D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Revisiting a Reconstructed Text

By presenting new information about sound effects, stage lighting, film length, speed of projection, and motivation for the changes to D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), this article rebuts the conclusions presented in Russell Merritt, “D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Reconstructing an Unattainable Text,” Film History 4, no. 4 (1990): 337–75. My analysis argues that composer Joseph Carl Breil’s score for Intolerance could become functional again only with the MoMA reconstruction of a very early version of the film. I establish how important music was for Griffith and therefore how necessary the orchestral scores are for any assessment of his motion pictures. By focusing on the heretofore minimized role of Griffith as showman, this article unearths rich documentation about his film presentation practices and publicity, which significantly alters the way his films should be perceived and presented. Griffith’s emphasis on orchestral scores also played a role in the elevation of the cinema and in the pressure for bigger, more luxurious movie theaters in the United States and Great Britain.