Summary
A gaunt foundling, reared in the bruised shadows of a Reconstruction-era hamlet, staggers from baptismal river-mud to blood-soaked ballot box, clutching a tattered catechism whose pages mutate into IOUs, eviction notices, and finally a Klansman’s mask. Over three sulphuric nights he is successively christened by thunder, scarred by cavalry sabres, and elected messiah by torch-bearing citizens who once spat on his bare feet. The film’s chiaroscuro crucible—where magnolia petals swirl with gun-smoke and a single negro vote is weighed against a horse’s life—culminates in a moonlit forest tribunal: the same villagers who suckled him now demand he choose between the noose and the laurel. He burns both, walks into the river again, and emerges only as silhouette, leaving the audience clutching a splintered narrative that asks whether America birthed this man or he secreted America in his marrow.
