Cinema Studies

I've decided that the theme of this year is going to revolve around my cinema studies class. We're going through all the major periods of movie making starting with silent movies and ending with The Passion. I figured that since we're all movie freaks that this would be something to interest everyone.

The first week we watched a 3 and 1/2 hour silent movie called Intolerance by D.W. Griffith. It was made in something like 1914 and its pretty crazy. He made the movie in response to the negative response he got from his other big movie Birth of A Nation. The movie is four different stories all put together to show intolerance over the years.

It wasn't really what I expected a silent film to be, I was thinking more along the lines of something out the Singin in the Rain where the character says something, then the words with what they just said are shown. There wasn't a lot of telling the audience what the characters were saying, but something more like chapter titles that supposedly explained the action that was going to follow. It was one of the first movies full length movies that was ever made, and it had a huge impact on movie makers after it. I would say that if you're going to become a silent movie freak that you should watch a couple of newer silent movies first, then go back and take a look at Intolerance.

Some fun facts about this movie brought to you by IMDB:
The massive life-size set of the Great Wall of Babylon, seen in the fourth story, was placed at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard (in Hollywood, California) when the movie was completed. It became a notable landmark for many years during Hollywood's golden era. It actually stood on the lot of the studio on Prospect Avenue near the Sunset & Hollywood Boulevard junctions in the eastern end of the city. It was the first such exterior set ever built in Hollywood. Falling into disrepair, it was eventually torn down. Years later, this same Babylon set was replicated as the central courtyard design for the new Hollywood & Highland complex in Hollywood, which opened in 2001.

On 9 November 2001, the newly-built Kodak Theatre Complex at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland (in Hollywood) had its grand opening (it is the new permanent home for the Annual Academy Awards event and began with the 74th Annual Academy Awards on 24 March 2002). The tall archway standing in the Babylon Court of the complex is copied from designs from this film, as are the elephant statues, each of which weighs 33,500 pounds.

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #49 Greatest Movie of All Time.