Dreyer was evidently influenced by Griffith's Intolerance in making Leaves from Satan's Book, four stories of religious persecution and betrayal. The film follows Satan's path as he poses as the Pharisee leading Judas to betray Christ, as the Spanish Grand Inquisitor, as a police officer in the French Revolution, and as a revolutionary monk in the Russo-Finnish war of 1918. In all four cases Satan functions to disrupt the social order by encouraging evil in already powerful male forces; Dreyer already associates the figure of Christ with the female. (With its mature and naturalistic portrayal of Christ, Leaves from Satan's Book hints at what Dreyer might have achieved had he realized his ambition to make a film on the life of Christ.) "All four episodes reflect Dreyer's...anguished compassion...The photography anticipates the distinctive functionalism and flawless composition of his later Passion of Joan of Arc. This early film is already characteristic of Dreyer's emphasis on flat architectural spaces framing people and isolating faces, intensifying feeling and defining character" (The Museum of Modern Art).