Intolerance

Plot Summary

An epic like nothing that came before it or has been seen since, Griffith’s monumental masterpiece remains as powerful today as it was almost a century ago. The film also proved to be something of a training ground for young directors who would go on to have important careers in their own right, such as Victor Fleming (WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND), Allan Dwan (SANDS OF IWO JIMA), Sidney Franklin (THE GOOD EARTH), and Todd Browning (DRACULA). This major innovation in screen narrative tells four stories about social injustice in parallel: 1. “The Modern Story” ; of a working man wrongly accused of a crime was later issued as a separate film (The Mother and the Law, 1919). 2. “The Judean Story” ; of Jesus' conflict with the Pharisees and Rome. 3. “The Medieval Story” ; of the effects of the massacre of 16th-century French Huguenots. 4. “The Babylonian Story” ; of the conquest of Babylon by conspirators also was issued later as a separate film (The Fall of Babylon, 1919). Skillful cross-cutting brings all four stories to a tense climax. With the profits from THE BIRTH OF A NATION, Griffith constructed huge sets and hired thousands of extras for spectacular crowd scenes that remain among the best directed scenes of their kind.