What's available of this Oscar Micheaux racial drama really makes an impact even though the two reels missing seem to be very important to the narrative. This remake of Micheaux's 1924 lost silent deals with the intelligent Carman Newsome who graduated from Harvard and returns to his home town to find out that an education doesn't change things for him.
There's a Greek chorus of older white men, speaking casually about the rise of blacks in education, insinuating that they are like actors who can learn the lines but not really understand them. These conversations go from calm in the beginning to angry later on, especially after Newsome is taken in by an older white man who wants his assistance in research.
His black cook is angry over the fact she has to serve another black man, and later on, the older man offers advice on the quality of woman whom Newsome is keeping company with. This is obviously step one of many for white men of means to see the black man on equal terms, and the harder step for a black servant to accept change in a world she couldn't imagine for herself. Micheaux opens up lots of conversation, perhaps a bit melodramatically, but it was just a start. Far from perfect as a film, but thoughtful and profound, especially in acknowledging self prejudices among the older generations of African Americans of the time period.
There's a Greek chorus of older white men, speaking casually about the rise of blacks in education, insinuating that they are like actors who can learn the lines but not really understand them. These conversations go from calm in the beginning to angry later on, especially after Newsome is taken in by an older white man who wants his assistance in research.
His black cook is angry over the fact she has to serve another black man, and later on, the older man offers advice on the quality of woman whom Newsome is keeping company with. This is obviously step one of many for white men of means to see the black man on equal terms, and the harder step for a black servant to accept change in a world she couldn't imagine for herself. Micheaux opens up lots of conversation, perhaps a bit melodramatically, but it was just a start. Far from perfect as a film, but thoughtful and profound, especially in acknowledging self prejudices among the older generations of African Americans of the time period.