In 1916, D.W. Griffith followed up his racist yet massively successful film “Birth of a Nation” with “Intolerance,” a 3«-hour long epic consisting of four separate stories, each set in a different time and place: ancient Babylon, the time of Christ, France in 1572 and contemporary America. The only thing that binds the stories is the theme of intolerance, and the structure was completely unprecedented. Rather than telling each story in its entirety then moving on to the next like an anthology, Griffith intercuts the stories — one scene from one story, then a scene from another story, and so on.