Slideshow
THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED
*With live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner
U.S., 1920
Written and directed by Oscar Micheaux
Starring Iris Hall, Walker Thompson
Silent with English intertitles.
Approx. 60 min. 4K DCP restoration by the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique.
“A love story between an enterprising young black homesteader, Hugh Van Allen (Walker Thompson), and a young woman named Eve Mason (Iris Hall), who moves to the Northwest upon being willed a mine by her grandfather. When Van Allen discovers oil on his property, he is targeted by the whites who want his land. In a visually stunning sequence, Micheaux shows Klan night riders with their white sheets, hoods, and torches set in stark contrast against a black sky. Perhaps no other film in history has quite encapsulated the nightmarish, threatening madness of the Klan. THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED raised the question of racial identity as well as that of the miscegenation laws. Van Allen fears professing his love for the young Evon because he believes she is white. Only at the film's conclusion does the hero learn that he is free to proclaim his love to a woman who, as it turns out, is indeed African American.” – Donald Bogle