Intolerance

D.W. Griffiths - 1916
Throughout the ages, intolerance has reined... as, obviously, has lust.
Griffiths' style uses, and we'll here compare him to his successors, longer shots. We have fully body stuff, or only the legs off. What Griffiths then does is break down the scenes, usually not going closer than plan americains or medium shots (though there are a few extreme close-ups, which are startling). The establishing shots of rooms are often huge long shots, especially for the emptier rooms of the richer elements of the stories.
There is a real sense of the excitment of simply filming some spectacular events. It is made sure we get the full shots for Babylon and a few other spectacular set-ups (and there is that repeating track in on the great hall of Babylon). The sets are so incredible, so monumental, it seems almost like a situationist spectacle being recorded at times. The spectacular element is that this was done at all; the cinema's job is to capture it.
Not that Griffiths does not use the camera spectacularly, often using complex images, juxtaposing far horizons (mattes, surely), complex shapes and colours and different walkways and so on. Although his interior scenes are pretty flat, he isn't overly interested, just moderately so, in centering. Also note his use of irises, and those few shots where our screen becomes a rectangle standing vertically, for the seige machines. This is surely to emphasise that shape.
What we notice here is Griffiths lingering on the made-up women of Babylon, erotic stuff of legs and white flesh. Though he'll happily imply and partly show a rape in any period. There's also some gratuitous swords plunging through the flesh.
Griffiths' editing is simple; he shows what he needs to show, which can be very fast. The crosscutting is heavily telegraphed, but nicely worked out. Each story, in this essay, has a clearly marked locale. We stay in each, usually but not always, for a long period of time. The focus is clearly on Babylon and the modern day, the other two are at best shading and at worst a little clumsy (though spectacular of course, especially at the end).
One interesting element is how he crosscuts within the stories, not just across. They have complex narratives individually, he really throws us between them. Not in a 1-2-3-4 pattern either; we can almost forget about one strand for half an hour, and we have had perhaps 5 or 6 before the Babylonian one is introduced at all.
And the intertitles; self-conscious, with notes about history and set design (adding to the situationist feeling) (also in 'Birth Of A Nation'), they are a little flowery, but I wouldn't really call them overblown or pompous; a little wheedling, maybe.
The big theme of 'Intolerance' is hammered home, I finished the film being rather unsure what the word meant, as the stories are so different it seemed impossibly general (who is an 'intolerant'). I get the feeling Griffiths wanted to say everything he could in the entire world, animals, the dowdiness of reform league woman, aren't sets wonderful, let's read some history books.... and wanted to connect them together, very loosely. Completely spectacular, hugely ambitious, magnificently executed.