"Intolerance" (1916) is considered one of the greatest films ever made. It's use of four stories simultaneously being told on-screen created innovation, confusion, and wonderment when it first appeared. After "Birth of a Nation" (1915) director D. W. Griffith had planned to release "The Mother and the Law", but found the response to BoaN so profound (pro and con) that he felt TMatL too small a film to succeed it. So - he combined an edited version into his next project and it became "The Modern Story" in "Intolerance". However, in 1919 Griffith released two separate features culled out of "Intolerance", with added and edited scenes that had not been in "Intolerance", and called them "The Fall of Babylon" and "The Mother and the Law". "The Mother and the Law" runs 94 minutes. If one were to consider the fact that each of the parts of "Intolerance" were that long, then the movie would, or could, have run 6 hours originally! It probably did originally before editing, if not longer!
I watched "The Mother and the Law" (1919) with Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper, Vera Lewis, Sam de Grasse, Lloyd Ingraham, and so many others. I have watched this version before in much inferior prints, but this one from Grapevine is in fairly decent condition. The intolerance that this film shows in spades is that of reformists and populists who try to save the world from anything and everything, many times without weighing the genuine facts, thereby destroying lives in the process. Here a foundation run by privileged and wealthy upper society members, preponderantly women, try to rid the world of a class of society they find not up to snuff. Griffith, in a masculine move not necessarily uncommon for his time, shows the members of the foundation of reformists to be mainly women past their prime in looks who no longer can find suitable husbands. The assumption, though not preposterous, is certainly not founded on anything but a male society of good-ol-boy mentality that hints a great deal of misogynic tenets and very prejudicial feelings towards "beautiful people" in the upper crust. Vera Lewis, in a scene that is truly sad, looks at herself and sees she is no longer looked upon as young or any kind of "looker" for some mate for her. She compensates by being a "reformer for the good and betterment" - her version and her fellow cronies' - or crones.
Robert Harron is a former gang member ("musketeer") who has served time. He marries Mae Marsh, a poor girl whose father had lost his job at a company run by the foundation's creator, Sam de Grasse, a ruthless enterpriser and social climber whose only constant ambition is how he and his foundation appear to the upper crust. Griffith's exposure of hypocrisy is acid and continual throughout the entire 94 minutes. The reformists need to weed out such weeds in the yard. And Griffith also makes it clear that those in the lower society will through jealousy and nasty power and evil weed out their own, too. True or not, we see several ideas, right or wrong, of the 1910s put up before us on the screen.
The first twenty minutes or so are filmically dated and, frankly, rather boring. The quick cutting that picks up at about the twenty minute mark begins a very rapidly enjoyable part of the movie, and it progresses well until an exciting ending. I must admit that the film now seems very dated, but it's a fine example of early progress in editing and story-telling. It's easy to criticize from this range in time; afterall, parts of this film were begun in 1914. But the story is one that hasn't left us yet. The same kinds of hypocrisy, class distinction, racial inequality, and gigantic discrepancies in the distribution of wealth are with us world-wide ever as much as they were in the 1910s.
I watched "The Mother and the Law" (1919) with Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper, Vera Lewis, Sam de Grasse, Lloyd Ingraham, and so many others. I have watched this version before in much inferior prints, but this one from Grapevine is in fairly decent condition. The intolerance that this film shows in spades is that of reformists and populists who try to save the world from anything and everything, many times without weighing the genuine facts, thereby destroying lives in the process. Here a foundation run by privileged and wealthy upper society members, preponderantly women, try to rid the world of a class of society they find not up to snuff. Griffith, in a masculine move not necessarily uncommon for his time, shows the members of the foundation of reformists to be mainly women past their prime in looks who no longer can find suitable husbands. The assumption, though not preposterous, is certainly not founded on anything but a male society of good-ol-boy mentality that hints a great deal of misogynic tenets and very prejudicial feelings towards "beautiful people" in the upper crust. Vera Lewis, in a scene that is truly sad, looks at herself and sees she is no longer looked upon as young or any kind of "looker" for some mate for her. She compensates by being a "reformer for the good and betterment" - her version and her fellow cronies' - or crones.
Robert Harron is a former gang member ("musketeer") who has served time. He marries Mae Marsh, a poor girl whose father had lost his job at a company run by the foundation's creator, Sam de Grasse, a ruthless enterpriser and social climber whose only constant ambition is how he and his foundation appear to the upper crust. Griffith's exposure of hypocrisy is acid and continual throughout the entire 94 minutes. The reformists need to weed out such weeds in the yard. And Griffith also makes it clear that those in the lower society will through jealousy and nasty power and evil weed out their own, too. True or not, we see several ideas, right or wrong, of the 1910s put up before us on the screen.
The first twenty minutes or so are filmically dated and, frankly, rather boring. The quick cutting that picks up at about the twenty minute mark begins a very rapidly enjoyable part of the movie, and it progresses well until an exciting ending. I must admit that the film now seems very dated, but it's a fine example of early progress in editing and story-telling. It's easy to criticize from this range in time; afterall, parts of this film were begun in 1914. But the story is one that hasn't left us yet. The same kinds of hypocrisy, class distinction, racial inequality, and gigantic discrepancies in the distribution of wealth are with us world-wide ever as much as they were in the 1910s.