Intolerance (1916) Silent Film - DVD9 - Loves Struggle Throughout the Ages [DDR]

2016.04.23


Intolerance (1916) Silent Film - DVD9 - Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages [DDR]

Intolerance is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Widely regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the silent era, as well as one of the first art films,the three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries:


a contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption,


a Judean story: Christ's mission and death,


a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, and


a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC.


Each story had its own distinctive color tint in the original print.


The scenes are linked by shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood, rocking a cradle.

Intolerance was made partly in response to criticism of Griffith's previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), which was criticized by the NAACP and other groups as perpetuating racial stereotypes and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan. It was not, as is commonly implied, an apology for the racism of his earlier film. In numerous interviews, Griffith made clear that the film's title and overriding themes were meant as a response to those whom he felt had been intolerant of him in condemning The Birth of a Nation. In the years following its release, Intolerance would strongly influence European film movements despite its lack of commercial success domestically.

CAST:-Lillian Gish as "Eternal Motherhood" The American "Modern" story


Mae Marsh as The Dear One


Robert Harron as The Boy, a worker at Jenkins Mill


Fred Turner as The Dear One's father, a worker at the Jenkins Mill


Miriam Cooper as The Friendless One, former neighbor of the Boy and Dear One


Walter Long as Musketeer of the Slums


Tom Wilson as The Kindly Officer/Heart


Vera Lewis as Miss Mary T. Jenkins


Sam De Grasse as Mr. Arthur Jenkins, mill boss


Lloyd Ingraham as The Judge


Ralph Lewis as The Governor


A. W. McClure as Prison Father Fathley


Max Davidson as tenement neighbor of Dear One

Renaissance "French" story (1572)


Margery Wilson as Brown Eyes


Eugene Pallette as Prosper Latour


Spottiswoode Aitken as Brown Eyes' father


Ruth Handforth as Brown Eyes' mother


Allan Sears as The Mercenary Soldier


Josephine Crowell as Catherine de Medici, the Queen-mother


Frank Bennett as Charles IX of France


Maxfield Stanley as Prince Henry of France


Joseph Henabery as Admiral Coligny


Constance Talmadge as Princess Marguerite of Valois (first role in film)


W. E. Lawrence as Henry of Navarre

Ancient "Babylonian" story


Constance Talmadge as The Mountain Girl (second role in film)


Elmer Clifton as The Rhapsode, a warrior-singer


Alfred Paget as Prince Belshazzar


Seena Owen as The Princess Beloved, favorite of Belshazzar


Tully Marshall as High Priest of Bel-Marduk


George Siegmann as Cyrus the Great


Carl Stockdale as King Nabonidus, father of Belshazzar


Elmo Lincoln as The Mighty Man of Valor, guard to Belshazzar


Frank Brownlee as The Mountain Girl's brother


The Ruth St. Denis Dancers as Dancing girls

The Biblical "Judean" story


Howard Gaye as The Nazarene


Lillian Langdon as Mary, the Mother


Bessie Love as The Bride


George Walsh as The Bridegroom

CAMEO APPEARANCE ROLES:- Mary Alden, Frank Borzage, Tod Browning, Frank Campeau, Constance Collier, Donald Crisp, Carol Dempster, Douglas Fairbanks, Mildred Harris, Dell Henderson, Harold Lockwood, Wilfred Lucas, Francis McDonald, Owen Moore, Carmel Myers, Wallace Reid, Pauline Starke, Erich von Stroheim, Natalie Talmadge, Ethel Grey Terry, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, King Vidor

Directed by D. W. Griffith


Produced by D. W. Griffith


Written by D. W. Griffith, Hettie Grey Baker, Tod Browning, Anita Loos, Mary H. O'Connor, Frank E. Woods


Music by Joseph Carl Breil, Julián Carrillo, Carl Davis (for 1989 restoration)


Running time 177 minutes (original release)

STORYLINES:- This complex film consists of four distinct, but parallel, stories—intercut with increasing frequency as the film builds to a climax—that demonstrate mankind's persistent intolerance throughout the ages. The film sets up moral and psychological connections among the different stories. The timeline covers approximately 2,500 years.

- The ancient "Babylonian" story (539 BC) depicts the conflict between Prince Belshazzar of Babylon and Cyrus the Great of Persia. The fall of Babylon is a result of intolerance arising from a conflict between devotees of two rival Babylonian gods—Bel-Marduk and Ishtar.

- The Biblical "Judean" story (c. 27 AD) recounts how—after the Wedding at Cana and the Woman Taken in Adultery—intolerance led to the Crucifixion of Jesus. This sequence is the shortest of the four.

- The Renaissance "French" story (1572) tells of the religious intolerance that led to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestant Huguenots fomented by Catholic royals.

- The American "Modern" story (c. 1914) demonstrates how crime, moral puritanism, and conflicts between ruthless capitalists and striking workers help ruin the lives of marginal Americans. To get more money for his spinster sister's charities, a mill owner orders a 10% pay cut to his workers' wages. An ensuing workers strike is crushed and The Boy and The Dear One make their way to another city; she lives in poverty and he turns to crime. After they marry he tries to break free of crime but is framed for theft by his ex boss. While he is in prison, his wife must endure their child being taken away by the same "moral uplift society" that instigated the strike. Upon his release from prison, he discovers his ex-boss attempting to rape his wife. A struggle begins and in the confusion the girlfriend of the boss shoots and kills the boss. She escapes and The Boy is convicted and sentenced to the gallows. A kindly policeman helps The Dear One find the real killer and together they try to reach the Governor in time so her reformed husband will not be hanged.

Breaks between the differing time periods are marked by the symbolic image of a mother rocking a cradle, representing the passing of generations. The film simultaneously cross-cuts back and forth and interweaves the segments over great gaps of space and time, with over 50 transitions between the segments.[2] One of the unusual characteristics of the film is that many of the characters do not have names. Griffith wished them to be emblematic of human types. Thus, the central female character in the modern story is called The Dear One. Her young husband is called The Boy, and the leader of the local Mafia is called The Musketeer of the Slums. Critics and film theorists maintain that these names reveal Griffith's sentimentalism, which was already hinted at in The Birth of a Nation, with names such as The Little Colonel.



TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-


Video Codec: MPEG-2


Video Bitrate: 4559 kbps


Video Resolution: 720x480


Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1


Frames Per Second: 29.970


Audio Codec: AC3


Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz


Audio Streams: 2


Audio Languages: English


RunTime 177 mins


Subtitles: None


Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]