Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Tony the 1313 Terror😼🏳️‍🌈 ★★ 441

  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…

• 

  Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★ 2

  Intolerance, burning and slaying. Intolerance is D. W. Griffith's response to the condemnations he had received in regards to The Birth of a Nation, which has over the years been criticized for its racist overtones yet also praised for its technological innovations for film history. As for D. W. Griffith's Intolerance, I feel as if what Griffith is leaving behind made me rethink what I had perceived of him after The Birth of a Nation, because Intolerance goes ahead and speaks out against how closed-minded society's viewpoints may be, within all eras, age groups, and races. It's a film that is already a century old, and it is so ahead of its own time, it cannot be remade today no…

• 

  Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 20

  ***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***

  Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages... Oh, what a glorious and tear-inducing cinematographic creation was born almost a century ago. Oh, what a compelling and self-reflexive drama of epic proportions gave cinema an outstanding respect. Oh, what a sophisticated and groundbreaking epitome of the strong emotional connection existent between love and several forms of intolerance Griffith attempted to create. Oh, what a faithful representation of different eras of human history making love until the cataclysmic final explosion ensues an inevitable, yet truthful conclusion about the decaying of the human race due to its imaginary vainglory. Oh, what an audacious depiction of violence contrasted with evil intentions and the lack of…

• 

  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★

  With the possible exception of True Heart Susie, Griffith's non-formal ideas never progressed past Victorian melodrama. So most of the ideas parlayed within the actual narratives of Intolerance are often precariously simple tales of heroes and villains - with the exception of the "Mother and the Law" sequence. Being that this section of the film was intended originally as a stand-alone feature (and eventually released as so with added footage in 1919) it makes sense that it's the only one which has any serious emotional impact within the individual segments it is chopped up into. However, this is not 'The Mother and the Law,' nor 'The Fall of Babylon,' but a film made of four stories which begin and end…

• 

  Review by Will Sloan 2

  And with that, my biggest and most embarrassing film-history blind spot has finally been addressed.

  Certain scenes in this have still basically never been surpassed, so respect. I am simply not used to seeing this many people crammed into this many planes of a cinematic frame, all doing some bit of choreographed motion. The way Griffith structured the four parallel stories is also an impressive feat of architecture, although I'm not fully persuaded by the parallels between the crucifixion of Christ and, say, The Boy in modern times being sentenced to death.

  It's very funny that D.W. Griffith was so stung by pushback to Birth of a Nation's racial politics that he responded with a three-hour epic about how intolerance…

• 

  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 9

  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.

• 

  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★

  D.W. Griffith's epic portrayal of love's battle against hatred throughout the ages.

  "Intolerance, burning and slaying."

  Following along with the plot of a silent movie can be a challenge, but with Intolerance we get to try keeping up with and staying invested in 4 different storylines that they keep switching between throughout for nearly three hours. This was a chore to get through to say the least, but thankfully the film does reward you with some spectacular moments for sticking with it until the end.

  (Quick Hits) ... Spoilers:

  - Easily the fall of the Babylonian Empire is the best part of Intolerance. The grand scale of the set design, costumes, and battles is remarkable for a movie made more…

• 

  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★ 1

  Consistent shots of Lillian Gish perpetually rocking serves as the intervening section in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, a film which jumps back and forth among a quartet of tales. It spotlights a remarkable exhibition of sets and costumes, along with a massive deployment of extras for the rightfully famous battle of Babylon sequence, which long afterwards continued as a Hollywood landmark. Each story exhibits how love and charity have struggled against hatred and bigotry through the ages, and it's ultimately a response to the intolerance which obstructed the exhibition of his earlier movie, The Birth of a Nation. Intolerance is a shrine to Griffith's ambitious talent and one of the landmarks in cinematic history.

• 

  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★½ 4

  Not. Even. The Europeans were so far ahead of this in 1916 it isn't even funny -- even their unambitious weekly-program pop-movies, sometimes. The better ones. All it has going for it is the big-ass sets and that assembly-line crosscutting, a mechanical process for creating meaning... but those are pretty American qualities, so it could be that's why it's been preeminent in the history books.

  I guess I'll watch the alternate cut of The Mother And The Law one of these days, cuz that's the only part of this that made any impression at all.

  PS: There's a thematic thread unifying the four unconnected stories? Really? Only feebly there, I hardly even noticed it ever. Thinking this is ahistorical, and…

• 

  Review by Evan Eaton ★★★★

  To think Intolerance is 105 years-old might just be the most mystifying fact of the movies, even when considering its religiously overwrought presentation. Overruling some mildly offensive appropriation, unlike The Birth of a Nation, Griffith’s next feature isn’t besmirched by the same deplorable racism and insidious sympathy for the confederacy, allowing modern audiences to watch it without feeling sick to their stomachs by the time it reaches its conclusion. Alongside Birth, it establishes Griffith as the first true action filmmaker — a title birthed out of a 3-hour spectacle of fire and blood, with some 3,000 extras in tow. It’s the inception of the cinematic language as we now know it; the inconceivable budget, the use of the closeup for…

• 

  Review by ♠ Benja ♠ ★★★

  "AFI 100 Years 100 Movies" completion - #26/100

  106 years old, a little over 3 hours, rock-solid endurance of the test of time, and ultimately a beyond imposing technical triumph that staggered in its narrative ambitions.

  As much as I admire the colossal merit and visions behind the project, the intercutting of four different stories and back and forth between time periods felt disjointed and kicked my ass. That being said, the set and costume designs, substantial use of extras, and technical marvel gave the film a towering and magnetic, almost ominous presence that made the lengthy runtime very accessible.

  The fact that D.W. Griffith made one of the most influential, ambitious, and unparalleled American films in the middle of WWI after being called racist is definitely a little funny, but I can't display anything other than respect for the film.

• 

  Review by Glenn Kenny ★★★★★ 1

  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.