This year coincides with the 100th anniversary of the film's release, so I was fortunate to see the latest 4K restoration at the Beijing Film Festival. The film comes from the well-known director Griffith, a pioneering figure in the development of early film, and his masterpiece is the notorious political correctness, but it became a blockbuster "The Birth of a Nation".
After Griffith became one of the highest-grossing directors with "The Birth of a Nation", he devoted himself to the film, which ultimately cost the then sky-high $2 million (about $47 million now, considering the low labor costs at the time, the cost was far more than $100 million) to make this film. And the final effect is also shocking, especially the battle of Babylon. The scene is so powerful that it is not only unprecedented, but also has no future comers. The four-story-high real city wall and the 16,000-strong group performance are shocking. it goes without saying. But the film ultimately failed at the box office, because the director did not just shoot a commercial blockbuster, but also made many bold attempts in the film.
The most important and most obvious attempt to experience the film is in the play, which is also the main reason for the failure of the box office (the anti-war theme met the high sentiment of the United States participating in World War I, which also led to the failure of the film). The film consists of four stories spanning more than 2,000 years, namely "Mother and the Law" about a modern wife saving her framed husband, and "Saint Bartholomew's Massacre" about the massacre of Huguenots by French Catholics , "The Passion of Jesus" from the biblical classics, and "The Fall of Babylon" about the fall of the ancient kingdom of Babylon. There is no direct connection between the four stories, but the director disrupted the sequence of the stories and connected different stories through editing. The only connection between the four stories is that they have a common theme: the conflict between tolerance and jealousy. Such a narrative method still makes it difficult for audiences to understand the plot even now, and movies using such narrative have failed without exception. The most recent example is the Wachowski sisters, the directors of the "Matrix" series ( In fact, I still want to say "Cloud Atlas" directed by Brother), the audience's response a hundred years ago can be imagined, especially at that time, short films of more than ten minutes were popular, and there were very few films of more than fifty minutes. It would undoubtedly fail to adopt such a narrative structure for the minute "Party to Fight Differing", which until now is still a forbidden area for Hollywood screenwriters. The movies we call brain-burning masterpieces mostly use related stories in their narrative structure to appropriately reduce the difficulty of the audience's acceptance. Even "Cloud Atlas" has a related story core, not just the theme. superior. The multi-line narrative that we are accustomed to now also comes from this, and it is also the originator of non-linear narrative. This is Griffith's great contribution to the development of the film.
Another major attempt of the film is the use of audiovisual language. The most important type of film is montage. Griffith is neither the inventor of montage, nor the character who carried forward montage (it was later the Soviet director Eisenstein). Griffith uses a variety of montages in the film. The technique is used to transform the plot or promote the plot, especially the use of montage in the three story transitions at the end, and its skillful skills are amazing. There is also the use of covering the lens for close-up in the film. At that time, it was a last resort, but the effect was very good. The effect of different scenes obtained through the act of coloring and overexposure is common in photography, and it is the first time that it has been used on a large scale in a film, and the effect created by this is almost forgotten that this is a black and white film. There are many such explorations, such as push-pull cameras, etc. There are many tricks that we don’t see strange now. In fact, Griffith has played it a hundred years ago, and it is not worse than now. If you are interested, you can look for it carefully.
"Party to Fight Differing" represented the top level of the American film industry at that time, and it was amazing that the American film industry was already so developed at that time. The exquisiteness and luxury of costumes and sets were almost fake, and the construction of various scenes made people return to In the era of the story, and without a script, the dispatch of more than 10,000 people and hundreds of chariots highlights the director's powerful control ability. The film's simple theme of "love and tolerance" is outdated. Although it is no longer suitable for this era, its use of various audio-visual languages, even in modern times, is still above average. As long as you want to know a little about the development of the film, this film will surely amaze you.
View more about Intolerance reviews
