The phenomenal success of The Birth of a Nation and the controversy it aroused determined the form and subject matter of Griffith's next film, Intolerance. Feeling the need to outdo himself and to answer the charges of bigotry levelled at him by opponents of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith took a modern story of industrial and social exploitation he had begun in 1914 and used it as the basis for the four-part structure of Intolerance. To increase the scope of his theme and the scale of his action he added three additional stories each from a different historical period and each, in Griffith's mind, illustrating the effects of man's intolerance towards his fellows. By uniting the fall of Babylon, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the crucifixion of Jesus to his modern story and by freely intercutting among them for the purposes of comparison and emphasis, he sought to strike back at what he saw as the intolerance of his detractors and to give them a lesson in the harmful results of intolerance.
Our 16mm print is taken from an original 35mm nitrate tinted print with beautiful, subtle colors.