D. W. Griffith had a vision of the movies as the greatest spiritual force the world had ever known. Just one year after the huge success of Birth of a Nation, he was emboldened to prove his faith in the new medium with the superproduction Intolerance.

Four separate stories are interwoven: the fall of Babylon, the death of Christ, the massacre of the Huguenots, and a contemporary (early 20th Century) drama -- all crosscut and building with enormous energy to a thrilling chase and finale. Through the juxtaposition of these well-known sagas, Griffith joyously makes clear his markedly deterministic view of history, namely that the suffering of innocents makes possible the salvation of the current generation, symbolized by the boy in the modern love story.

Griffith's concept and execution of Intolerance are awesome, but audiences of 1916 were generally bewildered by his lofty intentions. He aimed too high and spent the rest of his career paying off the large debts that his vision had incurred.

Silent film director D.W. Griffith's biggest, most ambitious spectacle uses stories from different times and places to illustrate humanity's intolerance of religious differences throughout the ages. The most visually impressive of these chronicles is the fall of Babylon, for which Griffith built the largest sets in Hollywood and filled them with thousands of extras; there's also Christ's crucifixion and the massacre of the Heugenots in 15th century France. The most emotionally involving tale is the "modern" one, about a poor girl (Mae Marsh) whose life is repeatedly ruined by the zealotry of social reformers. The image of a mother (Lillian Gish) rocking her child in a cradle ("the uniter of the here and hereafter") links the stories. At one point, angels reach down from heaven to stop soldiers in midbattle, making it clear that Griffith intended this follow-up to THE BIRTH OF A NATION as a message of global peace and love (and an answer to his critics' accusations of racism). For a nation poised to enter World War I, this was perhaps the wrong message, and INTOLERANCE opened to mixed reviews and poor attendance. It is now rightly recognized as a unique work of cinematic art. The restored version includes color-tinted scenes.