A TALE AS OLD AS TIME: JULY

      Exploring the relationship between love and hate across hundreds of years, Griffiths uses four separate but similar narratives to make his broader, admittedly fairly vague, point about the eternally duelling human emotions. They are emotions that are the bedrock of so many works of art throughout history, so it feels fitting that they helped define cinema in its early stages too. He jumps back and forth between all four timelines from the off; one set at the fall of Ancient Babylon, one following Jesus’ life and teachings in the build up to his crucifixion, one following the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 16th Century France, and one in the contemporary day exploring a young couple wrongly and constantly beaten down by society. These interwoven timelines seem especially groundbreaking when seen through a modern lens, where non-linear, multipronged narratives are a much more commonplace in the mainstream cinematic language. The editing between them all is relatively smooth, especially so given the era the film was made in and the relative infancy of long-form storytelling in film at that point. Aided by detailed title cards, you rarely lose track of any one thread, and some slightly uneven moments are more than forgivable given Griffiths was essentially creating non-linear storytelling in real time. This editing really comes to fruition in the thrilling final third, as all four reach their highly melodramatic conclusions in near-perfect unison.
      From a production perspective, Intolerance is also monumentally impressive. Recreating various different historical eras, each one captures the essence of its time period well (or at least the atmosphere Griffiths wanted to convey about said time period). Be it the stripped-down, washed-out reality of the early 20th Century in the modern sequences, the intricate details of 16th Century France, or the gaudy opulence of ancient Babylon, you totally buy into the lavish design work, historical and contemporary alike. This is particularly palpable in the immensity of the Babylon sequences, which are rightfully what the film is most remembered for to this day (the remaining sets became brief Hollywood landmarks in the subsequent years before their eventual demolition). The sheer size of the city walls as enormous battles rage around these sets are almost breathtaking. Griffiths filled his frames with striking compositions that still have the power to amaze. To see a film of such scale, at such an early point in cinema’s lifespan, is a sobering reminder that advancement doesn’t always equal improvement.