Intolerance (1916) - Part 1

Before the release of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith filmed a short called The Mother and the Law, a modern-day tale of social injustice starring Mae Marsh and Robert Harron. He later claimed the tale was inspired by the real-life Stielow case in New York, in which German immigrant Charlie Stielow was sentenced to death for the murder of his employer, only for his execution to be halted when the actual killer confessed. To prepare for the film, Griffith, cameraman Billy Bitzer, and his assistant, Karl Brown, visited San Quentin prison for research so that the film’s prison scenes would be a faithful reproduction of actual conditions. However, after he completed filming, and following the Civil War drama’s stupendous success, Griffith felt that a film such a small-scale film would disappoint audiences who now associated him with grandiose spectacle.

On the drive back from San Francisco, the three men glimpsed the Tower of Jewels, the 433-foot centrepiece of the San Francisco Exposition. Covered in 100,000 pieces of cut-glass crystals, the tower sparkled in the sunlight. Griffith had Bitzer pull over and capture some images. The cameraman captured a sequence of matted shots in which the image showed only in the top corner of the frame. Perhaps even then, Griffith was imagining a vast Babylonian set and a tale that not only matched the scale of his last picture but also the grandeur of Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914), an enormous box-office hit that had won praise from critics around the world.

By now, Griffith was part of the creative triumvirate Harry Aitken assembled under his new Triangle Film Corporation (the other two were Mack Sennett and Thomas H. Ince). Griffith was head of the Fine Arts production unit. His daily duties involved supervising the rehearsal, shooting and editing of the directors working under him. He also watched the daily rushes of each production, planned the following day’s shooting schedule, and developed story outlines credited under his pen name, Granville Warwick. In his spare time, at night in his hotel room, he pored over books about greed and intolerance, of the fall of Babylon and the massacre of Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s Eve. He also searched for tales of social injustice in the daily newspapers, finding reports on a blameless mother parted from her infant and of striking protestors gunned down and beaten to death during a chemical plant strike.

These incidents he adapted and fashioned into a plot composed of four interweaving tales from different periods of history: ancient Babylon, which fell to the Persians; the treachery of Judas Iscariot; the persecution of the Huguenots in 16^th Century France, and a story of deceit and love in modern day America. These strands he enjoined under the recurring symbolic motif of a mother rocking a cradle. Why he chose these historical periods to illustrate his message is unknown, although in an interview for Pictures and Picturegoer he revealed, “A few years ago…I produced a picture for Biograph called The Reformers. In that two-reel subject I gave vent to some of my feelings on the matter of bigotry and carelessness of the true wellbeing of one’s fellow-creatures. The picture did not in any way resemble Intolerance except in basic principles, but if you want the history of my new production you must go right back there, for ever since then I have been consciously and unconsciously collecting material for a portrayal, on as comprehensive a scale as possible, of the evil of intolerance.”

The astounding box office returns from The Birth of a Nation meant Griffith no longer struggled to raise finance for his extraordinary vision. Wall Street institutions were keen to back him, as were fellow filmmakers. Harry Aitken set aside $200,000 for the new super-production he expected to outshine The Birth of a Nation in every way, and Griffith could plan sets and costumes, and to hire staff almost as soon as he had pitched his idea.

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Sources: Sight and Sound, 12^th February 1947; D. W. Griffith and the Banks: A Case Study in Film Financing, Janet Wasko; A Silent Siren Song: The Aitken Brothers' Hollywood Odyssey, 1905-1926, Al P. Nelson; D. W. Griffith: An American Life, Richard Schickel; D.W. Griffith Interviews, Anthony Slide; Adventures with D. W. Griffith, Karl Brown; D. W. Griffith: His Life and Work, Robert M. Henderson; Before, In, and After Hollywood, Joseph Henabery; Anita Loos: a Biography, Gary Carey; A Girl Like I, Anita Loos; D. W. Griffith: American Film Master, Iris Barry; The Films of D. W. Griffith, Edward Wagenknecht; The Man Who Invented Hollywood: the Autobiography of D. W. Griffith; The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, Lillian Gish; Billy Bitzer: His Story, G. W. Bitzer.