featured heavily in two of the four stories. The modern tale, despite its flaws, actually does have a moving plot at its core, that is largely unrelated to the messaging about Reformists. All of the tales - excluding the depictions of Jesus, which are somewhat trite and serve to parallel events in the other stories - do an excellent job of featuring the rich lives of poor men and women powerless in the face of large-scale events out of their control. All of the roots of the modern epic are here.
Though it's tempting to do what many culture critics of my own era would do and separate the politics from the art, here they're inextricably related. Griffith, due to his powerful personality, but also the film technology of the era, had a level of control over his films that would be inconceivable today. Not only did he spend a vast amount of his own money on lavish sets and thousands of extras, but being a director in the silent era meant he was the sole voice in his own film. In every scene, he can tell us how to think and respond to his scenes. Griffith had firm beliefs about the world and he wanted to use film to share those with us. By doing this, though, he limited himself, being forced to reduce many of his key characters to uninteresting stereotypes that serve his message. Intolerance really does come close to being one of the best films of its era, but Griffith's own intolerance holds it back.
Year: 1916
Runtime: 2:47
Source: Amazon
I knew of Griffith because of Birth of a Nation, the first true blockbuster film, known for both its innovative technique and explicit racism. However, I wasn't aware that there was significant backlash at the time from the NAACP, which led to at least a few cities censoring or banning the film. Intolerance was intended as a response to those critics. But despite its theme of love conquering the intolerance of others, it's certainly not an apology from the director. The title is an outright rebuke to his liberal critics - in his eyes, they're the intolerant ones.
In the case of Intolerance, though, the direct object of Griffith's scorn is not African-Americans or the NAACP, but rather the women-led Reform movement, fighting for prohibition and, implicitly, women's rights. Intolerance contains four concurrently-told stories from different eras, all to some extent centering around the effects of "intolerant" people - in the modern tale, it's the hypocritical Reformer who, by swaying wealthy tycoons into charity, ends up depriving their low-level employees of hard-earned wages, and in the process puts the lead characters into destitution. (It's not that hard to see parallels with current conservative logic - although, somewhat surprisingly, the government doesn't play a role in this strange scenario.) Griffith even explicitly refers to the Reformists as unattractive women incapable of finding men on their own, undercutting the theme of his grand epic.
Despite all this, I feel bad leading with my modern criticisms, because despite this heavy-handedness this film is the most accomplished and emotionally moving film so far on this list. Certainly, there have been plenty of words written about Griffith's technique, but what struck me the most is the incredible performances he could get from his actors, in particular the strong self-willed women featured heavily in two of the four stories. The modern tale, despite its flaws, actually does have a moving plot at its core, that is largely unrelated to the messaging about Reformists. All of the tales - excluding the depictions of Jesus, which are somewhat trite and serve to parallel events in the other stories - do an excellent job of featuring the rich lives of poor men and women powerless in the face of large-scale events out of their control. All of the roots of the modern epic are here.
Though it's tempting to do what many culture critics of my own era would do and separate the politics from the art, here they're inextricably related. Griffith, due to his powerful personality, but also the film technology of the era, had a level of control over his films that would be inconceivable today. Not only did he spend a vast amount of his own money on lavish sets and thousands of extras, but being a director in the silent era meant he was the sole voice in his own film. In every scene, he can tell us how to think and respond to his scenes. Griffith had firm beliefs about the world and he wanted to use film to share those with us. By doing this, though, he limited himself, being forced to reduce many of his key characters to uninteresting stereotypes that serve his message. Intolerance really does come close to being one of the best films of its era, but Griffith's own intolerance holds it back.
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