Intolerance – (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
"Sticking with the black and white, I'd like to pick DW Griffith's Intolerance. It's a silent from 1916 and it tells four stories from different periods of time and interweaves them trying to draw out parallels. For a film from that period that structure is incredibly advanced. It's unfortunate that D.W. Griffith has fallen out of favour because he made The Birth Of A Nation, which is an epic movie but its depiction of race relations leaves something to be desired. As a result it's just not one that's screened any more. But how can you not celebrate the director who allegedly invented the close up? The massive scale of Intolerance, the gigantic Babylonian gates that they created and the incredible visual effects, for 1916, are just frikkin' stunning!"