Episode 48 – Intolerance (1916)

The year is 1916. It’s only been a decade since The Story of the Kelly Gang, but director D.W. Griffith has pushed the medium to new heights. With the same vision that created the cinematically groundbreaking (though racist) The Birth of a Nation (see episode 36), Griffith ushers audiences through four separate plotlines in what some have called the only “film fugue.” Intolerance sets out to tell “love’s struggle throughout the ages,” from present day troubles with crime and poverty to the downfall of the great Babylonian empire. What Intolerance offers casual movie fans who have always meant to watch classic movies: a massive scale in sets and story; a way-ahead-of-its-time intertwining of narratives; silent movie melodrama; and Mountain Girl. Show Notes