The Redman's View

A previous commentator wrote: "I was blown away by the beauty of the actress playing the Indian maiden in this film. From the first moment you see her on screen she looks like you could reach out and touch her, she is so realistic. The D.W. Griffith Years of Discovery liner notes say she was "unknown." Well, that is a crying shame! How could someone not document who she was? She was stunning, and completely believable. If anyone knows who she was, please post it here for posterity."

I have not seen the film. However, to possibly solve the mystery... it could have been Ruth Hart, as she was about 16 years old when the film was made. If it was not Ruth Hart, then I agree that it is a crying shame. Griffith usually included credits for the main actors, and it's hard to believe that the Indian maiden actress would go uncredited.

It is films like this that should be shown on TCM or FMC.

I was blown away by the beauty of the actress playing the Indian maiden in this film. From the first moment you see her on screen she looks like you could reach out and touch her, she is so realistic. The D.W. Griffith Years of Discovery liner notes say she was "unknown." Well, that is a crying shame! How could someone not document who she was? She was stunning, and completely believable. If anyone knows who she was, please post it here for posterity.

This film was pretty sensitive to the Indians' cause, and also showed that the white man could also get along with the Indians when they showed true Christian character towards them. Owen Moore and James Kirkwood perform well. The father's death scene is moving and poignant. Was D.W. Griffith a racist? If he was you couldn't tell it from this film.

Directed by D.W. Griffith. Written by Frank E. Woods. Starring Owen Moore, James Kirkwood, Kate Bruce and Charles Craig. Cinematograpaher G.W. Bitzer.

Plot sees Native Americans forced to leave their land by callous settlers. Director Griffith and his team were very keen to get some historical accuracy into this short. The outcome is a very sympathetic, sombre piece of film. We follow them on their trek to pastures new, never once feeling anything but admiration as this human train work their way thru the elements with a dignity that no white man could break. The closure whips with uncertainty, an uncertainty that history tells us was justified. A little treasure this from the silent era of film making. 8.5/10

Very few movies take the viewpoint of Native Americans during the 1800's. John Ford's 1964 "Cheyenne Autumn" comes to mind as the prototype movie depicting the plight of the Indians in the late 1800's. Biograph Studios in December 1909 took the step by releasing Hollywood's first film dealing with the Indians' forced evacuation from their homeland in "The Redman's View," directed by D.W. Griffith. Despite not being on the grand scale we all come to expect from today's huge Western productions, "The Redman's View" does translate its message of the modern civilization's harsh realities of what its people did to ease the Indians from their ancestral land. Shot in northern New Jersey, Griffith's movie shows a tribe being forced from its home to begin a long journey that would cost them lives. The young Indian woman who is singled out to remain with the lascivious white men is played by Mary Pickford's younger sister, Lottie. Mary had secured acting roles for Lottie at Biograph Studios, one being "Redman." Lottie would appear in numerous films from 1909 until 1925, but her career was overshadowed by her more famous sister. Lottie became quite the party "girl" and would die at the age of 43 from a heart attack related to alcohol abuse.

In terms of innovative cinematography that would later become D. W. Griffith's trademark, there isn't much here. The story of "The Redman's View" is told just like any other - in long shots - making it difficult for the viewer to really catch the emotion of the sensitive subject matter and embellish what is happening beyond the level that a long shot can do. Still, the film is well made for the time period and one can only speculate how much better it could have looked had it been made around 1912 or so, when Griffith's shorts were much more skillfully made.

"The Redman's View" deals with a subject that was common at that point in American history: Indian displacement. In the film, a pair of Indian lovers are separated due to the arrival of the white men who order the Indians to find a new home. The girl however is forced to stay with the white men, and is unable to help her ailing father who dies along the way in search of a new homeland. It's a relatively simple story that is easy to follow and the commentary, while not as strong as it could have been, is on point the entire time. It becomes clear watching it who Griffith favors in the film, and the title even indicates this further. A well-made little piece of commentary of a historical premise.