Category: 1910s & 1920s

Buster Keaton | 1hr 14min

In a world of overwhelming natural forces seeking to overcome Buster Keaton’s stone-faced romantic, the added threat of an entire family out for his blood only complicates matters further – not that he is entirely aware of the danger closing in on him. When Willie McKay falls for Virginia Canfield, a young woman he meets on the train back to his hometown, he does not know the true extent of the long-running feud between their families. Ever since he was sent away to New York as a baby twenty years ago, his upbringing has sheltered him from the knowledge their continued animosity, making this Southern American village a very dangerous place indeed for the heir to the McKay estate. If there is going to be any saving grace in a situation as tense as this, then it is the Canfields’ unwavering code of honour towards guests, ironically granting Willie sanctuary for as long as he is in the home of his enemy.

Much like Keaton’s great comedic masterpiece The General from a few years later, Our Hospitality finds its inspiration in American history. The Hatfield-McCoy feud stretched multiple decades in the latter half of the 19^th century, and although it becomes the subject of Keaton’s satire here, its politics couldn’t be of less interest to him. Right from his opening intertitles, he brushes off any attempt to derive meaning from their feud with a simple dismissal of their mutual hatred.

“Men of one family grew up killing men of another family for no other reason except that their father had done so.”

As a result, all we are left with in the present day are the giant egos of small men, bound by traditions that only drive them deeper into their blind convictions. Keaton doesn’t hold back from confronting the dire stakes at hand, quite unusually sapping his prologue of all humour and drenching it in a vicious thunderstorm as the two family patriarchs shoot each other dead. It isn’t until he turns up as the happily oblivious Willie McKay that Our Hospitality takes a lighter turn, whisking him through various mishaps as he rides a tiny steam train across America towards his inherited estate.

Both this film and Three Ages may mark Keaton’s first features, but by 1923 he had already spent years refining his art as a director and actor of short comedies, effectively setting him up next to Charlie Chaplin as a master of visual comedy. So too had his personal fascination with locomotives been established during this time, as here he continues to bounce physical gags off these giant symbols of modernity and progress. Crooked railways toss passengers up and down, wheels fall off, and carriages are split apart at a crossroads, yet his stoic vehicles relentlessly chug along at their own steady pace, indifferent to those caught up in its chaos.

What Chaplin never quite got the hang of though which Keaton takes to with ease in Our Hospitality is the enormous potential of the camera in framing these gags, frequently setting us back in wide shots to appreciate the dramatic irony unfolding across each layer of the image. As the train driver thoughtlessly kicks back in the foreground, Keaton squares up his shot to catch the rogue carriages that have broken free behind him, making their way down a parallel track. Later when Willie tries to escape the Canfields disguised as a woman, Keaton once again angles his camera from a distance to catch the back of a frock and umbrella, only to reveal the horse that he has dressed up and put in his place just as it turns to the side. This visual comedy is just as much about the creative conception as it is the perspective taken, abiding by a strict set of cinematic rules. If we can’t see something in the frame, then neither can his characters. If his characters can’t see it, then we still might catch the punchline just behind their turned backs.

It is also through these stylistic devices that Willie remains so clueless to the Canfield brothers’ attempts to murder him, drawing out the tension of their one-sided conflict through the walls that divide them. For a time, he is only getting by on pure luck and blissful ignorance, right up until Virginia invites him home and inadvertently grants him protection as a guest. When the recognition of his perilous situation sets in though, the whole world suddenly shifts for Willie – the moment he steps outside, he is a dead man, and so he must constantly stay one step ahead of his hosts whose hands rest above their holsters. Just as Keaton delights in outsmarting the Canfield brothers, so too does he indulge in some darkly comic wordplay here, with the father making menacing small talk about the rainy weather – “It would be the death of anyone to go outside tonight” – and Virginia failing to recognise the irony of her piano piece, ‘We’ll Miss You When You’re Gone.’

Still, Our Hospitality never strays too far from the real reason Keaton held such mass appeal to 1920s audiences, as right around the corner from every understated witticism is a grand set piece showing off his athletic stunt work. Much of the action here centres around a dam that is blown up early in the film to irrigate the surrounding forest, making for a superbly economical narrative when Willie is dumped from his getaway train into its waterfall. Steep drops such as these are where Keaton the actor works best, scaling cliff faces like a silent era Tom Cruise, throwing his full body into the action, and building up to one of the greatest stunts of his career. With a rope tied around his waist and Virginia being swept towards her death, he leaps from the edge of the cliff, grabs her by the arms, and saves her just as she begins her plummet to the rocky riverbed below.

Keaton’s physical presence may be violently pushed around by enormous forces far beyond his control, but it is his adept navigation of chaotic environments that makes him such a compelling figure to watch onscreen, and which further quells his conflict with the Canfields. Their truce does not just come through a laying down of arms, but a romantic union of children from two warring families like Romeo and Juliet – though of course Keaton does not squander the opportunity to play this as a brilliant final gag, giving up about a dozen guns revealed to be hidden on his body. Ignorance to immediate danger may be bliss in Our Hospitality, but accidentally ending a decades-old feud by saving a life may be even more gratifying.

Our Hospitality is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

G.W. Pabst | 2hr 13min

Unlike so many of his fellow silent filmmakers, G.W. Pabst does not grant us the luxury of clear-cut character judgements in Pandora’s Box. With her black bob hair, slim dresses, and plunging necklines, it would be tempting to lump flapper girl Lulu in with other vamps of early cinema. Given Pabst’s sympathetic recognition of her social persecution though, it isn’t quite that simple. Neither does she fit into the archetype of virginal beauties typified by Lillian Gish, especially considering how much her sly manipulations of men come as second nature to her. The black-and-white morality of the courtroom cannot be so easily applied to her circumstances, even while the prosecution frames her as that infamous mythological figure whose irresponsibility corrupted the world.

“Your honor and gentlemen of the jury. The Greek gods created a woman… Pandora. She was beautiful and charming and versed in the art of flattery. But the gods also gave her a box containing all the evils of the world. The heedless woman opened the box, and all evil was loosed upon us. Counsel, you portray the accused as a persecuted innocent. I call her Pandora, for through her all evil was brought upon Dr. Schön!”

If Lulu is indeed a Pandora for the 1920s, singlehandedly ruining lives for the sake of her own fickle curiosity, then Pabst at least has the grace to consider the decadent world which equally shaped her. Like all the great German expressionists of his time, his aggressively stylised mise-en-scène is key to unlocking these influences across high and low ends of European society, stretching from its crowded theatres and ballrooms to its rundown wharfs and hovels. No doubt she has a hand in navigating the crowds of male suitors lining up to win her heart, but in this hypocritical culture which simultaneously celebrates and punishes such behaviour, how can one blame her alone for a lack of moral integrity?

More than just an icon of 1920s fashion and excess, Louise Brooks becomes a truly luminous presence in Pandora’s Box, like a flame drawing curious moths to their scorching deaths. Through close-ups that rival those that D.W. Griffith was innovating a decade before, Pabst often catches the light in her twinkling eyes and traces her vivid facial expressions, which we observe in one scene shift from a brilliant smile to a petulant frown the moment she spots the fiancée of her old paramour, Schön, at her variety show. The cogs turn in her mind as she plots a sulky protest against going onstage, thus drawing their heated confrontation into a storage room where she lures him right back into her arms. With Schön’s lover barging in and discovering their embrace, the timing couldn’t be better for Lulu, whose face betrays a hint of a devilish smile. Driven to restore his honour, Schön changes tact. “Now I’ll marry Lulu,” he wearily resolves. “It will be the death of me.”

Much like Lulu’s playful cruelty, Pabst’s foreshadowing is not without an edge of humour to it, even as both lead us down paths towards dark, haunting tragedy. Her flouting of social norms draws eyes from across her wedding reception as she dances with another woman, Countess Augusta Geschwitz, who promptly falls in love with her, and in a back room she once again cavorts with old lovers. Behind them, Pabst hangs an unsettling wall sculpture of a contorted man grasping at the outreached hand of a much larger being, his eyes closed in either overwhelming terror or infatuation. When Schön barges in and furiously discovers his wife’s infidelity, it doesn’t just form a disturbing backdrop to his accidental murder at Lulu’s hands, but is fully integrated into his compositions as a mirror of her doomed romantic relationships.

The expressionistic aesthetic that Pabst’s cinematographer Günther Krampf crafts may not touch his legendary work in Nosferatu, and yet it continues to accompany Lulu’s fall from grace with dark foreboding, sinking the camera through the decks of a gambling ship as she descends into a seedy underworld. Even in these cramped, grimy sets, Pabst is still crowding out his shots with frame obstructions intruding on Lulu’s personal space, drawing a thread of visual oppression between the aristocracy and peasantry. Their customs may be distinct, and yet the same patriarchy rules over both, exploiting their women for all they’re worth before throwing them away.

It is a dance of manipulation that Lulu must perform to survive in this world, using her innate charm to try and climb her way back up, but indulging too much in its whimsy is a dangerous game. Turned out by high society, and now being pimped out in a crime ring by a man she thought she could trust, she is forced to escape again another rung down the social ladder. In the cold, squalid pits of London, Pabst’s dark expressionism manifests powerfully in the heavy shadows and angular construction of its rundown hovels, tragically confining her to the life of a street prostitute.

Pabst imposes a cruel irony on her when he decides to pick her story up some time later at Christmas, keeping her out in the cold as she searches for customers while her few remaining male companions find a Dickensian warmth and comfort. Though she is no longer bound by the constraints of any rigid social structures, neither are the men who dwell in darkness and inflict their lawless misogynistic violence on hapless victims.

For a brief moment at the end of her life, it would appear that Lulu’s natural magnetism might be enough to appeal to the better side of the patriarchy and escape its danger one last time, though even this is not enough to quell the depraved madness of Jack the Ripper. Her coquettish charisma truly is a coin flip that in any given instance could either play to her advantage or ruin her, depending on the unpredictable temperament of her target. Though she plays fast and loose with this wily power all throughout Pandora’s Box, one could hardly blame her for the circumstances surrounding her untimely demise at the hands of London’s most famous serial killer – but then again, she wouldn’t be here in the first place were it not for her own selfish recklessness. In the delicate hands of Pabst, this fable of female scapegoating develops beguiling nuances in its thoughtful characterisations, unequivocally rejecting clear-cut labels of vamps and virgins baked into the history of mythological storytelling, yet never failing to draw us deeper into Brooks’ dazzling feminine thrall.

Pandora’s Box is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Fritz Lang | 4hr 29min

Among the various despicable villains of German expressionism, many possess a common set of nefarious skills, manipulating their prey through hypnotism, disguises, and trickery. From Nosferatu to Dr Caligari, their methods are deeply invasive and psychological, turning innocent civilians into pawns for their grand, evil schemes. In this monumental landmark of the movement though, Dr Mabuse is not some inhuman aberration or madman recklessly testing his powers for their own sake, but an intelligent, methodical mastermind, patiently plotting each step of his rise to power. He may be “whirling laws and gods around like withered leaves,” but he is also the calm centre of the storm, sitting comfortably in his office while sending entire stock markets crashing down around him. A fearful mistrust directed towards shady authority figures was the great insecurity of post-World War I Germany, and within Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, Fritz Lang distils it down to a single, megalomaniacal genius.

There may be few films pushing five hours long which possess a narrative as effortlessly breezy as this too, building on the epic crime story conventions that Louis Feuillade had innovated in his ten-part silent serial Les Vampires. With seductive femme fatales, elaborate conspiracies, and bastions of the law looking to bust them wide open, Lang and his co-writer Thea von Harbou essentially set the proto-film noir standard, crafting a thrilling plot that spans the urban alleyways and gambling clubs of Weimar Germany. There is a distinct literary quality here as well, breaking this film down into a dozen succinct chapters, which itself isn’t surprising given its basis in a book by Luxembourgish writer Norbert Jacques.

Even with one foot in the world of novels though, Lang still recognises cinema as a nascent art form with its own unique visual language and creative potential. There is nothing about this dark, warped vision of 1920s Germany which feels confined by its prose, exploding geometric shapes out across modernist sets designed at skewed angles. There is barely a curve in sight when state prosecutor Norbert von Wenk infiltrates a posh gambling club, intending to catch the mysterious fraudster, the Great Unknown, who has been adopting various identities and hypnotising opponents into losing games of poker. Doorways are shaped in asymmetrical, triangular arches, and even the chairs are unusually shaped to rise to a pair of jagged points, while men and women in fine formalwear meet over rectangular tables. Elsewhere, the giant stock exchange brimming with frenzied masses is far more blockish in its imposing structure, hinting at similar set designs that Lang would use in Metropolis a few years later, and striking a harsh disparity against the narrow, crooked alleyways outside.

In terms of more contemporary comparisons, this is a city similar to Batman’s Gotham, with pervasive corruption infiltrating every corner. In this case though, it can all be linked back to that central figure pulling strings behind the scenes, sending his henchmen out into theatres, trains, and prisons to carry out his will. Even more unsettling is just how willing they are to die for him, with the infatuated cabaret dancer Carozza choosing to take poison rather than break under Wenk’s interrogation. Each of the men are depicted as degenerates on some level, though it is Rudolf Klein-Rogge who remains the most compelling screen presence as the slippery Dr. Mabuse, transforming his entire look and manner from one disguise to the next. The black makeup lining his eyes draws us even deeper into his mesmerising gaze too, dark with intelligence and cruelty, and at times connecting directly with the camera.

The evil depths to which Mabuse plunges never seem to end, and so for Wenk the stakes keep growing. Though they remain unaware of each other’s identity for some time, this conflict is incredibly personal for both, especially when Mabuse’s newest target and Wenk’s recent aide, Edgar, perishes at the hands of the mastermind’s brawny hitman during a police raid. The cold murder of such a major character two hours into this epic comes as a brutal shock, especially at a point in the narrative when our protagonists seem right on the verge of pinning Mabuse down once and for all, though this is not even the doctor’s most despicable deed in the film.

It is mere chance that brings Count Told knocking at his door, seeking psychological treatment while ignorant to the fact that his own wife is imprisoned in his basement. The opportunistic Mabuse is sure to capitalise on this turn of events, taking him into his custody too. Now cut off from his old life and under the care of a man actively degrading his sanity, the Count finds himself tormented by ethereal hallucinations, manifesting through Lang’s haunting use of double exposure. His arc only concludes when he is hypnotically compelled to slash his own throat, thereby bringing the doctor’s experiment to a vicious end.

Given his penchant for manipulating and destroying the psyches of others, Mabuse’s own eventual mental breakdown makes for a tantalising piece of poetic justice. At this point, his hideout has been sniffed out and surrounded by Wenk and his men, and there is even a touch of D.W. Griffith’s parallel editing here as we briskly cut between both sides of the tremendously staged siege. The scale of Lang’s thunderous set piece here is a fitting climax to such a sprawling film, and even more gratifying are the ghostly returns of all those whose deaths Mabuse has been responsible for.

The tables are well and truly turned as the phantoms force him into a game of poker and accuse him of cheating, drawing parallels to his torture of the Count, before giant, mechanical demons manifest before his eyes. The monsters of modernity that Mabuse once exploited have come to exact their own vengeance, so that by the time Wenk finally catches up with the doctor, he is little more than a catatonic lump, slouched on the floor and weakly grasping at the loose money bills around him. Those who dabble in the mysterious depths of the human mind may find themselves consumed by the very forces they manipulate, this coda reasons, bringing a touch of hope to an otherwise grim tale. At its core, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is deeply concerned with those authoritarian evils looking to exploit an unstable society, and right up until its final frames Lang refuses to hold back in painting them out with the harsh, jagged strokes of his extraordinary expressionist design.

Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is currently in the public domain, and is available to watch on free video sharing sites such as YouTube.

William A. Wellman | 2hr 24min

Before there was Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the category was split into two – the Best Unique and Artistic Picture went to expressionist landmark Sunrise at the very first ceremony, while Wings was named the Outstanding Picture. Though the latter film has not established a reputation close to that of its co-winner, holding it to the prodigious standard of silent filmmaking that Sunrise set would not do this technical marvel justice. Wings is a product of a well-oiled studio system exercising its big-budget powers, building the war genre from the ground up, but it is also a display of liberated creativity in William A. Wellman’s magnificent aerial sequences. By taking a birds-eye perspective of humanity’s greatest innovations and devastating injustices, the sheer magnitude of both is baked right into its presentation, heightening the glory and grief of our most monumental ambitions.

More specifically, this tale follows a pair of men who enlist as combat pilots in the Great War, starting off as rivals from the same town fighting for the heart of local girl Sylvia. David is the wealthier of the two who truly has her heart, though aspiring aviator Jack is nonetheless persistent in his efforts to win her affection, remaining ignorant to the advances of his neighbour, Mary. The name she gives his treasured car, ‘Shooting Star’, becomes the same title which he fondly dubs his plane upon arriving at training camp. It is also there that he and David quickly abandon their contempt after a violent brawl, and become close friends.

Before Wellman’s camera lifts us into the sky, he takes the time to lay these character dynamics out across small town America and military camps. While Jack carries Sylvia’s locket and David keeps his childhood bear with him as lucky charms, their tentmate who defies superstition perishes in a crash – an ominous sign of what’s to come further down the line. For now though, Wellman sweeps us along on the energy of training montages and comedic relief, such as the enthusiastic Dutchman who confronts xenophobia by showing off his patriotic star-spangled banner tattoo. Every now and again we got the odd aerial shot looking down from above, though it isn’t until Jack and David themselves take to the “high sea of heaven” for the first time that Wellman unleashes his most inspired cinematography.

At this point in Wings, it is hard to not draw parallels to Top Gun with its military setting and central male friendship. When it comes to the final act, it even looks as if Top Gun: Maverick has directly lifted the scene of David crashing behind enemy lines and escaping with one of their planes. Most of all though, the strongest influence comes from Wellman’s grand visuals, always seeking the most exhilarating angles to track aerial formations and dogfights. The camera often sits in the cockpit of these scenes, hanging on faces while astonishing backgrounds sway from side to side in deep focus. There is virtually no part of the plane that it isn’t fixed to at some point though, whether being planted on wings or looking from the undercarriage straight down at No Man’s Land as it erupts in explosions and bloodshed.

Even beyond these scenes, swings and parachutes become the vehicles through which Wellman vigorously moves his camera, while the arrival of the giant German plane Gotha brings with it a heavier, daunting presence. It quite literally rolls over us as it leaves the hangar, obstructing our low angle view with its wheels and struts, and even in the intertitles it is described as a “great dragon” which “roars out to seek its prey.” In this way, the action almost becomes fantastical, with such strong written imagery turning modern air combat into awe-inspiring folk tales. Our heroes who ride “eager birds” face this great evil head on, pouring “a stream of fire into the belly of the monster” while those on the ground below scurry around like ants.

One only needs to look at the exact same year in cinema history to see how technological innovation and cinematic panache don’t always line up, as 1927 saw The Jazz Singer introduce synchronised sound recording without a whole lot of artistry behind it. Here in Wings though, the two are inextricably linked, with Wellman putting his technician’s mind to work in the execution of daring set pieces that crash planes into each other mid-air, send deflated zeppelins to the ground in clouds of black smoke, and construct explosive spectacles out of widespread destruction.

Just as impressive is the fast-paced editing which cuts vigorously between multiple air duels at once, certainly taking inspiration from the Soviet montage movement, but also D.W. Griffith in the sharply coordinated intercutting between the air and ground. Such careful balancing of multiple narrative threads also brings a touch of dramatic irony to these scenes. When the Germans attack the town that Mary is working in as an ambulance driver, Jack does not realise that she is one of the victims down on the ground he is saving, nor is she immediately aware of his presence until she hears the name of the plane that rescued them – the ‘Shooting Star.’

Similarly, when David is forced to steal a German plane during the climactic battle of Saint-Mihiel, Jack remains tragically unaware that it is his own friend on the other end of his fire. Of course, this is also the first time David has mistakenly left behind his lucky charm, dooming him to the same fate as his old tentmate. Their companionship up to this point has not been without conflict, primarily stemming from David’s great efforts to protect his friend from heartbreak, and yet their final minutes together are spent in melancholy reconciliation. Though they both have their own romantic desires for women back home, it becomes evident that the greatest love in Wings is shared between these two men, who seal their affection here with cinema’s first same-sex kiss. In this moment, Wellman poignantly cuts to a plane sitting in front of a cemetery, its propellors slowing to a halt just as David passes away.

With silent movie stars like Clara Bow, Charles Rogers, and Richard Arlen leading this cast, Wings’ comic, dramatic, and action beats are injected with a whole lot of old Hollywood charm, grounding Wellman’s staggering practical effects in the hopeful idealism of youth. Those giant metal beasts which they fly through the air are monuments to their freedom, liberating them from the constraints of the ground, and yet such unruly, uninhibited ambition comes at a dangerous cost. With his soaring aerial photography and brisk editing, Wellman isn’t one to lose sight of such peril either, furiously beating back any preconceptions of silent cinema as being archaically stage-bound by turning its magnificent feats of engineering into vehicles for compelling, emotive storytelling.

Wings is in the public domain, and available to watch on many free video sharing sites including YouTube.

D.W. Griffith | 1hr 30min

Four years after D.W. Griffith’s racially-charged The Birth of a Nation, and three years after Intolerance’s doubling down, he finally came out with an apology – but even in Broken Blossoms he can’t help but fall prey to using a few racial slurs and a distasteful display of yellowface. This romantic drama is as much an expression of Griffith’s simplistic ideologies as anything else he has made, clumsy navigating contemporary issues of race while boiling conflicts of good and evil down into archetypes that stretch back to the roots of human storytelling. At the same time, it is in these fables where he is at his most powerful as a filmmaker, offering compassion to Chinese immigrant Cheng Huan in Broken Blossoms and depicting his interracial romance with Londoner Lucy Burrows as a pure, wholesome love. Though he is an established master of monumental epics, Griffith drastically dials his scope and scale right back in this silent tragedy, and in doing so he crafts his most affectingly intimate film to date.

Still, this does not mean that there are no elaborate sets to be found in Broken Blossoms at all. The Chinese architecture of Cheng’s hometown is handsomely mounted in gardens, temples, and busy streets, tinted with a light purple hue that stands out against the duller colours of London. There, shadows stretch down alleyways, brick walls arch over bumpy streets, and rickety wooden buildings line the river that Lucy waddles along after receiving a beating from her bigoted father, Battling Burrows. Meanwhile, Cheng is only finding adversity and prejudice in this city, with his idealistic mission of spreading Buddhism to England becoming little more than a lost dream in the haze of crowded opium dens. It is no Intolerance, but Griffith’s eye for detail in his sets brings both warmth and melancholy to his characters’ journeys, especially when Lucy finds refuge in a small, warm room tucked away above the streets – Cheng’s home.

There is something welcoming about the clutter of items spread across this sanctuary, giving it a homely feel. As tender affection sparks between the two outsiders, Griffith’s close-ups draw us into even more intimate frames, proving once again why he is a true pioneer of the artform beyond his largescale set pieces and editing. It is in these shots where the sweetness of both Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess’ performances sink in, gazing at each other with adoring, awestruck expressions. These parallel stories of hardship in London meet at an unlikely point of understanding, and though there is nothing physically consummated between them, Griffith’s melodramatic intertitles pour out saccharine, romantic expressions all the same.

“O lily flowers and plum blossoms! O silver streams and dim-starred skies!”

The happiness that Lucy has only previously faked with two fingers pushing up a forced smile now comes entirely organically. Unfortunately, such bliss is short-lived. As news of her whereabouts gets back to her father and his anger rises, so too does Griffith’s parallel editing pick up as well, intercutting between the peace of Cheng’s shop and Battling’s violent boxing match, hyping himself up for what he has resolved is outright war. In the early years of cinema, Griffith alone possessed this kind of raw, cinematic energy that could vigorously alternate between scenes like a tennis match and, in this instance, implicitly foreshadow an impending demise.

From here, the terror of an oncoming fury only intensifies, with Griffith turning his close-ups away from expressions of romance and towards Battling’s menacing, wide-eyed face of bushy eyebrows and gritted teeth. Like a merciless monster, he steadily approaches the camera, just slightly off-centre in the frame. In a reverse shot, Gish’s fearful eyes are all we can see within the single strip of light across her face, and all the while Griffith keeps intercutting the scene with Cheng obliviously running errands on the street below.

It is a momentum which is impressively kept up for quite a while, as Battling whisks his daughter back home and Cheng comes chasing after them, though not quite fast enough to catch up. Locking herself in a closet to escape her father’s rage, Lucy lets out demonic screams like a victim in a horror film, and within the camera’s tight framing, we are right there with her. It is said that not even Griffith was prepared for Gish’s writhing, shaking, and howling in this scene, which afterwards left a silence on set broken only by him uttering “My God, why didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?”.

Cheng may be too late to save his love, but not to seek heartbroken revenge on her killer. This is tragedy through and through, right to the end of his own life which he takes with a knife to the chest, though not before taking Lucy’s body back home to China, where the philosophy of kindness that he preaches flourishes more than it ever did in London. In the final appearance of one especially strong motif, Griffith weaves back in the same shot which has connected Cheng at key points in his life back to his homeland and faith – a priest ringing a temple bell, with an ancient pagoda towering in the background. As he passes away, he rings his own tiny version, like an echo resonating with spiritual reverence. This may be a simple, familiar fable of ill-fated lovers, though such eloquent visual poetry refreshes these archetypes through crisp close-ups and propulsive editing, inviting the sort of intimacy that Griffith alone realised in these early years of cinema was uniquely suited to this young, nascent artform.

One Week is in the public domain, and available to watch on many free video sharing sites including YouTube.

D.W. Griffith | 3hr 17min

Intolerance is not quite the apology for The Birth of a Nation that it is often considered to be, especially given that within it D.W. Griffith is ironically framing prejudice as an evil force that was levelled against his own racist ideologies. Without the extratextual background though, his targets appear just vague enough that interpretations could sway either way. Between the two masterpieces, there is no real solid defence of him as a sociologist, philosopher, or prudent intellectual of any kind, and yet as a filmmaker composing fables of historical magnitude that could only ever be represented on a cinematic canvas, a select few directors have ever matched him in grandeur and coordination. Peter Jackson, David Lean, Abel Gance, Francis Ford Coppola, Christopher Nolan, and James Cameron are among those bold visionaries to take on pieces of his genius, and while The Birth of a Nation is where it all started, Intolerance may be the even more technically refined and ambitiously executed accomplishment. In wrapping up four parallel narratives stretching from ancient Babylon to the present day, cycles of human redemption and transgression are masterfully painted out with joy and sorrow, and in the middle of it all sits “The Eternal Mother” – a maternal figure gently rocking a cradle to the ceaseless rhythms of time.

Around the Mother, history swirls and pulses to an accelerating beat, framing her as a stable, ageless centre upon which everything else pivots. She is a key formal marker of Intolerance, and is played by Lillian Gish no less, following on from her breakout role in The Birth of a Nation and preceding her fruitful period of stardom in the 1920s. Her presence in this tapestry of narrative threads carries archetypal significance as a nurturer of humanity, and while she is initially used to segment each individual narrative, eventually Griffith weaves in her cutaways so seamlessly that she no longer stands merely as a bookmark, but rather a meaningful piece of the overall structure.

From there, the groundwork is set for an entire collection of character archetypes defined by their straightforward names. In the modern-day storyline, a romance blossoms between the Boy and the Dear One, both of whom must contend with criminals, capitalists, and leaders of the puritanical “Uplifter” movement to live a happy life. The “Man of Men, the greatest enemy of intolerance” embodied by Jesus Christ comes next, whose final weeks of life becomes Griffith’s focus here. Though leading the shortest of the four threads, Christ, like the Eternal Mother, is an instantly recognisable emblem of righteousness, sacrifice, and salvation, through which each other subplot connects to a transcendent spiritualism. The storyline of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestant Huguenots by the Catholic monarchs in 16^th century Paris is comparably abbreviated in its length, and again religion is depicted as a socially dominant force which fuels what Griffith labels a “hotbed of intolerance.” The sweet, innocent Brown Eyes is the primary victim in this strand, meeting a grisly fate at the hands of a soldier on the day of her wedding, while her fiancé, rushing to save her, meets a similar tragic fate.

And finally, there is the fall of Babylon, spurred on by the conflict between devotees of rival gods Bel-Marduk and Ishtar, and within which Griffith crafts set pieces that make other epic films look like chamber dramas by comparison. It isn’t enough for him to simply build giant, detailed sets with ornately carved city gates, colossal city walls shrinking people to the size of insects, and magnificent stone idols of worship overlooking them all. Nor is it enough for him to perfect the art of the establishing shot, setting the camera back far enough to capture thousands of extras moving in formations down giant steps or through gaping arches. Here, in what may be the film’s single greatest sequence, Griffith plants his camera on a crane and swoops it from high up above the ancient court down to the ground, directing us through the magnificent scenery to narrow in on its occupants. Within Babylon, our primary character is the headstrong Mountain Girl, who pledges her allegiance to Prince Belshazzar upon being freed from the marriage market, and later becomes her civilisation’s would-be saviour in a race against time to warn everyone of Cyrus the Great’s surprise attack.

Before Babylon’s devastating downfall in Intolerance’s climactic finale though, Griffith stages another mammoth battle scene leading into the film’s intermission, which sees Belshazzar pull off a rousing victory over his enemy. While the parallel cutting between storylines is indeed a major strength of Intolerance, here Griffith wisely chooses not to let it interrupt the vigorous flow he builds in his action editing. The tactical progression of each attack within this conflict carries the scale, suspense, and coordination of the Battle of Helm’s Deep from The Lord of the Rings, of which this is a precursor, expertly keeping track of individual characters within the spectacular chaos. From Mountain Girl’s high vantage point, she fires off arrows into Cyrus’ army far below. Down on the ground, soldiers viciously bite into each other’s necks, impale enemies with spears, and cleanly slice off their heads. Within Babylon’s temple, priests fall at the feet of their gods, praying to be saved. And through it all, Griffith inserts long shots of the city walls, his frames filled with fire, smoke, catapults, and battering rams, flinging assaults back and forth between both sides. From the one-on-one combats to the toppling siege towers that crash forcefully to the ground, the stunt work is simply incredible, like a thousand Buster Keaton gags strung together with significantly less humour and a great deal more violence.

Within the context of all four stories, this is intolerance writ on the largest scale film can capture, and there may indeed be a greater number of shots in the film depicting crowds filling out Jerusalem’s streets, Parisian palaces, worker strikes, and brimming court trials than any depicting named characters. Griffith is not one to let the personal stakes disappear within the cacophony of humanity’s self-destruction though, as it is in the personal struggles of innocents trying to live quiet lives that his stories are centred in a recognisable heartache. The Musketeer’s attempted rape of the Dear One, the struggle that ends up framing the Boy for murder, and his eventual death sentence piles the misfortune up in one long string of injustices, and Griffith’s in-scene editing moves briskly through each new development with lively indignation. With comparisons being drawn between the Uplifters and the Pharisees of the biblical era early on, Griffith lays foundations for further connections between narrative threads, intercutting the Uplifters’ unjust seizure of the Dear One’s baby with the scene of Christ speaking warmly to Jerusalem’s children.

Astonishing displays of detailed mise-en-scène are consistently built in the halls of power across the ages, where monarchs, priests, and business owners exert great authority over the lives of common people, determining who lives and dies based on petty disputes and broken allegiances. It is particularly those who wield religion as a weapon who are often the most insidious of them all, as is plainly evident in the Babylonian, biblical, and Parisian settings, but which is even there in the subjugation of the Dear One. When the Dear One’s father unjustly demands she pray for forgiveness, a sculpted icon of Mother Mary holding baby Jesus reminds us of his pure message of grace, which each storyline otherwise sees corrupted by self-righteous believers.

Through all these strands weaving around each other and gradually merging into a singular story of historical prejudice, Griffith steadily maintains a finely orchestrated display of parallel editing for over three hours, demonstrating a level of stamina that calls to mind similar accomplishments in Battleship Potemkin and more recently, Dunkirk. As the final act approaches and several violent actions of injustice loom over our four sets of character though, he just keeps on stepping up the pacing and exchanges, choreographing an accelerating sequence of intercutting that surpasses anything even from The Birth of a Nation. The fall of Babylon, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the crucifixion of Christ, and the hanging of the Boy are all imminent, and the lead-up to each sees epic battles for the soul of humanity ring out across time like a stone rolling down a hill, picking up speed and knocking down others until it spirals into a devastating avalanche.

It begins quite simply with the Boy’s death sentence being drawn directly next to Pontius Pilate’s sentencing of Christ and the subsequent procession to Calvary, seeing two innocents bearing the sins of others. Just as the three crosses stand tall up on the hill outside of Jerusalem, the gallows set menacingly squares up to the camera, and much like the dash of the Ku Klux Klan in The Birth of a Nation to rescue Elsie Stoneman, here Griffith cuts between the prison and the Dear One’s frantic rush to deliver the evidence of her husband’s innocence. Meanwhile, Mountain Girl is also racing back to the city of Babylon to warn Prince Belshazzar of Cyrus’ oncoming attack with the camera aggressively rolling alongside her, the Royal House of Valois sends out its soldiers to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots of Paris, and the Eternal Mother keeps rocking her cradle, each narrative and symbolic counterpoint supporting each other’s progression as they collide in spectacular fashion. The complex interplay of Griffith’s editing goes beyond the four-pronged structure, but even within individual story threads he cuts between multiple characters spread across locations, chasing each other down in chariots, cars, and trains to beat the last few sands of time trickling away.

With intertitles growing scarcer, Griffith fires off each shot with greater velocity and dexterity, building and sustaining suspense across the final forty minutes until, one by one, the final dominoes of each narrative thread topple over. “Intolerance, burning and slaying” reign across scenes of Mountain Girl being shot with arrows, Brown Eyes’ death by sword, and Christ dying up on the cross, and with this symphonic tragedy echoing across millennia, our expectations are set for the culmination of the Boy’s execution. For better or worse, Griffith is a sentimentalist at heart who cannot bear letting such a dour conclusion have the final say on humanity’s great potential, as in the very last seconds before the Boy’s hanging, the Dear One arrives with the Governor, carrying evidence of her husband’s innocence. Violent hatred may slaughter entire cities and even the son of God, and yet in the tiny pockets of society where lovers push on, Griffith formally earns this tiny shred of justice dealt out to the characters who ironically hold the least power out of anyone in this entire ensemble.

Intolerance is ultimately not a film about characters though, but rather about those large, overarching humanistic values which we can aspire to embody in even the darkest times, hoping that another era will eventually emerge that will see compassion conquer cruelty. Not the sort of director to let his massive canvas go to waste even in the closing minutes, Griffith delivers one last giant set piece of a battlefield, superimposing heavens in the skies far above, and shedding light upon the soldiers laying down their weapons. It is a grand experiment in narrative structure he conducts here, and not one to be taken for granted or downplayed for its maudlin idealism. Within the intricate harmonies of layered plot strands and the trailblazing pioneer’s staggering formal ambition, Intolerance demonstrates the immense potential of this young, nascent art form, and sets a cinematic standard of epic filmmaking that has rarely been surpassed.

Intolerance is in the public domain, and available to watch on many free video sharing sites including YouTube.