As a posse tracks down the James brothers after a botched bank raid in Minnesota, the film sets out to tell their "true story," which, in classic Ray fashion, shows Jesse turning outlaw as a reaction to the humiliation of Southern farmers in the aftermath of the Civil War. Echoing Rebel Without a Cause, Ray called this "a film about displaced youth." Superbly shot with a sweeping, dynamic sense of space and enclosure, and punctuated by sad ballads delivered by a blind wandering minstrel, Jesse James remakes a myth in very personal terms.