INTOLERANCE (1916)

Prince Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) and his guard (Elmo Lincoln) share a goodbye kiss in the depiction of the fall of Babylon in D.W. Griffith’s 1916 silent epic INTOLERANCE: LOVE’S STRUGGLE THROUGH THE AGES.

INTOLERANCE was Griffith’s follow-up to his highly controversial and racist 1915 film THE BIRTH OF A NATION, which depicted the KKK as heroes. Griffith is said to have created INTOLERANCE in response to the public backlash he received from THE BIRTH OF A NATION, his defensiveness and failure to understand his own shortcomings linger below the surface of the film. It is a 3-hour epic that tracks historical intolerance through four intertwined segments about Babylon, Christ, a 16th century massacre in France and a modern American example in which an innocent man is sentenced to death.

The film also features a queer character, Francis, Duke of Anjou, though he is depicted as one of the villains. He appears in the segment set in France alongside his mother, a scheming Catherine de Medici, and the two use their influence to incite the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Francis is depicted as frivolous and referred to in the intertitles as “the effeminate Monsieur La France.”

 INTOLERANCE is mostly discussed today for its lavish costumes and extravagant sets, though most tend to forget that it features one of Hollywood’s earliest same-sex kisses.

INTOLERANCE

1916. USA.

Director: D. W. Griffith

Screenplay: 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