Fuego

While watching the film, I was a little disappointed in the character of Kate. I thought she was weak and used as merely a stepping stone for the other agents. In the end, it seems like she was on the surface exactly that. But she is very important for the main argument of the film— that following the rules does not always lead to the best outcome. She is used to complete a mission in a never ending war and will be forgotten just like the Mexican police officer. But what I appreciated was the fact that she was challenged by her counterparts for her values, not her gender. She was not meant to look pretty and was in on the fighting. Kate was a part of the complicated system representing the side that we often see as being ‘good’ or moral. Her final act— not shooting Alejandro demonstrates her commitment to her beliefs and she does not submit to his way of fighting the war.

This film is clearly not just another action film about drugs and shooting. It challenges America’s role in the war on drugs. Matt and Kate represent the two extremes of American policing in Mexico. Matt holds the belief that actions which would usually be unacceptable, immoral, and against the law are ok if you still carry the end goal of the mission in mind. Kate attempts to follow the rules and do what is right. This competition is common among stories involving competing institutions and characters within the government. Each side sees their way as being the best and compete against one another though they have the same enemy

While TV shows and movies about drug trafficking often juxtapose the extremes of drug trade by glorifying the guys on top and the guys on the bottom of the drug trade, this film focused on a different extreme. I saw it more an examination of the extremes of motivation. Alejandro is the most motivated and emotionally fueled character acting solely out of vengeance. Kate, seems to display more frustration towards her counterparts and is the only character who cries. However, I see her as a stoic in her own way. She is motivated by her commitment to do what is right and did not deter from it though her beliefs were constantly challenged.

The color was very important to this film. After watching a few analysis videos of the film, I realized how important beige was for the film. It controls the landscapes, lighting, internal and external walls as well as the colors of the characters clothes. Beige is a color that does not argue anything in particular. It is not often connected to symbols or motifs. Because it seemingly lacks life nor warrants opinion, it fits the film’s argument that the war on drugs is a wicked cycle challenges our notions of justice and good and bad. Where do you look for answers to a difficult situation when the current solutions seems inhumane and morally wrong?

At the start of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, we did not see: “A true story” written as we did with Walker. But as the reading says, Tommy Lee Jones was inspired by a West Texas teenager of Mexican descent who was shot by border patrol. All that happened in this film I could see happening in real life. This film was convincing. The acting, cinematography and script made this film my favorite we have seen so far in this class.  

Regarding, US and Latin American relations, in my opinion this is the most conducive film for creating a two way bridge that connects ‘us’ to ‘them.’ Politically it was effective, more so than the other films we have watched. The reading explains this by taking it a step further. Watkins thesis that the sovereign’s precariousness and attention to grievability is more complex than politics of recognition is accurate. Pete does represent a victory for precariousness over sovereignty. Before reading the article, my analysis would have ended with an analysis of the political ambitions in the film. I think the Mexicans were never inferior to the Americans and the sense of two separate nations, countries and peoples was successfully blurred. This allowed for the focus to be on morals and values that create identity instead of concerning the viewer with our common assumptions of differences in identity as Watkins argues.

The shot of the campfire where the body of Melquiades sits in the middle was unlike any shot I have seen before. It was highly emotional but I am not totally sure how I felt about it. It reminds the viewer that this is a western film, but Pete’s determination to preserve the dead body made me as a viewer disgusted, intrigued, worried but I also found it comical.  

After researching the film online, I found an article on Christianity Today that examined judgment and redemption as themes in this film. The article says, “in this film violence is often the forerunner of an epiphany, and God’s providence works in strange and mysterious ways.” This is interesting when put beside Watkins argument that Pete does not have the strong desire to control that is associated with mastery and sovereignty. Watkins also explains how Norton’s character shows our inability to control the implications of our actions. So this made me wonder if Jones and Arriaga wanted it to have a religious message.

I like films that leave a lot of the interpretation up to the viewer. This film displayed clear messages as well as messages open for interpretation. For some viewers, it does provide religious messages. For others, it explores society’s misunderstanding of borders in the literal and social sense.

In class yesterday, when we were discussing what a bad movie was, I said that movies which fail to meet the basics of cinematography such as camera shots that don’t make sense or films without coherent plots are bad movies. At the same time, however, I said that I like when film tries to push boundaries and re-invent the styles we become used to. When it fails in doing this though, a bad movie is the result. And what I said really did not make a lot of sense, I was thinking far too literally. 

Bananas was an immediate response that destroyed my previous point about what makes for a bad film. If there is someone who can break all of the rules of film, lack coherence, choreograph awkward shots while making the viewer disgusted, engaged, and smile all at the same it would be young Woody Allen. But he does it in a way that works extremely well.

In fact, this was the first Woody Allen film I have ever seen. From what I have heard from my parents and grandparents, he is strange, controversial and funny. This one, unlike a timid Elvis at the top of the high dive, was hilarious. Bananas stands in sharp contrast to our previous film in terms of its protagonist and how it interacts with Latin America. The critique of the media as well as the overly transparent political process was ridiculous in a good way. I don’t like slapstick humor that much. However, the drawn out, physically uncomfortable shots such as when Neville and his girlfriend are in bed I found very funny.  While watching Fun in Acapulco, I could not decide if I liked Mike Windgren. Interesting, I felt similar towards Fielding Mellish. He is easy to laugh at but hard to like.

What the film was trying to say about American involvement in Latin America, I am not entirely sure. There was a large cultural response to US intervention in the region, Cuba specifically during the 1960’s. It seems to me that Allen thought it would be fun if he joked about it. We are left with a clever critique that makes all of the American characters in the film look stupid no matter what side they are on. Because of the transparency of the critique, of the films we have watched, this film provides the strongest argument against the US state intervention as well as against the ignorance of American society towards these globalsituations.

What do you know about French rap from the 1990’s? MC Solaar, one of the most notorious French rappers, provides his own interpretation of the Western style film in his song Nouveau Western from 1994. In it he compares the common themes and characters, bandits and Indians, gun manufacturers and the setting of westerns with the world he lives in. While at the same time, he lays out his own definition of post-western film, Neil Campbell brings up similar points in his critique of early westerns and how they evolved with a changing American West.

The film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the clearest example of this transition according to Campbell and I agree. Viewers of the film will think they are in a Western as the classic Western situations come up. However, the failure of the pioneers in a foreign land, the ultimately fruitless exploitation of the land and the death and mental fragility of the lead actor indicates that this film was making a stronger and more controversial point than its predecessors.

MC Solaar argues in his song that Hollywood deceives us and that the US exports its beliefs around the world while dictating what is good and bad. Throughout the song Solaar is indicating that the western image of America still applies today. To him, he is a part of it, living in the concrete version of a desert but struggling with his own issues. As Campbell notes, imagining the western film in new light means considering how 1940’s and 50’s America was not the same as the images portrayed in westerns. Gone were the days of  entrepreneurial, settler culture. Instead, “the culture and political landscape was urban, multi-racial and globalized, juxtaposing traditional forms of life with an ever changing, contingent experience.” This is where both John Huston and Solaar find their inspiration. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a display of competing images of the individual and the community, greed against temperance and asks moral questions such as justifications for murder. The American West was maturing, industrializing in the post war era and the history of the region was began to be understood differently.

Campbell repeatedly uses the transition of Western film from ‘movement’ driven to ‘time’ driven as an argument for proof of post-western film style. The ruins, the ‘Norther’ wind and Hobb’s dramatic death at the hands of Gold Hat, show the inability to bury the past and influence time has on landscapes. As MC Solaar demonstrates, the imagery and themes of a western are timeless and still relevant today. They can be transported across the world and across languages. Cowboys on horseback with revolvers will forever be an icon of Hollywood and America. Nevertheless, the genre continues to evolve and challenge new social issues and more recently explaining history with more accuracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSG2qHBm7WM

First, I would love to see today’s films portray cultures correctly and not utilize the differences one culture sees in another to the advantage of the creator of the content. It is also problematic that today’s films showing people from outside North America continue to fail to represent the ‘other’ correctly. Nevertheless, I will purposefully cater my response to be more surface level, based off my emotional response and a simple historical consideration of an American film about a place which at the time, was a lot farther than it is today.

Brazil in 1930 was a country still struggling with oligarchies, extreme economic inequality separating classes and regions, a weakened economy due to the depression and reliance on export products which were highly vulnerable in the changing world economy. Brazil was close to major structural and industrial reform. But as Flying Down to Rio highlights, there was a thriving upper class that could live a lavish life comparable to American extravagance.

Swanson’s article mentions the similarities between the upper classes of both countries. The article also highlights all of the ways in which the film, by using music, dance, racial differences, romance and technology is “an assertion of Northern supremacy” … and “reasserts social hierarchies.” Without delving into the highly analyzed aspects of film, I believe that creating a film about another culture, showing the good sides of the culture, representing it in a way that does not make them look blatantly foolish can aid in the process of cultural acceptance and tolerance, and in the long term, lead to more equality. Brazil in this film looks fun, dramatic and beautiful. I bet viewers wanted to visit this place and left the theater having a better (though highly unrepresentative of the reality), image of the country. The audience was America in 1933— during the middle of the depression. It was not a university professor in the UK in 2010. Also of consideration is Swanson’s point that this film was made before the Good Neighbor policy, which pushed for a more unified hemisphere. The film therefore was not as influenced by the political and economic agenda as Down Argentine Way. The image I chose for this article came up when I googled ‘Brazil 1933.’ It is a rural primary school and a better representation of what Brazil was like. 1930’s Hollywood, could not make a film about this.

I am glad that today we are able to have this conversation. Film such as these, the sexism, racism and assertion of assumed North American superiority has led to many current problems in our view of Latin America and the many different cultures both there and around the world. For this, we need scholars like Swanson and we need to educate and discuss our common misconceptions. At times, I like to watch movies and think about these issues. When it came to Flying Down to Rio however, I could not help but enjoy the representation of Brazil, a country I have studied, visited and have many friends from. Brazil is no doubt a sexy, passionate place. No Brazilian would deny this. The problem arises when the image that foreigners possess of Brazil is shaped only through images that represent small portions of the population.

A pencil moustache, the long cape, a black mask and hat. In the hundred years that his image has inspired movie goers, Zorro has changed very little. Along with that, the messages and themes have stayed consistent with each new Zorro film and TV show.  

It all started in 1920 with the Douglas Fairbanks film The Mark of Zorro. Spanish for ‘fox,’ Zorro, the swashbuckling hero slies his way around his village making fools out of ill-willed noblemen and the unjust authority. Zorro’s objective is simple: do good for the people who need help. But what role does the Zorro’s other half Don Diego Vega play?

Vega stands in the middle of the moral spectrum. This contrast forces Zorro to fight not only Juan Ramon but also Don Diego. Vega’s personal agenda does not push for moral goodness. He is no romantic and not physically or emotionally driven. It is too simple to just assume that the nature of Vega’s character is a disguise so that the other characters do not believe that he is Zorro. Vega represents the contempt that everyone feels with themself. Zorro fights injustice, greed, and as the opening credits say, “Oppression.” But he also fights the people in society who take no action at all. Zorro’s character is much more appealing and exciting because he wants action and want to protect people. He even desires the girl. Behind all of this is the fact that Zorro wants what is morally right. Vega’s indolence is not just unappealing; it is morally wrong. In the end, what appears to be Vega the victor, is really Zorro without the cape.

While watching the film I struggled to place a date on when the story took place. The characters wore old clothes and lived in old homes. Even in 1920, Zorro was a ‘time period’ film. It took place one hundred years in the past. However, the time is not the focus of the film.  And just like the irrelevance of the period when the film takes place, when it comes to the role of Mexico, New Spain, or Latin America, the physical setting of Zorro is secondary to the importance of its message. It is less about the ‘exoticism’ that America views toward Latin America. More important are social messages about equality and injustice, greed and oppression. The issues that Zorro faces are timeless social problems. 1920’s America saw a great divide in social and economic classes. Zorro was fighting these problems then, and he still is now.