AFI Top 52 Project - #49

Yeah, I just couldn’t get into this at all. I knew going in it was going to be a tough watch (a 3 hour silent film are you kidding me with this shit?!) but the way the separate stories were interwoven made it even harder to keep up with what was going on. I will say that the sets were truly impressive things of exquisite beauty. It just seems like some of that incredible detail should have gone into the editing.

Supposedly Griffith made this as a sort of atonement for the blatantly racist Birth of a Nation, but if you’re replacing racism with a hefty dose of misogyny then you’re really not doing any better at all now are you.

Side Note: What’s up with that creepy looking poster trying to make this look like an enticing horror movie about a baby snatching ghost/demon? Spoiler alert: it’s a trap.

If the cinematic experience is one that only unfolds in the present, then Intolerance takes four different periods of history which have existed in linear time and places them within a span of simultaneity - this can only be done through cinematic means. It's one of the purest examples of Kubrick's dictum that it is editing which makes cinema distinct from other art forms. Better analysis in the other write-up I did - but I think the last 40 mins are maybe unparalleled: no Manchiean dualisms - we rip through space and time through each cut, but because of the thematic linkage, each juxtaposition builds a new idea out of the last, even as the speed increases. It's the moment where narrative montage develops into what will become theoretical montage. We should be glad we're lucky enough that something this sophisticated can also be the most ambitious motion picture ever made.

The Cohen Films restoration is absolutely remarkable and the nearly 100-year-old film plays as relentlessly MODERN. If you think you know this picture but haven't seen it in a while, check it out again, it is AMAZING.

I do greatly admire anything with this much scale, and I also find myself desperately in love with The Mountain Girl. However, 1. Excuse me mr Wark, how am I supposed to actually care about the plight of any one character when you’re just gonna introduce 50 more in the next five minutes? And 2. I don’t think pervasive societal and economic inequality is actually entirely attributable to a mythical breed of women who are mad they aren’t hot anymore. Anyway treat yourself and watch this at 2x speed, DW Griffith is an asshole who deserves it

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup dw

This is one of the most impressive pieces of cinema from the early years of film making I have ever seen. The film is over 100 years old and is better than a lot of movies are in today's world of cinema. This must have been a breakthrough in cinema when it was first released. The editing , storytelling, cinematography, set design, and choreography were all very well done. The only thing that bothered me was the extended run-time of almost three hours. Overall, Intolerance truly is a film of epic proportions that should be appreciated for its incredible influence on cinema.

I'm not sure how to rate this one, so I will refrain from doing so.

Πέρα από το μεγαλείο της παραγωγής, υπάρχουν και όλες αυτές οι υστερικές, υπερβολικές, απολαυστικές ερμηνείες, ιδιαίτερα στα κοντινά - ανάμεσά τους ξεχωρίζει η σκηνή όπου το Mountain Girl δαγκώνει το αυτί μίας κατσίκας....

It was his attempt to make up for Birth of a Nation and it's truly a masterpiece for it's time.

Yeah okay he invented cinematic language, but I hate epic and this is so pompous not even Cabiria killed my happiness like that

D.W. Griffith didn’t deserve to make a film this good right after The Birth of a Nation, let alone one that comments on the reaction to that film in the smuggest, shallowest way possible. But he did.