Intolerance. 1916. Directed by D. W. Griffith.

(3/28/00-3/30/00))

The world is full of nasty people. That's really the message of Griffith's Intolerance. And he brings together an avalanche of evidence to prove that this has basically been the way of the world from the beginning of time.

Griffith refers, in his opening remarks, to people who require a moral even with their entertainment. This is funny because Griffith takes a pretty preachy tone and those opening remarks go on for a considerable length, giving Intolerance the feel of a sermon or lecture rather than entertainment.

Griffith intercuts between four stories showing intolerance and bigotry in different time periods; three, actually, because one of the four "stories" is really a series of tableaus from the life of Christ which are sort of used as punctuation. It is not a connected story. I think that Griffith felt that his audience was familiar enough with the life of Christ that he could simply refer to it from time to time.

I felt that the presentation of Christ was pompous, but that could be my own prejudice. I didn't like the actorwho played Him and while the film didn't seem to undertake to develop the character of Christ, It wasn't even fleshed out.

There is a story built around the St. Barthlomew's Day massacre of the Hugenots in France. There is so little of this story that it is difficult to get involved with it. However, the reconstruction's use of still images suggests that there was a lot more to this story originally and that it suffered most heavily when the film was re-edited. I suspect that if we could see Intolerance in its original form this story would take its place as a major thread of the film, possibly equal or nearly so to the Babylonian story and the modern story.

I think it is the Babylonian story that first comes to mind when one thinks of Intolerance. It's the still of the set of Babylon that one tends to associate with the title--or at least I do. The Babylonian story is the great spectacle and that is why it is there. But I don't think it really probes that deeply into the nature of intolerance. The priest doesn't like the ruler Belshazzar whose worship of the goddess Ishtar is undermining his power. So he sells out to Cyrus the Persian. It's a story of political intrigue and it doesn't even have anything as pointed as the moment in the Hugenot story where two figures of power each comment that the other would be a great man if only "he thought as we do." That's the whole problem.

What the Babylonian story does have is the wonderful mountain girl, played by Constance Talmadge, who becomes forever loyal to her ruler Belshazzar after he gives her her freedom when she is up for sale in the marriage market. Loyalty returned--it's the other side of the double-dealing and ugliness of spirit which pervade so much of this film.

Talmadge is so full of life. I kept wishing that her admirer, "the Rhapsode," would actually win her heart. But he doesn't--her heart is given to Balshazzar who has a love of his own. But she loves him to the very end--unto death.

And then there is the modern story which to my mind is easily the best part of the film. And I think that it is the only part of the film that can live up to the intellectual claims that Griffith made for it. It is a whole analysis of the effects of intolerance. We see some very frustrated women ("biddies," we might call them) who get their jollies by pushing people around and a frustrated rich woman who bankrolls them. In order to fund the enterprise her brother cuts the pay of his employees, there is a strike, people are killed, some have to leave and go to the city where the boy, unable to find work, drifts into a life of crime, and so on. It is a very elaborate linking of cause and effect.

And it is mixed with savage commentary. "When women fail to attract men, they often turn to Reform as a second choice," reads a title or words very close to it. When Bobby Harron's father is killed in the strike, the film cuts to an image of Jenkins sitting alone in his gigantic office, one of the causes of all the trouble. Griffith has a lot to say in this story and he speaks in a clear, direct voice.

The modern story is particularly effective because it tells a damn good story with a thrilling last-minute rescue of Bobby Harron from being executed for a murder he did not commit. It is the most exciting part of the picture. And it is the modern story which features Mae Marsh whose portrayal of "The Dear One" is the most gripping performance in the whole film. Miss Marsh is totally lovable and vivacious from the beginning, though I find her less attractive as the story unfolds, but that is only because her character matures. The final moment when she throws her arms about Bobby Harron and starts madly kissing him is one of the most powerful and beautiful moments I have ever seen in a Griffith film. All the spectacle of the Babylonian story can't even come close to it.

I found myself thinking that the character of "The Friendless One" in the modern story--the woman who actually does commit the murder and is tormented by her conscience--would have been a great part for Asta Nielsen. I probably thought of that because Nielsen played a very similar part to great effect in Pabst's The Joyless Street.

I did think that all the shots of Lillian Gish as the woman rocking the cradle as the film drove to its climaxes was a little too much. Griffith just didn't know when to stop. The final scenes of angels hanging in the sky and people throwing down their weapons (or something like that) to embrace a world free of intolerance were also "too much"--but of course that's looking at it from a perspective of 84 years later.

It is sad to watch those final shots and realize that the world really hasn't freed itself from the bonds of intolerance. At least, it didn't happen in the twentieth century. We can still hope, I suppose, but it is sad to walk away from a film with such high hopes, made so long ago.