Intolerance (film)

This is a very big movie.

It tells four stories at once. Each story happens in a different time.

One story is set in old Babylon. Another story is about a time in France. One story is about the life of Jesus. The last story happens in a modern city.

A mother rocking a cradle links the stories. This shows how many years pass by. The film uses many people and big sets. It is a very famous movie.

*Intolerance* is a very big silent film from 1916.

It was made by D. W. Griffith. The movie tells four different stories at the same time. Each story takes place hundreds of years apart.

One story is set in ancient Babylon. Another tells a Bible story about Jesus. A third story happens in old France. The last story is set in a modern city.

To link these stories, the film shows a mother rocking a cradle. This symbol shows how time passes for many generations. Each story has its own special color.

The film was a huge job to make. It used more than 3,000 extras. The makers built giant sets with tall walls. The film was very expensive to film. Some people call it one of the greatest movies ever made. It was chosen to be kept safe in the United States National Film Registry. This is because the film is very important to history and art.

*Intolerance* is a famous silent film from 1916.

It was directed by D. W. Griffith. This movie is an anthology film, which means it tells many stories. It is also called a "sun-play of the ages." The film looks at the theme of intolerance. This is when people do not accept others who are different.

The film uses four different stories to show this. These stories happen at different times in history. They are all shown at once to connect them.

The film works by jumping between these four stories.

The stories are separated by hundreds of years. To link them, the film shows a woman rocking a cradle. This represents the idea of "Eternal Motherhood" and passing time. Each story also had its own color tint in the original print. As the film builds to a climax, the stories switch back and forth more often. There are over 50 transitions between the different time periods. This style is very unique for a movie from that time.

Griffith made this film to respond to his previous work. His earlier film was called *The Birth of a Nation*. Many people criticized that movie for its unfair ideas about race. Griffith wanted to make a rebuttal to those critics. He did not think he needed to apologize to them. Instead, he wanted to show how intolerance affects everyone. He believed the people criticizing him were also being intolerant. This led him to create this massive, multi-layered project.

The film covers about 2,500 years of history.

The first story is set in ancient Babylon in 539 BC. It shows a conflict between Prince Belshazzar and Cyrus the Great. The second story is a Biblical tale from around AD 27. It shows the life and death of Jesus. The third story takes place in France in 1572. It covers the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The final story is set in a modern city around 1914. It follows characters called "The Boy" and "The Dear One."

Making this film was a huge job.

It used more than 3,000 extras to fill the scenes. The total cost was $385,906.77. One single scene cost $250,000 to film! This film has changed how people make movies. It influenced many famous filmmakers in Europe and Russia. In 1989, it was added to the United States National Film Registry. This means it is considered very important to history and art.

*Intolerance* is a monumental American anthology silent film released in 1916.

Directed by D. W. Griffith, the film is subtitled as *Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages* and *A Sun-Play of the Ages*. It functions as a massive epic that explores the theme of human intolerance. The film uses a unique structure to show how lack of acceptance affects humanity across different eras.

Critics often describe it as a "film fugue" because of its complex, overlapping layers. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential works of the silent era.

The film operates through a complex mechanism of intercutting four parallel storylines. These stories are separated by hundreds or even thousands of years. To connect these different eras, Griffith used a symbolic visual device. He inserted shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood rocking a cradle. This image represents the passing of generations through time. The film uses over 50 transitions to move between these segments. As the movie builds toward its climax, the frequency of these transitions increases.

In the original prints, each story also featured its own distinctive color tint.

There are four distinct stages or storylines within the film. The first is the Babylonian story, set in 539 BC. It depicts the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia. The second is the Judean story, set around AD 27. This sequence focuses on the mission and death of Christ. The third is the French story, set in 1572 during the Renaissance. It depicts the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestant Huguenots. The final stage is the Modern story, set around 1914. This segment follows characters through a cycle of crime, poverty, and social conflict.

Griffith developed this massive project as a rebuttal to his previous film, *The Birth of a Nation*. That earlier film was criticized by the NAACP and others for supporting racial stereotypes. Griffith did not view *Intolerance* as an apology for his past work. Instead, he believed his critics were themselves being intolerant. He wanted to create a film that addressed the concept of intolerance directly. This motivation led him to expand a smaller project into this sprawling, multi-layered epic.

The production of the film was a colossal undertaking involving massive resources. Griffith used more than 3,000 extras to fill his monumental sets. The total cost to produce the film was $385,906.77. This was a very high amount for 1916. A single scene, the Belshazzar feast, cost $250,000 to film. This one scene accounted for a huge portion of the total budget. One third of the entire budget went specifically into the Babylonian segments.

The sets were so large that they included tall walls for Babylon and streets for Judea.

Each storyline features specific characters that represent human types rather than named individuals. In the Modern story, the central female character is called "The Dear One." Her husband is known simply as "The Boy." The leader of the local Mafia is called "The Musketeer of the Slums."

In the Babylonian story, the conflict involves Prince Belshazzar and Cyrus the Great. The Judean story features the Nazarene and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

These archetypal names were intended to make the characters emblematic of all people.

The significance of *Intolerance* extends far beyond its initial release. While it was not a massive commercial success at first, it earned approximately $1.75 million. This amount allowed the backers to recoup their investment. The film's unorthodox editing style deeply influenced European and Soviet filmmakers. Many of Griffith's assistants, such as Erich von Stroheim, became famous directors. In 1989, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. This honors its cultural, historical, and aesthetic importance to the world of art.