Plot
Conflicted, light-skinned Sergeant Waters (Adolph Caesar) ruthlessly heaps abuse upon his men. He calls them names, but he especially relishes torturing the jovial and highly talented C.J. Memphis (Larry Riley). Sergent Waters especially cannot stand the light-hearted behavior from the fellow black men in the platoon.
When Waters is killed, there are plenty of suspects for Captain Davenport (Howard E. Rollins, Jr.) to investigate. Some soldiers also believe that Sergeant Waters was killed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Art Evans plays Private Wilkie, a nervous man too acquiescent for his own good. David Alan Grier plays C.J.'s closest friend, bonded by their Mississippi roots. Denzel Washington, in one of his earliest motion picture roles, portrays the deeply embittered Pfc. Peterson.
Read more about this topic: A Soldier's Story
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““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
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—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)