Question

Let’s focus on the cinematography of the movie The Birth of a Nation 1915. What are your observations of the cast, scenes, and acting in general?

Answer 1

Hi, here are my views, Ples upvote my ans. I seriously need your upvote this time.

Cast of movie

• Lillian Gish as Elsie Stoneman
• Mae Marsh as Flora Cameron, the pet sister
• Henry B. Walthall as Colonel Benjamin Cameron ("The Little Colonel")
• Miriam Cooper as Margaret Cameron, elder sister
• Mary Alden as Lydia Brown, Stoneman's housekeeper
• Ralph Lewis as Austin Stoneman, Leader of the House
• George Siegmann as Silas Lynch
• Walter Long as Gus, the renegade
• Wallace Reid as Jeff, the blacksmith
• Joseph Henabery as Abraham Lincoln
• Elmer Clifton as Phil Stoneman, elder son
• Robert Harron as Tod Stoneman
• Josephine Crowell as Mrs. Cameron
• Spottiswoode Aitken as Dr. Cameron
• George Beranger as Wade Cameron, second son
• Maxfield Stanley as Duke Cameron, youngest son
• Jennie Lee as Mammy, the faithful servant
• Donald Crisp as General Ulysses S. Grant
• Howard Gaye as General Robert E. Lee

View-

I understand that the common mindset in early 20th century America is different from what it is now, but this movie is just straight up ridiculous. The first half is tolerable: The Cameron family is the depiction of a quaint Southern family who slowly loses their will and possessions because of the Civil War. I’m fine with watching from the perspective of a Confederate sympathizer since there are both sides to a story but I must say it was very blatantly one sided when it came to who you should feel sorry for and who you should hate. What to say about part two... it’s a work of racist fictional dystopian propaganda. It begins after the assassination of Lincoln and into the Reconstruction Era. Freed African Americans quickly build themselves up after the war and eventually surpass whites to the point where they get to run the military and enforce new laws of equity. They abuse their power and become radical mobs who terrorize helpless whites and drive them out of their homes. The plot gets even crazier: The [Cameron] family flee to a small house in a prairie where they seek refuge with a retired Union soldier. As this is happening the eldest Cameron son’s lover is being forced into marriage with a man in charge of the black militia. He says, I quote the caption, “See! My people fill the streets. With them I will build a Black Empire and you as a Queen shall sit by my side.” Soon the KKK show up to her rescue and drives him and the black mobs out of the town. The eldest Cameron son, who is also the KKK leader, asks his lover to marry him. She agrees, his sister marries off to his best friend, the white families return to their homes, peace is restored, and they celebrate with a party in the name of Christ. 

Mae Marsh she played the innocent sister who waits for her brothers to come home from war and who, in one of the film's most racially charged scenes, leaps to her death rather than submit to the lustful advances of Gus, the so-called "renegade Negro" who later is killed by the Ku Klux Klan. I like work and her experience in this movie and her work.

LillianDiana Gish I very much like her work also.