D. W. Griffith / D·W·格里菲斯 · 1916
Intolerance
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
The vertical of Babylon's wall divides the elevated king and lower chariots within one geometric frame; parallel montage then makes four epochs recall one another. In the finale, the Babylonian chariot and modern car-train rescues accelerate together. Distant civilizations converge as editorial intervals contract, indirectly producing time through the expansion and contraction of a whole of movement.
Film details
- Original title
- Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
- Director
- D. W. Griffith / D·W·格里菲斯
- Year
- 1916
- Region
- United States
Film analysis: how shots organize concepts
Geometric framing first separates and joins parts within one civilization; parallel and convergent montage then composes four epochs into an immense movement-time whole through accelerating intervals.
- 01The wall divides one frame
A Babylonian wall forms a vertical: the king advances on the upper right while chariots pass through the gate on the lower left.
Geometric framing makes power, route, and scale legible as distinct parts while retaining one closed whole. - 02Four epochs return in parallel
Modern story, Babylon, the Passion, and St Bartholomew are juxtaposed through the cradle motif and recurrent alternation.
Civilizations become differentiated parts, and temporal totality arises from cross-epoch rhythm rather than chronological continuity. - 03Two races converge across centuries
The Babylonian chariot rescue and modern car chasing a train accelerate together as shot lengths contract.
Actions that never meet spatially converge through editorial intervals, and montage indirectly produces time's contraction and expansion.
Close-reading questions
- 01When Babylon's wall places the king on the upper-right horizontal and chariots on the lower-left, how does one frame separate and connect power and movement at once?
- 02As the cradle motif returns among four epochs, does it supply a common cause, or only organize the sufferings of different civilizations as comparable parallel effects?
- 03As editorial intervals contract in both the Babylonian chariot race and the modern car chasing a train, the rescues never meet in space. How does montage nevertheless converge them in a temporal whole?
Shots and scenes
Primary texts, scholarship, and locators
Theory coordinate: Cinema 1, Minnesota 1986, ch. 2, pp. 13–14; ch. 3, pp. 31–32; ch. 9, pp. 148–149
- 01Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
Standard Minnesota English translation and a principal citation edition in Anglophone scholarship.
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Viewing gateways and editions
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