Director: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Margery Wilson, Frank Bennett, Josephine Crowell, Alfred Paget, Howard Gaye
Rank: 49
"Your political views are different than mine, so I don't have any respect for you."
"I have different beliefs about the existence of a higher power than you do, so you must not be as smart as I am."
"My paycheck is much bigger than yours, and it must be because you're not as deserving as I am."
"You don't look as good as I do, so therefore I don't have to be nice to you."
"I don't understand your sexual orientation, so I don't think you should have access to the same things I do."
Yesterday morning, you went outside. You took a leisurely stroll down the street, enjoying the beautiful weather. While you were out, there was someone who judged you because of what you were wearing. Later in the afternoon, you got in your car and ran a few errands. As you drove down the street, someone tailgating you judged you because of your bumper sticker. That night, you went to dinner with a friend without realizing you had a stain on your shirt, and someone judged you because of it.
That sounds fair, right? I mean, isn't it easy to know who isn't our equal just by looking at them? It gets even easier when we find out little bits of information about them. It's safe to assume that anyone who is a Christian just isn't that bright, just like anyone who is an atheist is immoral. Illegal immigrants are the sole ones responsible for our current economic woes. The homosexuals are destroying the morals of the nation and are going to corrupt our children. Obese people, well, they're just too lazy to make a worthy contribution to society.
Sometimes, it feels as though we label each other because we are just too busy with life to be bothered to get to know who a person really is. We make judgments based on one past experience that we've exaggerated in our own minds or some out-dated stereotype that was never based in reality to begin with. Sometimes it seems like we fight so hard to eliminate anyone who is not like us. The world would be easy if we all shared the same ideas and beliefs, right?
Wrong.
Life has never been, nor will ever be, easy. (Personally, I think that's one of the things that makes life beautiful.) But if we were all the same, new ideas would never evolve. If we all agreed, if no one ever stood up and questioned why things are the way they are, we'd still be living in caves. If life were like that, it would be dull, and cease to exist.
I doubt if many of you have seen the film Intolerance. To be frank, I'm certain most of you never will. Sitting through a three-hour silent film about hate and injustice isn't many people's idea of a Sunday afternoon, but if there were any lesson I'd hope you would get out of my 100 Movies project, I hope it's from this film here. I'll be honest and say that I was both excited about seeing this film and dreading it at the same time. In cinema classes of years past, Intolerance always comes up as a point of discussion at one time or another, yet none of my film teachers ever showed it in class. Most likely, I'll never watch this film again, but it will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Intolerance follows four stories. All of the stories are long and involved, and moving, but I'm not going into plot synopsis. (If you really want the plot, you should look for it through Google or IMDb.) All four of the stories deal with intolerance, of looking down upon another human being because of a difference of opinion, class, culture, and religion. In all stories, love in blocked by injustice and bigotry, and in two of the stories the lover's die without ever being able to be with the one they desire. It is because of blind hate that love cannot bloom, because of judgments of trivial details rather than who a person really is.
Throughout the film, there is a shot of a woman rocking an empty cradle, and the words "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking" appear on the screen. This is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman, about a bird who loses his mate. The bird has an unyielding love for his mate, and when she disappears he searches for her, anxious to find her once again. But they cannot be together because of forces larger than themselves, and so the bird eventually gives up, and in a way, he dies. Much like this poem, the love that could've conquered the world is crushed by the evil of judgment in Intolerance.
The sad thing is, though, that even though this film is just six years shy of being a century old, the same thing still happens in the world today. We are constantly judged for the little details about ourselves. And whether or not we want to admit it, there has been a time when we ourselves have judged others for something on the surface. The beautiful thing about being human, though, is we have a choice about how we view people. You may not be able to help how people view you, but you can control how you choose to see others.
Do you want to know how things will change, seriously? What could possibly make the world a better place? Us!! We can change the world, really. We cannot change others, but we can change the things we do. There are so many forms of discrimination and prejudice out there, but it's not something that is built into human nature, it is something that is learned! Stop saying sexist jokes, stop using racial slurs, because even if you don't believe yourself to be prejudice you are still fueling the fire by keeping the stereotypes alive. You never know who may be taking you seriously, or who may be hearing what you are saying! People who judge others based on superficial trivia learned to do so from someone else. Don't let it spread! Hate ends here, if we want it to.
Movies to Go: 78
