"Intolerance"

Analytical Essay # 16424

English > Analysis
Film > Analysis, Criticism, Etc.
Film > Artist
Film > History of

"Intolerance"

A Study of D.W. Griffith's 1916 film.

2,205 words () | 9 sources | MLA | 2001 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews D.W Griffith's 1916 film, "Intolerance," which has remained one of the most influential films of all time from its initial release to the present day. It attempts to reconcile the tremendous influence of "Intolerance" on the film-making industry over the years and the applause it has received from film scholars even with its categorization as a financial debacle and a box-office flop. It discusses the film's and subsequent re-release's lack of mass appeal and the theories as to why Griffith's epic did not achieve the financial success of his previous film, "The Birth of a Nation."

From the Paper:

"It is thus clear that D.W. Griffith's Intolerance has been an influential film for filmmakers of subsequent generations, and that its greatness has been largely appreciated by film critics and scholars over the past eighty-five years. How, then, can the affirmed greatness of this film be reconciled with its box office failure in 1916? I believe the answer lays in the differences in how a film critic judges a film, as opposed to how the average moviegoer would do so. Drawing from several reviews of Griffith's film, it appears that critics view the film as a work divorced from the world a film's greatness is the product of its own intrinsic worth. General film viewers, however, judge a movie in the context of the world at large and their own lives, as is only natural."