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14 January 2008
David Wark Griffith's Intolerance (U.S.A.,
1916)
Photography
| Mise-en-Scène
| Movement of
Subject | Movement of
Camera
Intolerance (USA, Griffith, 1916)--last segment, "the Modern Story." At the ending of Griffith's Intolerance, all four stories come to their climax in a point-counterpoint, rapidly intercut sequence (with intercutting as well in two parts of the Modern Story, where the innocent boy, about to be hanged for a crime he did not commit, is saved at the final moment by his wife and her helpers who have risked their lives in the race with the clock to bring a pardon from the governor directly to the gallows). This image shows the way Griffith, by way of his cinematograper Billy Bitzer, used lighting, composition, and masking to direct our eyes to the important subjects in the frame.
MOVEMENT OF SUBJECT. A repeated
image or movement is called a motif. Here's the unifying motif in D. W.
Griffith's Intolerance, an image of tenderness and repetition, a symbol
of time and the never-ending back and forth of tolerance and intolerance.
"Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking" is a reference to a poem by 19th-century
American poet Walt Whitman.
This shot, of the mother rocking her baby in the cradle includes (deeply in the shadows here) the figure of three women in black. These may represent the fates, in whose hands are threaded the pattern of human destiny: repeating history over and again, facing the humiliations and terrors of intolerance time and again, but always being reborn to embrace the ideal of tolerance and compassion. The film cuts back and forth across four major stories: 1- Babylon and its defeat in the years B.C.E., 2-Judea during the life and death of Jesus Christ, 3-16th-century France and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and 4-the U.S., the "Modern Story"--of economic and social injustice of the early decades in the 20th century. And this repeated shot acts as a bridge between the ages, times, and situations related to intolerance. It is a time and space bridge, reminding us of the continuing story of humanity.
MOVEMENT OF CAMERA.
Here's a still
from one of the most remarkable shots in Intolerance
(USA, Griffith, 1916), remarkable for its grandeur, for the moving subjects
(the Babylonians appear as tiny figures in this extremely long shot) and for the
moving camera (see explanation below).
The still to the right (click on it to get a larger image) occurs in a dramatic scene in which camera movement intensifies the feeling of grandeur, beauty, and joy of the people of Babylon and their city. Griffith had built a tower with an elevator to carry him, his cinematographer Billy Bitzer, and the heavy camera up and down; the tower rolled on a track so that this high-angle shot literally moves down and into the action (choreographed dancing) on the magnificent steps of the palace. The still shows only a single moment in this moving scene.
Gloria Floren, Letters Department, MiraCosta
College, One Barnard Drive,
Oceanside, California 92056. U.S.A. E-mail to
film101@miracosta.edu
Created 20 August 1999. Revised 14 January 2008. Contents Copyright 1999-2008 Gloria L. Floren.
All rights reserved
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