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On Tuesday 26 November 2024, U&Drama broadcasts Classic Doctors!

Intolerance Season 6 Episode 117 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Classic Doctors,” titled “Intolerance,” promises to be a compelling exploration of social issues. Set to air on U&Drama, this episode is part of the sixth season and is the 117th episode overall.

In “Intolerance,” Jack finds himself in a challenging situation when he encounters a gay man who appears to be the victim of prejudice. As Jack delves deeper into the circumstances surrounding this man’s experience, he uncovers a secret that could change everything. This episode aims to shed light on the complexities of intolerance and the impact it has on individuals and communities.

Viewers can expect a thought-provoking narrative that tackles important themes. The episode will not only highlight the struggles faced by those who deal with prejudice but also showcase Jack’s journey as he navigates this sensitive topic. With...

On Tuesday, November 26, 2024, at 9:15 Am, U&Drama airs Season 6, Episode 117 of “Classic Doctors,” titled “Intolerance.” In this gripping episode, Dr. Jack is faced with a troubling case that forces him to confront not only his medical expertise but also the social issues of the time. When a gay man appears to be the victim of prejudice, Jack stumbles upon a secret that could change everything.

As Jack navigates the complex dynamics of the case, he must grapple with the harsh realities of intolerance and discrimination. The episode explores themes of social injustice, shedding light on the struggles faced by those who are marginalized. With its sensitive portrayal of these issues, “Intolerance” offers a thought-provoking and emotional storyline that will leave viewers reflecting on the impact of prejudice. Tune in to watch Jack’s journey as he uncovers the truth and stands up for what’s right, making for an unforgettable episode of “Classic Doctors.

The Skeleton Dance.George Eastman Museum senior curator Peter Bagrov was buying time for a projector to be repaired before the Nitrate Picture Show’s opening-night screening of Intolerance (1916). He told the audience that a fellow archivist had once compared the event, held annually at the Museum’s Dryden Theatre, to a feast where the bourgeoisie dine on otherwise extinct animals. That archivist isn’t the festival’s only critic: I have heard others liken the wide-eyed worship of cinema’s mostly defunct physical materials to a necrophilia of sorts. After all, if nitrate prints are the last vestiges of an otherwise forgotten industry standard, the best indicator of what a film was supposed to look like, does their projection to enthused cinephiles over a long weekend in Rochester, New York, not constitute the defilement of some of film history’s most precious materials? Even if the prints do not go up in flames,...

France’s Deauville American Film Festival has announced a retrospective gathering 50 U.S. features that have challenged perceptions of the world to mark its 50th anniversary.

The selection ranges from D. W. Griffith’s 1916 silent epic Intolerance to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and also includes Ida Lupino’s groundbreaking 1950 rape drama Outrage as well as Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. (see full list below)

“Cinema has always made us dream, travel, desire, fantasize, laugh, cry. But how many films have been able to shake up our certainties, question our beliefs, question our prejudices and put our own views into perspective?,” said the festival.

“The Deauville American Film Festival wanted to highlight a selection of 50 films that have changed the way we look at the world,” it continued.

Launched in 1975, the festival unfolding in the swanky Normandy beach resort of Deauville, annually fetes Hollywood...

“That’s not art. A striptease isn’t art. It’s too direct. It’s more direct than art.”

That line from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” sums up a lot of feelings people seem to have about nudity in film. The history of painting and sculpture is full of nude portraiture, which is regularly and comfortably classified as art. But the nude scene in movies is rarely discussed alongside a Canova marble statue or Manet’s “Olympia.” Movies blur the boundaries between “real life” and artistic indirection so thoroughly that people discuss nude scenes in movies as practically everything but art. It’s “content” that deserves an “advisory,” or something akin to “porn,” however the Supreme Court is classifying that these days.

As many have noted, the very nature of the actor’s job demands the audience look at them. So when nudity enters the (literal) picture, it complicates the relationship between viewer and viewed.

Keisuke Yoshida delivers an unforgettable tearjerker with his latest film, “Missing.” This movie earns emotional resonation from viewers without feeling like hollow, melodramatic manipulation trying to cover up a flawed script. Similar to what he did in “Intolerance,” Yoshida weaves together a tragic story of psychological turmoil surrounding a parent's worst nightmare while critiquing media coverage that often circulates those sad circumstances.

Missing is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Married couple Saori and Yutaka's world is turned upside down when their little daughter Miu goes missing. Months pass, and there are still no leads to her disappearance, despite the valiant efforts of the parents. The fact that the press is not giving particular attention to the case, does not help. A local broadcasting station gets involved in the case, but it becomes clear they are more concerned with ratings than actual justice, combined with blatant reckless decisions. What...

Anyone who’s been to a Tool show in recent years knows that the band kindly asks fans to put away their smartphones during the concert. One fan at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday (February 14th) learned the hard way by getting thoroughly admonished by singer Maynard James Keenan in the middle of the band’s set.

Ironically, another fan filmed the moment (as seen below), as Keenan ripped into the offending concertgoer while performing the song “Intolerance.” The frontman screamed, “Put your fucking phone down, dickhead! Seriously!”

It’s not the first time a fan incited the rage of Keenan by filming or photographing a Tool show. Back in December, the singer called another audience member a “dickhead” for using a flash at a show in Canada, yelling, “Take the light off dickhead. Take the light off. Don’t be American. Take it off dickhead.”

In 2022, guitarist...

Carl Davis, who composed the scores for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice and perhaps most famously Abel Gance’s epic 1927 silent film Napoléon, has died. He was 86.

Davis died Thursday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his family announced.

“We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music,” they wrote on Twitter. “A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation, and he wrote scores for some of the most-loved and remembered British television dramas.”

Born in Brooklyn but living in the U.K. since 1961, Davis was hired by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for the 13-hour 1980 miniseries Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film and for Napoléon.

“My first score for a silent movie was Napoleon,” he said in 2010. “Five hours of it! It...

Babylon is a movie written and directed by Damien Chazelle (First Man) starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt.

Babylon is a movie which from its failure in the box office recalls the echoes of Intolerance (1915), in which they built those sets with elephants that were so grandiose, in a film making style of another era and an impossible dream, disconcerting, ambitious and almost orgiastic spirit.

About the Movie

Babylon captures all of this spirit from a grandiose production which did not convince the more traditional audience.

Babylon (2022)

This movie tries to reconstruct the chaos experienced in the first Hollywood times, the arrival of sound, the excesses, disconcerting situations and the fight to not wake up from an impossible dream and, in some way, reconstruct that lost Babylon that the creator of modern cinema, David Wark Griffith tried to find too.

This is a movie with a stellar cast (Margot Robbie...

In movies, the word “bomb” has always meant two things, generally at the same time. The first and most important definition of bomb is that a movie has lost a disastrous amount of money. Movies, in general, can’t afford to do that — they’re too expensive to produce. Bombs happen, but as a business model they’re not sustainable. A movie that bombs commercially has never been something to write off as a trivial matter.

The second definition of bomb, which is linked to the first (though not automatically), is that a film is spectacularly bad. It is, of course, not axiomatic that a movie that bombs commercially has failed as a work of art. There are movies we think of as classics that crashed and burned at the box office — like “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Blade Runner” or “Intolerance” or “The Long Goodbye.” It’s become almost...

For major theatrical releases, bigger is better. “John Wick: Chapter 4” is 169 minutes — more than an hour longer than the original. “Avatar: The Way of Water” is 192 minutes. “Dune” was 155 minutes. “The Batman” clocked in at 176 minutes, a franchise record. Matt Belloni at Puck reported that Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” will be around 180 minutes, his longest. In a world where short attention spans are the norm, why are top franchise filmmakers willing to go on (and on?)

The short answer: because they can, and because audiences don’t mind it. Previous generations faced format restrictions from theaters and other platforms; they also didn’t have a binge-watching public that’s increasingly comfortable with longer-form storytelling. Streaming platforms court the best directors with the chance to go as long as they see fit.

The supersized “John Wick 4” is a rarity as an R-rated action film — even George Miller managed to...

While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.

Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.

Check out the list below,...

For many media outlets, sensationalism has been the driving force which keeps their publications alive and their readers interested, even though, at times, it comes at the expense of those people their stories are about. With formats such as scripted reality and true crime, there is a certain interest in the obscure and the scandalous, you might say, which surely is served by many reporters, journalists and other people willing to go the extra mile to exploit the misery of others without going into too much detail what is behind the story. In his 2020 feature “Intolerance” Japanese director Keisuke Yoshida blends family drama with a look at the machinations of modern media, especially its more exploitative sides. The feature already screened at Tokyo International Film Festival, where it was part of a focus section dedicated to the recent and past works of the filmmaker.

Intolerance is screening at Nippon Connection...

Not long ago, director Yoshida Keisuke was little known both in Japan and abroad, though he scored the occasional festival invitation with films like the 2008 quirky comedy “Café Isobe” and the 2016 thriller “Himeanole.”

A former lighting director to cult favorite Tsukamoto Shinya, Yoshida was one of many Japanese filmmakers laboring in the middle zone between low-budget indies and major commercial films. Then this year he released “Blue,” a boxing film informed by his own three-decade involvement in the sport that won glowing reviews for its insider insights and played widely at festivals, starting with its world premiere at Toronto this June.

Yoshida has followed up with “Intolerance,” a hard-hitting drama about the fallout from a fatal traffic accident that also earned raves following its September release in Japan. Now Yoshida is the subject of a director in focus section at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, which will screen “Intolerance,...

The Tokyo International Film Festival’s competition section will skew heavily towards Asian titles, festival organizers said on Tuesday.

The festival announced the full lineup for its 34rd edition to be held Oct. 30 – Nov. 8, 2021 at its new main venues in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza area of Tokyo. As previously announced, the festival will open with Clint Eastwood’s “Cry Macho” and close with Stephen Chbosky’s “Dear Evan Hansen.”

The 15-title competition this year includes “Crane Lantern,” the new film by 2020 Tokyo Filmex Grand Prize winner Hilal Baydarov of Azerbaijan, “Arisaka,” an action thriller by young Filipino auteur Mikhail Red and “One and Four,” a Chinese film produced by Tibetan cinema veteran Pema Tseden. Japan is represented by Matsui Daigo’s relationship drama “Just Remembering” and “Third Time Lucky,” the directorial debut of scriptwriter Nohara Tadashi.

Chairing the jury is French star Isabelle Huppert.

“We decided to focus more on quality than...

Sahraa Karimi To Head Stockholm Jury

Sahraa Karimi, the Afghan filmmaker who hit the headlines last month as she staged a dramatic escape from the Taliban as they took over her home city of Kabul, will head the jury at this year’s Stockholm International Film Festival. She will also participate in a panel that aims to raise awareness about the threat towards artists and women in Afghanistan today. Karimi and her jury will oversee the awarding of prizes including the Bronze Horse for Best Film. “Cinema is a window to the identity and at the same time the stories of the people of a nation. I’m happy that Stockholm International Film Festival – with its long history of supporting director’s in countries where basic human rights are not respected – makes this statement public and is willing to support Afghan filmmakers in the fight of not being forgotten in the history of cinema,...

The Tokyo International Film Festival will showcase the works of director Yoshida Keisuke at next month’s 34th edition. The festival runs Oct. 30-Nov. 8, 2021.

Two films by Yoshida are getting commercial releases this year, his recent “Blue,” and “Intolerance,” which reaches Japanese theaters later this month (Sept. 23.)

The festival will give house room to “Blue,” “Intolerance” and his 2016 title “Himeanole.” Yoshida has also gained currency in recent years for titles including “Thicker Than Water” and “Come on Irene,” both from 2018.

The newly-expanded Nippon Cinema Now section replaces the previous Japan Now section and aims to bring more diverse Japanese films to world audiences by focusing on emerging and singular talents who deserve greater recognition on a global scale.

“Each film expresses his singular vision and deeply moves audiences. Yoshida’s talent for depicting the madness of human relations between a diversity of characters, including a stalker, siblings, an international couple,...

The Tokyo International Film Festival, which plans to take place as an in-person event running from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, will showcase the work of emerging Japanese director Keisuke Yoshida.

Yoshida will be the Director In Focus as part of the festival’s new Nippon Cinema Now section, which will include a gala selection of his films, ranging from his 2016 breakthrough feature Himeanole to the two titles he is releasing just this year, the well-received boxing drama Blue and his forthcoming drama thriller Intolerance, which opens in Japan on Sept. 23.

Tokyo’s Nippon Cinema Now section is an expanded program that will ...

The Tokyo International Film Festival, which plans to take place as an in-person event running from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, will showcase the work of emerging Japanese director Keisuke Yoshida.

Yoshida will be the Director In Focus as part of the festival’s new Nippon Cinema Now section, which will include a gala selection of his films, ranging from his 2016 breakthrough feature Himeanole to the two titles he is releasing just this year, the well-received boxing drama Blue and his forthcoming drama thriller Intolerance, which opens in Japan on Sept. 23.

Tokyo’s Nippon Cinema Now section is an expanded program that will ...

The white fiberglass elephant statues at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center are being removed in a rejection of filmmaker D.W. Griffith’s racist legacy.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the new owners of the famous center where the Academy Awards are typically held are removing the elephant statues and “all of the faux Mesopotamian elements” as part of a $100 million makeover.

Crews began dismantling the statues on Thursday night, which were used on the set of filmmaker D.W. Griffith’s 1916 film “Intolerance,” as the Times reported. The movie was a follow-up to Griffith’s 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation,” which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and was condemned by the NAACP. “Intolerance” was considered Griffith’s response to the criticism he received for “The Birth of a Nation.”

“This is a real opportunity to move away from the clichés of Hollywood, red velvet ropes and big studios,...

The giant white elephant statues at the Hollywood and Highland Center, a popular tourists’ destination in Los Angeles, are in the process of being taken down this weekend. The Los Angeles Times reports that the statues, which overlook a plaza of the center featuring many shops and restaurants, are being taken down because of their association with “Birth of a Nation” filmmaker D.W. Griffith. The statues are part of the center’s tribute to the Babylon set from the director’s 1916 film “Intolerance,” which Griffith made in part in response to criticisms over the racist stereotypes depicted in “Birth.”

“All of the faux Mesopotamian elements will be taken out or altered in favor of a design developers hope will be more timeless as part of a $100-million makeover of the mall announced last year that is set for completion next summer,” the LA Times reports.

Los Angelinos have previously called...

Someone’s racist past has finally caught up to him.

It was reported by the LA Times that the new owners of Hollywood & Highland, Djm and Gaw Capital Partners, are dismantling a pair of white elephants at the center in a move to cleanse itself from the racist legacy of D.W. Griffith.

The elephants, which are an homage to a set from Griffith’s 1916 film Intolerance, are being removed as part of a larger set of redesigns by the company to better cater a newer, younger audience. Architect and head of redesign David Glover of Gensler said the center needs to “pivot and transform away from being a hub of transaction to a hub of culture.”

Griffith, son of a Confederate army colonel, was a film director most well-known for 1915’s Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, the former valorizing the pursuits of the Ku Klux Klan with the latter...

Quentin Tarantino revealed on a podcast with Dax Shepard that he has purchased the Vista Theater in Los Angeles and plans to reopen the 400-seat, single-screen theater by the end of the year. Unlike his New Beverly Theater, located five miles east in the Fairfax neighborhood, the Vista will program first-run films — but only those available in 35mm.

Tarantino’s 35mm first-run policy is a gamble since it requires that a studio provide a 35mm print, an extra expense. However, he’s a principal with the profile, and filmmaker support, who could make this happen.

The theater, which first opened in 1923, is located at the juncture of the East Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Los Feliz areas of Los Angeles. The area is both full of movie history and currently a vibrant, thriving residential area full of industry professionals and cinephiles who might welcome the chance to have a chance to see films on 35mm,...

Even those who consider themselves experts in the subject will find a provocative treasure trove of images and anecdotes in “Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies.” Danny Wolf’s documentary is a breezy, open-eyed, and often encyclopedic compendium of all the ways the cinema has celebrated, exploited, and negotiated the power of the naked body. The film opens with a montage of actors and directors recalling the first movie they ever saw that had nudity in it, and that allows the film, in its early moments, to leap through some of Nudity’s Greatest Hits.

As it moves back in time, one of the documentary’s fascinations is the way it’s constantly juxtaposing big Hollywood movies and European art movies and softcore exploitation films and everything in between. That, of course, is just as it should be. Aesthetically, there’s a world of difference between “Vixen” and “The Virgin Spring,...

'Amazing Tales from the Archives': Pioneering female documentarian Aloha Wanderwell Baker remembered at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival – along with the largely forgotten sound-on-cylinder technology and the Jean Desmet Collection. 'Amazing Tales from the Archives': San Francisco Silent Film Festival & the 'sound-on-cylinder' system Fans of the earliest sound films would have enjoyed the first presentation at the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, held June 1–4: “Amazing Tales from the Archives,” during which Library of Congress' Nitrate Film Vault Manager George Willeman used a wealth of enjoyable film clips to examine the Thomas Edison Kinetophone process. In the years 1913–1914, long before The Jazz Singer and Warner Bros.' sound-on-disc technology, the sound-on-cylinder system invaded the nascent film industry with a collection of “talkies.” The sound was scratchy and muffled, but “recognizable.” Notably, this system focused on dialogue, rather than music or sound effects. As with the making of other recordings at the time, the...

“I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used,” Nolan said earlier this year when it came to the creation of his WWII epic Dunkirk, referencing films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson.

Throughout the entire month of July, if you’re in the U.K., you are lucky enough to witness a selection of these influences in a program at BFI Southbank. Featuring all screenings in 35mm or 70mm — including a preview of Dunkirk over a week before it hits theaters — there’s classics such as Greed, Sunrise, and The Wages of Fear, as well as Alien, Speed, and even Tony Scott’s final film.

Check out Nolan’s introduction below, followed by...

One of cinema's early comediennes, Dorothy Devore: between 1918 and 1930, the Ft. Worth-born actress was seen in nearly 100 movies, both features and shorts. Among them were 'Salvation Sue,' 'Naughty Mary Brown' and 'Saving Sister Susie,' all with frequent partner Earle Rodney. 'Comediennes of the Silent Era' & film historian Anthony Slide at the American Cinematheque Film historian and author Anthony Slide, once described by Lillian Gish as “our preeminent historian of the silent film,” will attend the American Cinematheque's 2017 Retroformat program “Comediennes of the Silent Era” on Sat., May 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the Spielberg Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Slide will be signing copies of his book She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell (University Press of Mississippi), about the largely forgotten pioneering comedy actress of the 1910s and early 1920s. The book signing will take place at 6:30 p.

Happy Labor Day, all! To mark this occassion I will be working very hard today because I have much to accomplish before I leave for Tiff, the best film festival on the planet, according to me, for its ease, it's breadth, and the quality of its movies. Any big plans today, whether or not its Labor Day where you live?

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1916 One hundred years ago today the other über famous and influential D.W. Griffith epic, the one its Ok to care about, opened. Intolerance, sometimes subtitled "love's struggle throughout the ages," was three and a half hours long and prominently advertised its then insane budget of $2,000,000. Wouldn't it be funny if today's movies were all "we cost $300,000,000 to make" (and all you get is a glossy commercial for merchandise / sequels)" on the posters? The epic stretched from Ancient Babylon through...

It’s no coincidence that Nate Parker’s upcoming “The Birth of a Nation” takes its name from D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film of the same name, of course, but it does seem to be a coincidence that Parker’s allusive title is preceded by Spike Lee’s. While attending Nyu in the early ’80s, Lee wrote, directed and produced “The Answer,” which concerns a black filmmaker who gets hired to remake “The Birth of a Nation.”

Read More: Nate Parker’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Follow-Up About ‘Creating a World’ Acquired by Legendary

Lee describes “The Answer” in a discussion with Pharell Williams, calling Griffith’s movie “one of the most racist films ever” — it’s credited with leading to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in America; this and other negative reactions prompted Griffith to make “Intolerance” in response — and describing how it almost got him kicked out of school.

I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.

But since 2010 there...

I'm beginning to have butterflies. You? Just for fun some random trivia surrounding the number 11 today. Links go to previous articles here at Tfe on these films or performers

• Pictures with exactly 11 Oscar nominations

Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Rebecca (1940), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Sunset Blvd (1950), West Side Story (1961), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Oliver! (1968), The Godfather Pt II (1974), Chinatown (1974), The Turning Point (1977), Gandhi (1982), Terms of Endearment (1983), Amadeus (1984), A Passage to India (1984), Out of Africa (1985), The Color Purple (1985), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Aviator (2004), Hugo (2011), and Life of Pi (2012)

• Movies that won exactly 11 Oscars

That's the most any movie has ever won and it's a three way tie: Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), The Lord of the Ring: Return of the King (2003). Currently Ben-Hur is being remade and is supposedly opening this very summer... wish them good luck because living up to such a...

Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...

It’s hard to believe that a film which advocates slavery and demeans black people could have a 100% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and yet this is a fact. Since its release in 1915, The Birth of a Nation has been lauded both as a work of genius, and as the epitome of bigotry. How can it be both? Cinelinx takes a look back at the highly controversial film, The Birth of a Nation on its 100th anniversary.

In 1915, D. W. Griffith was one of the hottest up-and-coming directors of the fledgling film industry, with a plan to create the first big budget film epic ever. He did just that, and for decades his magnum opus was considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and many still believe that. However, in modern times, it has become more renowned as the most racist film in movie history. Despite the politically incorrect content,...

'Sorrell and Son' with H.B. Warner and Alice Joyce. 'Sorrell and Son' 1927 movie: Long thought lost, surprisingly effective father-love melodrama stars a superlative H.B. Warner Partially shot on location in England and produced independently by director Herbert Brenon at Joseph M. Schenck's United Artists, the 1927 Sorrell and Son is a skillful melodrama about paternal devotion in the face of both personal and social adversity. This long-thought-lost version of Warwick Deeping's 1925 bestseller benefits greatly from the veteran Brenon's assured direction, deservedly shortlisted in the first year of the Academy Awards.* Crucial to the film's effectiveness, however, is the portrayal of its central character, a war-scarred Englishman who sacrifices it all for the happiness of his son. Luckily, the London-born H.B. Warner, best remembered for playing Jesus Christ in another 1927 release, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, is the embodiment of honesty, selflessness, and devotion. Less is...

Charles Brackett ca. 1945: Hollywood diarist and Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter (1936–1949) and producer (1945–1949). Q&A with 'Charles Brackett Diaries' editor Anthony Slide: Billy Wilder's screenwriter-producer partner in his own words Six-time Academy Award winner Billy Wilder is a film legend. He is renowned for classics such as The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment. The fact that Wilder was not the sole creator of these movies is all but irrelevant to graduates from the Auteur School of Film History. Wilder directed, co-wrote, and at times produced his films. That should suffice. For auteurists, perhaps. But not for those interested in the whole story. That's one key reason why the Charles Brackett diaries are such a great read. Through Brackett's vantage point, they offer a welcome – and unique – glimpse into the collaborative efforts that resulted in...

Orson Welles indisputably made a huge impact on the film industry, both in terms of technical proficiency and storytelling sophistication. However, Welles was never the biggest fan of films themselves. He just saw it as a way to tell stories he wanted to. That makes sense to me of how he approached filmmaking. Had he been a movie fan, I don't know if he would have thought so much outside of the box about to make them than he did. That isn't to say he didn't like all movies. In the early 1950s, Welles managed to cobble together a list of his ten favorite films for Sound on Sight (via Open Culture). As he had only been exposed to a couple of decades of cinema, I think this is a very interesting list, and one that makes a lot of sense for someone like Welles. City Lights (dir. Charles Chaplin) Greed (dir.

Veterans Day movies on TCM: From 'The Sullivans' to 'Patton' (photo: George C. Scott in 'Patton') This evening, Turner Classic Movies is presenting five war or war-related films in celebration of Veterans Day. For those outside the United States, Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which takes place in late May. (Scroll down to check out TCM's Veterans Day movie schedule.) It's good to be aware that in the last century alone, the U.S. has been involved in more than a dozen armed conflicts, from World War I to the invasion of Iraq, not including direct or indirect military interventions in countries as disparate as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. As to be expected in a society that reveres people in uniform, American war movies have almost invariably glorified American soldiers even in those rare instances when they have dared to criticize the military establishment.

Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...

Honorary Oscars have bypassed women: Angela Lansbury, Lauren Bacall among rare exceptions (photo: 2013 Honorary Oscar winner Angela Lansbury and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner Angelina Jolie) September 4, 2014, Introduction: This four-part article on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Awards and the dearth of female Honorary Oscar winners was originally posted in February 2007. The article was updated in February 2012 and fully revised before its republication today. All outdated figures regarding the Honorary Oscars and the Academy's other Special Awards have been "scratched out," with the updated numbers and related information inserted below each affected paragraph or text section. See also "Honorary Oscars 2014 addendum" at the bottom of this post. At the 1936 Academy Awards ceremony, groundbreaking film pioneer D.W. Griffith, by then a veteran with more than 500 shorts and features to his credit — among them the epoch-making The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance — became the first individual to...

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love the silent era of movie making. I’ve written of this before and will again, many times I’m sure. Roger Ebert, on his website, made the observation (accurately I’d say) that silent films are not just movies without sound; they are a different medium altogether from the movies we are used to seeing now. Silent films are as different to sound films as radio is to television.

Hollywood Cavalcade was one of the first movies to look back at Hollywood history, and managed to involve several artists who were instrumental in making films that are still enjoyable today.

Hollywood Cavalcade tells the story of Mike Conners (Don Ameche) and his partner, ace cameraman Pete Tinney (Stu Erwin) and their trip to New York City to find a stage actress they can take back to Hollywood and make into a star of moving pictures.

Getting a primped-up, digitally-restored one-night screening at Film Forum this Tuesday (May 13), D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) is all at once the Moloch of cineastical good intentions, the first great juggernaut of auteur ambition, and the largest experimental film ever made. It’s also a thunderstorm of cinematic dazzle. This restoration, already released on Blu-ray by Cohen Media, offers the most awesome presentation of the film seen anywhere since its initial run (which lasted, on and off, into the 1920s), and if your experience of it has previously been weathered 16mm prints or public-domain VHS copies, then even skeptics of Dcp meta-archivalism (which "saves" the film as digital media, after all,...

D.W. Griffith movies at the American Cinematheque (photo: D.W. Griffith circa 1915) A series of D.W. Griffith movies made at Biograph at the dawn of both the 20th century and the art of moviemaking will be screened at the American Cinematheque next weekend. "Retroformat Presents: D.W. Griffith at Biograph, Part 3 - 1909 – 1910" will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. in the Steven Spielberg auditorium of The Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The evening will be hosted by Tom Barnes; musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick. Among the D.W. Griffith films to be presented by Retroformat are the following: Lines of White on a Sullen Sea The Gibson Goddess The Mountaineer’s Honor Through the Breakers A Corner in Wheat Her Terrible Ordeal The Last Deal Faithful D.W. Griffith and his stars As found in Retroformat’s press release, those early D.W. Griffith efforts feature "innovative cinematography" by frequent Griffith collaborator G.W. Bitzer,...

We move into the top 20 now, where the films become incredibly spiritual. One major component seen in many of these religious films: the overtones meant to instill a sense of mystery and wonder. You see it in films set in both sweeping landscapes and intimate settings. Whether or not any of the films on this list are condoning the acceptance or rejection of faith and religion is almost beside the point. The real point is that it is so influential on our culture that movies will always be made about it.

courtesy of lassothemovies.com

20. Babette’s Feast (1987)

Directed by Gabriel Axel

The 1987 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner (beating Au Revoir Les Enfants), Babette’s Feast is the story of two devout Christian sisters whose father – the leader of a small Christian sect in Denmark – has died. Unfortunately, Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodjil Kjer) find they have no way to gain new members,...

Chicago – Another week of a hodge podge of new Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming releases that we call What to Watch. Looking for something new? Something very old? Something rare? Something from TV? There’s a little bit of everything and even a story about porn too. Check it out, ranked in how interesting I find them.

Intolerance

Photo credit: Cohen Media Group

“Intolerance”

“Intolerance” would be a massive, amazing undertaking in 2013. Can you even put in perspective what it was like 100 years ago? Arguably one of the most important and influential silent films ever made, “Intolerance” runs almost three hours and covers centuries of storytelling. It’s a fascinating film both in the history of cinema and the way it addressed cultural concerns of the time. Cohen Media Group continues to expertly restore and highlight great films. They’re quickly rising the ranks of the most important Blu-ray studios working today.

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 5, 2013

Price: DVD $39.99, Blu-ray $49.98

Studio: Cohen Media

D.W. Griffith's 1916 silent epic Intolerance

Just one year after the huge success of his Birth of a Nation, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith was emboldened to prove his faith in the new medium of motion pictures with his historical silent epic 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.

Many of the leading stars of the silent screen appear in the classic movie, including Griffith regular Lillian Gish (Broken Blossoms), Mae Marsh,...

Last Friday evening, I finally started watching Mark Cousins’ much-discussed, often-derided, but undeniably-important The Story of Film: An Odyssey, a 15-part, 915-minute examination of the history of the medium. Covering the first two decades of cinema’s development, he naturally touches on D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, a film that was shown this past weekend here in Los Angeles in a new digital restoration, a few blocks from my apartment, where I also could have watched the film from the same service – Netflix – through which I was watching The Story of Film. Nearly one hundred years ago, Griffith shot the film’s famous Babylon set at the intersection of Sunset, Hollywood, and Hillhurst, in a part of town now known as Silver Lake, and where our great Vista Theatre now operates. The location is well known because the set stood standing as a local attraction until 1919. It later provided the basis...

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking comes a tale interweaving four struggles across centuries. Babylon falls; a man called Christ is persecuted by Romans for being too radical; 16th-century French Catholic rulers slaughter Protestants; and, in modern times, the poor flail against the will of the most intolerant force imaginable—the law. The pure, simple love between couples is threatened by other people's ignorance throughout D.W. Griffith's film epic Intolerance (completed the year after The Birth of a Nation), which barrels forth like a freight train to condemn progress as mankind's enemy. Swoops through extravagant pageants across lavishly produced sets give way to close-ups of human faces whose wide eyes register tenderly, regardless of period. The near-century-...

★★★★★ It would be something of an understatement to label D.W. Griffith's American Civil War epic, The Birth of a Nation (1915), as controversial. The film became infamous due to its overt racism and negative stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans, coupled with the rampant glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, causing widespread outcry. Such was the strength of the reaction against it that Griffith was driven to produce Intolerance (1916) the next year, partly as a response to heavy criticism. This was not before the Kkk had embraced the film and its sources as inspiration for the organisation's resurgence.

This is a film littered with dualities: two families (the Stonemans and the Camerons) in parallel interconnected stories; two opposing sides of the war; two races in conflict. The film's structure reflects this with the narrative cleaved into two parts - one presenting America before and during the war, and the other concerned with the post-war union.

I don’t remember when I’d first heard about the film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Y/A sci fi novel, Ender’s Game – a few weeks ago, a few months – but despite all the talk about the book being some sort of cult fave which has sold millions since it’d first been published in 1985, I’d never heard of Card or the novel before. And having heard of it, I wasn’t particularly interested in reading the book (which I understand is quite good), or seeing the movie (which may be quite good).

Oh, it had nothing to do with Card’s outrageous statements on homosexuality (we’ll get to that in a bit) of which I also knew nothing. It was more my having had my fill of young questing heroes in some fantasy/sci fi milieu delegated by fate and circumstance to crush some great evil.

Visuals are a key element to films. While the movie certainly isn’t 100% reliant on a good look, it can be key to making sure the movie sticks in the mind of the audience.

Sometimes visuals are special effects in the movie, other times it can be the set design, the landscape, the costumes, or even makeup or the sheer amount of extras in a scene! There are countless ways directors and cinematographers have found unique and interesting ways to make sure we all remember their movies.

So in honor of that effort, we’ll be taking a look - in chronological order – at fifteen of the films that best utilized the visual aspect of themselves. We’ll be beginning all the way back in 1916 with…

15. Intolerance (1916)

Intolerance was directed by D.W. Griffith, a legendary filmmaker best known (up to that point) for making ‘Birth of a Nation’ which went...