Intolerance

Title: Intolerance
Year: 1916
Country: USA
Director: D.W. Griffith
Producer: D.W. Griffith
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 178 minutes
Viewed: May 29, 2010

Review: This is the second film by Griffith that Drake and I have viewed, the first being The Birth of a Nation. Apparently Griffith likes the longer films, because this film was also 3 hours long. There were quite a few differences between the two films though, this, in my personal opinion, was more entertaining. This is the first film out of the five thus far that has used an extravagant number of extras. It is stated in the review in the book, 1001 Movies, that there are 3,000 extras used. Also, the set itself is extremely detailed compared to what we have witnessed so far. Other mentionable details are that there appears to be nudity or at least semi-nudity in the film, it is difficult to tell in the scene whether or not the woman is completely naked. As well, there is a kiss which hasn't been scene yet in the past films. Lastly, something different about this movie is there are more detailed scenes of violence. In one scene the a man appears to get his head cut off, in the past movies we have scene gun shots but nothing as severe as this. Overall, the storyline for me was hard to follow because it is a silent film, but it was more interesting to watch because Griffith combined different story lines which helps capture the audiences attention more.

Rating:
2.5 Shamrocks (While I enjoyed this film more then the others, it still was 3 hours long and for me difficult to follow because of it being a silent film. I am not sure I am fully capable of following a silent film that is that long. I think if it wouldn't have been 3 hours I would have given it 3 Shamrocks, but since I will not watch it again, 2.5 makes more sense. Just an FYI, I did stop watching for about 20 minutes, but I don't think it made that big of a difference, I was just as confused before as I was after I missed that short period of time.)
3 Soccer Balls

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