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Intolerance (1916)
Finally finished reading! It can be said that this movie is the most painful one I have ever watched. And because I fell asleep several times during the viewing process and the complexity of the movie, I repeatedly watched some scenes many times. In general, I have watched this film twice in its entirety, and more than ten times in its incomplete form. After so much torture, I finally understood what the film and what the film was about to express. To be honest, the movies of the first two decades of the last century were really not good-looking!
The film is 178 minutes long and tells four stories, which have nothing to do with the plot.
The first is a modern story called "Mother and Dharma," about the tragic lives of three young men in a turbulent society. Several ambitious women find an entrepreneur's sister to sponsor their events for their own purposes. The entrepreneur's sister listened to the words of these women and persuaded the entrepreneur to donate a lot of money. After a while, the entrepreneur decides to give workers a pay cut because the business that donated too much to the entrepreneur is having trouble. The move angered workers, and a general strike broke out. The strike sparked a conflict that left a lad's father dead. Afterwards, the young man, the young man's neighbor's girl, and his father and his wife, who also worked in the same factory, all left here one after another and came to new towns. In the new town, the young man could not find a job and had to join the gang, the neighbor girl was taken in by the gang boss and became his wife, while the father and daughter depended on their father's hard work to live. The father's daughter is a young cutie, she is learning to walk with a coquettish woman on the road, attracting the young man, intending to do bad things. The father stopped the lad when he found out, but the incident gave the father a heart attack and died. The young man was very guilty. After she accompanied Xiao Kawai, the two decided to get married. The boss of the gang saw the young man rehabilitate, so he framed him for stealing and arrested the young man. Sad little cutie is left alone to take care of him after giving birth. At this time, the ambitious women who managed the city ostensibly in good order won them a lot of praise, so they began to attack the incompetent mother. They found that Little Cutie was treating her child with a cold in an irregular way, and the ambitious woman used this as a reason to take Little Cutie's child. After that, the little cutie who lost her child often secretly looked at other people's children. After the young man was released from prison, the gang boss took advantage of the young man's absence to tease Cutie. After the young man found out, he rushed home to fight with the gang boss. The neighbor girl who was peeping out the window was very angry and shot the gang boss with the guy's previous gun, so that the guy was sentenced to death for the murder. An enthusiastic police detective found something strange and thought there was another murderer, but the mayor did not change his mind after hearing everything. A few hours before the young man's execution, under the condemnation of his conscience, the neighbor girl told the story to Cutie and the police detective, so the three began to chase the mayor who left by train. After they chased after the mayor, the mayor knew the truth, and he issued an order to revoke the death penalty and return the child to the young man and cute. This story is the main story of the film and occupies a large part of the film.
The second story is a story in the Bible called "The Passion of Jesus". This story is basically told according to the content of the "Bible", and the specific content will not be repeated. This story occupies very little content in the film, only four or five paragraphs.
The third story is a medieval historical event called "The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew", about the massacre of Saint Bartholomew in France. The story is also told according to historical facts, but the film adds a tragic ending to a family due to the Holocaust. The addition is simple, the process by which a Huguenot French family and his daughter's lover were all killed because of a Catholic-inspired Holocaust. This one story is also limited in length, only a little more than the second one.
The fourth story is an ancient story called "The Fall of Babylon" and tells how Babylon was taken. The plot of the film is identical to recognized historical sources as well as the Bible, such as Herodotus' History. Therefore, it can also be considered that this story is adapted according to historical facts. Again, this story is the same as the third story, with the addition of a fictional character, the girl in the mountains. Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, liked to search for the secret of longevity, so he entrusted the management of state affairs to his son Belshazzar. Belshazzar gave freedom to a mountain girl who was auctioned off during his cruise, so the mountain girl made Belshazzar her hero and vowed to be loyal to him. At this time, Cyrus began to attack Babylon, and Belshazzar led his army to defeat them. Later, the girl in the mountain learned from the sacrificial servants who admired her that the sacrificial was conspiring with Cyrus to conquer Babylon. After she secretly followed the priests and learned everything, she wanted to tell Belshazzar the news. But it was too late. When the girl in the mountain returned to Babylon, Cyrus and the priests had already captured Babylon. When the girl saw the suicide of Belshazzar and the goddess, she fainted. This story is second only to the first story in length and content, and it is also the focus of the film.
The film is quite complex in terms of plot, but the theme of the film is very simple. First of all, it can be seen from the name of the movie "Party to fight against differences". The definition of "Party to fight against differences" in the dictionary is: to form gangs and distribute, to favor accomplices, and to attack those who disagree. From "The Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Preface to the History of the Party": "Since Emperor Wu, I have advocated Confucianism, embraced the classics, and worked together in Wuhui. There is even the theory of Shiqu divisions, and the theory of the same party fighting against differences." Secondly, through the end of the film, about peace , Guns and Prison subtitles can be understood. In short, the theme of this film can be very simply summed up in one word - and is precious. If it is a little more complicated, the movie is to tell the audience that the inferiority of human beings such as hatred, selfishness, revenge, possession, etc. has brought many disasters to the society, and gangs attacking others will lead to scenes of tragedy, we should not do this, we should use harmony. For the precious, the world peace is good! On this subject, it is not only didactic, but also very simple, so I won't say much.
The theme of the film is excellent and educational. But DW Griffith's film, in modern terms, is completely out of line with modern aesthetics. In modern movies, viewing is the first priority, and a movie like this one, which uses complex and trivial stories to teach people and tell the big truth, how can people watch it? How can you not make people sleepy? It can be seen that DW Griffith was too egoistic when shooting this film. He only thought about how to use the film to give people deep thinking and thought-provoking inspiration, but he forgot whether the audience sitting in the cinema could sit still. My guess is that even in the era when this film was released, there were very few viewers who had the patience to watch it.
Another thing I can't accept about this film is that the four stories told in the film are out of sequence, making the plot of the film particularly difficult to understand. For example, when reading a story, as soon as you understand the relationship between the characters and the plot, the picture changes to another era and new characters appear. When these new characters have not been clearly explained, the picture changes again, and new characters continue to appear. In this way, the movie is switching the plot repeatedly, which also makes me not clear about the relationship between the film's characters and the plot, so how can I understand the plot? It is also because of this that I watched the entire movie twice before I understood it, and it took me five or six hours to watch it in repeated fast-forwards. Probably when DW Griffith made a movie, he felt that he knew the plot and thought that all the audience knew the plot, and he didn't think about other ordinary audiences at all. This film is shot in this way, only after checking the information, I know that it is also a unique feature of this film - parallel montage. However, the use of parallel montages in this film has always been its controversial point, and it seems that there are not a few people who hate this film.
Of course, there are many advantages to this film. First of all, the sets, props, costumes, and battle scenes are astonishing and breathtaking. The scene of the first offensive and defensive battle between Cyrus and Babylon, as well as the celebration after Babylon's victory, are spectacular and surprising! The buildings in the film are magnificent and huge, and the squares are quite wide. The scenes in the film seem to have created another Babylon. In addition, the number of extras and the intense offensive and defensive battles, as well as various siege weapons, construction facilities, etc., all give people a feeling of watching a special effects blockbuster. It's hard to imagine that in 1916, a blockbuster film of this scale was made. The American film industry is too avant-garde! Of course, the costumes, props and sets in the four stories are also luxurious and exquisite, all in line with the background of the story. Second, the film uses cover shots in many places to highlight the key points. This method has been used in The Birth of a Nation, but it appears more frequently in this film. This way of expression can clearly reflect the key points in the picture, such as key characters, key items and so on. Third, although this film is a black and white film, it uses a lot of dyed pictures to show the same effect as the color picture. The most obvious is in the battle of Babylon: the night scene is dyed cyan, and when Babylon is burned, it is dyed red. Colors with distinct colors can clearly show the content of the plot, which is also a workaround in the period of black and white movies. Fourth, the backgrounds and fonts of movie subtitles have different styles according to different stories, which can clearly distinguish the plots. Fifth, when the boy was rescued at the end of the movie, DW Griffith's "One Minute Rescue" appeared again. This scene edits several scenes of the car chasing the train, the expression of the young man, the gallows audition, the girl in the mountain flying to Babylon, the celebration in Babylon, the attack of Cyrus, and the Huguenots returning home to save the lover, creating a "crisis". Moment", creating a sense of crisis, making the film the only suspense of the film. Of course, this is the only scene in the film that doesn't put me to sleep.
On the whole, this film was selected into AFI100 and has been called a classic because of its forward-looking technology. Parallel montage is its most prominent feature, and other innovations such as image structure, narrative structure, camera movement, and editing rhythm also have a great impact on the artistic expression of world cinema. However, this film, which is almost a hundred years old, has already been eliminated by modern audiences, and it is a film that is not suitable for modern people to enjoy at all. It is suitable for audiences who are only film professionals, or those who want to delve into film technology.
There are too many actors in this film, and most of the main actors were born in the 19th century, so I won't say more. There are only two actors who impressed me the most, one is Mae Marsh who plays the cute little girl, and the other is Constance Talmadge who plays the girl in the mountains. Both of them are very young, but they both interpret their roles very accurately. Mae Marsh will play from a girl to a mother, it is very difficult, and she will interpret the expression very real. Constance Talmadge showed the wildness and tenacity of the girl in the mountains. In addition, both of them are beautiful beauties, it is a pity that they only appear in black and white films, and they cannot be seen in color.
Overall, a movie that left me "too much", with a dragging, broken, slow plot, and didactic themes that I didn't like at all. This film is not as good as "The Birth of a Nation", because "The Birth of a Nation" at least has plot and plot twists. This film is still for film professionals to worship!
Mae Marsh
Mae Marsh
Constance Talmadge
Constance Talmadge
Sequence: 0630
Intolerance.1916.HDTV.MiniSD-TLF
2011-11-20
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