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Stills must not be reproduced, copied or downloaded in any way.
Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
USA
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Year
1916
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Genre
Drama
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Alternative titles
- The Mother and the Law Alternative
Introduction
“In Intolerance we see for the first time Griffith’s supreme confidence in what he was doing, and his bold approach to narrative structure. This film is Griffith’s first really mature work.”
Paul O’Dell, Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood, 1970
D.W. Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of a Nation was a milestone in narrative filmmaking and a popular sensation, but a film condemned for its sympathetic depiction of the Ku Klux Klan. In answer, Griffith conceived this study of intolerance throughout human history, interspersing a Babylonian story, the Christ story, the events of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 16th-century France, and a modern American story in which moral puritanism leads to a disenfranchised man being mistakenly condemned to death.
The film cuts between these stories with increasing rapidity as it builds to its exciting quadruple climax, though the complexity of this structure proved too enervating for contemporary audiences and the film was a commercial disaster. The Babylon set was at the time the most extravagant produced in Hollywood.
Griffith was inspired to up the ante on his own grandly conceived history lessons after seeing the Italian super-production Cabiria (1914), set in ancient Carthage.
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle
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The Dear One
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her father, a mill worker
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The Boy
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Arthur Jenkins, mill magnate
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Mary T. Jenkins
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self-styled uplifter
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self-styled uplifter
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self-styled uplifter
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A Friendless One
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The Musketeer of the Slums
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The Kindly Policeman
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The Governor
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Father Farley, The Boy's confessor
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Jenkins's secretary
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society social worker
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self-styled uplifter
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self-styled uplifter
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friend of The Musketeer
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judge
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attorney for The Boy
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prison guard
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kindly neighbour
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strike leader
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guest at the ball
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woman at dance for Jenkins' employees
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driver of racing car
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chief detective
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warden
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wife of kindly neighbour
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barman
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brother of the girl
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The City Mother
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Mary, the Mother
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Mary Magdalene
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1st Pharisee
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2nd Pharisee
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The Bride of Cana
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the Nazarene
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bridegroom
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bride's father
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wedding guest
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Brown Eyes
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Prosper Latour
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Brown Eyes' father
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Brown Eyes' mother
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The Foreign Mercenary
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King Charles IX
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Duc d'Anjou
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Catherine de Medici
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Marguerite de Valois
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Henri de Navarre
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Admiral Coligny
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Duc de Guise
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Cardinal Lorraine
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Roman Catholic priest
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page
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counsellor to the king
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counsellor to the king
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counsellor to the king
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counsellor to the king
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The Mountain Girl
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Rhapsode
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Prince Belshazzar
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The Princess Beloved, Attarea
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King Nabonidus
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High Priest of Bel
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Cyrus
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The Mighty Man of Valour, Gobyras
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Babylonian judge
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Attarea's slave
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1st dancer of Tammuz
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2nd dancer of Tammuz
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2nd Priest of Bel
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1st Priest of Nergel
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2nd Priest of Nergel
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Cyrus's charioteer
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charioteer of the Priest of Bel
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charioteer of the 2nd Priest of Bel
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Babylonian mother
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favourite of the harem
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favourite of the harem
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favourite of Egibi
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auctioneer
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Babylonian dandy
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brother of the girl
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girl in the marriage market
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girl in the marriage market
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girl in the marriage market
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barbarian chieftain
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Ethiopian chieftain
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Lieutenant of Cyrus
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chief eunuch
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slave girl
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messenger
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Attarea's bodyguard
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captain of Imgur-Bel gate
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boy killed in the fighting
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girl/dancer/handmaiden
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slave girls/dancers/handmaidens
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girl in the marriage market
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[extra]
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[extra]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
Production:
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Production Company
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Production Company
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Producer
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Associate Producer
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Research Assistant
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Research Assistant
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Research Assistant
Writing:
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Written for the screen by
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Titles
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Titles Assistant
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Titles Assistant
Photography:
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Photography
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Assistant Cameraman
Stills:
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Photographic Re-productions
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Photographic Re-productions
Special Effects:
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[Special Effects]
Editing:
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Supervising Editor
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Editor
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Editor
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Editor
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Associate Editor
Design:
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Set Design
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Set Design
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Set Design
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[Assistant Props]
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[Carpenter]
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[Assistant Carpenter]
Costumes:
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Costumes
Music:
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Musical arrangement by
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Persian musical themes supplied by
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Persian musical themes supplied by
Choreography:
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Dances staged by
Consultant:
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Adviser for 'The Judean Story'
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Adviser for 'The Judean Story'
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