When I saw this movie I was completely amazed at the size of the sets and the stunts that were done. Does anyone know how on earth they did these huge towers falling apart to the groud scenes in 1916???
"The same place the light comes from" -Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer
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Well believe it or not, the the film industry was bigger back then you could imagine, Money...
"shoving feathers up your butt does not make you chicken"
It was actually largely self funded. Intolerance cost Griffith his entire share of earnings from The Birth of a Nation. It's not just that the movie industry was huge (it hadn't come close to its peak, the major studios were either just being founded or weren't around yet) but Griffith would spend as much as he had to to get it done. It was easier to do things on a grander scale back then too. Even accounting for inflation, the 1.9 million spent on Intolerance wouldn't come close to building the sets and hiring the cast and crew of a picture like that.
shareAlso, there was at that time a great excitement and determination to do things on the screen that had not been done before. Griffith used a crew of many, many hundreds of technicians, and a cast literally of thousands, to achieve a film bigger than anything anyone had seen before.
As has been mentioned, the film industry was already very big in 1916.
Matt
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I really don't mean to sound old-fashioned, but I have to admit, the computer generated epics just don't do anything for me. But to be fair, there were also a large number of 1950s epics that included loads of matte and glass shots, and these too fail to impress me. I really admire the full scale sets of epics like INTOLERANCE, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (especially this one-wasn't that closeup of the sun the only visual effects shot in the entire film?!), not to mention one of my all time favorites, HOW THE WEST WAS WON. There is something to be said for real depth and space on an epic scale that makes these a very special kind of movie.
The epics that are overloaded with either matte and glass shots (in the 50s/60s) or CGI (today) just lack that genuine, large scale physical scope that makes the epic such an impressive undertaking to me.
Matt
Yes there is something about those real epic films like that. Quite impressive.
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According to MeasuringWorth.com, this movie would cost about $36 million in 2005 U.S dollars.
shareWow.
shareGood to know.
shareWhat's really crazy is that $36 million is still nothing by today's standards, certainly not enough to make a film on this scale using those methods. There are other factors at work...I wonder if union demands were looser back then? Materials cheaper? That set from Waterworld cost $1 million in 1995 dollars, so I can't even imagine how much the halls of Babylon would cost today. Not to mention the hundreds of extras, and the war sequences...
shareI'm not sure how they came up with that $36 million figure, but I promise you, that is absolutely impossible. Unless they're simply assuming the thousands of extras, production design, costumes, etc would all be CGI. And maybe craft services would be provided by the local soup kitchen or something.
shareThe fact is that films simply were proportionately cheaper to produce in 1916 than they are today (leaving aside the rise of digital tools for low-budget filmmakers, which is another case altogether). The rise of production unions does indeed have a lot to do with the rise in costs, not necessarily because they "demand" more money, but simply because union rules dictate that individual jobs must be performed by different people. Griffith worked on the makeup crew for "Intolerance", something which would never be allowed today. His multiple "assistant directors" doubled in other positions, including as actors, which would never be allowed. Griffith's "core" company would sometimes go without pay to help tide over the production budget until more money could be raised. Again, this would never happen today. The average star today makes more money in base salary alone than "Intolerance" would cost to make, even adjusting for inflation.
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even spielberg could fail to do a picture like that today!
shareI agree. The scene in "Intolerance" where the camera slowly tracks down on Balthazar's palace is absolutely jaw dropping. The entire scale of the movie is monumental. Unfortunately most people today would never be able to sit through the entire film, let alone even 15 minutes of it. Very sad.
sharei must say the magnificence of the art direction can be explained by the fact that money didn't go towards the sound equipment at all, and that itself is pricey.
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