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Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
American silent drama.
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
The film consists of four distinct, but parallel, stories—intercut with increasing frequency as the film builds to a climax—that demonstrate humankind’s persistent intolerance throughout the ages. The timeline covers approximately 2,500 years.
Breaks between differing time periods are marked by the symbolic image of a mother rocking a cradle, representing the passing of generations. The film simultaneously cross-cuts back and forth and interweaves the segments over great gaps of space and time, with over 50 transitions between the segments.
The inspiration for this film came from D.W. Griffith’s surprise at the loud protests against his previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915). In response to those attacks, he wanted to illustrate the problem with intolerance to other people’s views.
| Directed by | D. W. Griffith |
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| Produced by | D. W. Griffith |
| Written by | D. W. Griffith Hettie Gray Baker Tod Browning Anita Loos Mary H. O’Connor Frank E. Woods |
| Starring | Vera Lewis Ralph Lewis Mae Marsh Robert Harron Constance Talmadge Lillian Gish Josephine Crowell Margery Wilson Frank Bennett Elmer Clifton Miriam Cooper Alfred Paget |
| Music by | Joseph Carl Breil Julián Carrillo Carl Davis (for 1989 restoration) |
| Cinematography | Billy Bitzer |
| Edited by | D. W. Griffith James Smith Rose Smith |
| Distributed by | Triangle Distributing Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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210 minutes (original release) 197 minutes (most surviving cuts) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
| Budget | $385,907 |
| Box office | $1 million (theatrical rental) |
