Really Surprised!

hyped garbage

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

You will be entertained and given a little course in Mexican history when you watch this little time well spent movie. Second reason to watch? Marlon Brando who by now was feeling his oats and his power and learning how to command it. Nice portrayal of simple life in the Mexican culture consisting of tortillas, beans, hard work, humility and comraderie. We are reminded of just how simple life can be when watching this movie. another dynamic presented is standing up for a cause and how one should do whatever it takes if they believe they have righteousness on their side even unto the giving of their life. Vintage movie watching and enjoy Anthony Quinn in a supporting role. I say ....

Okay, I am not -entirely- going to pan this movie in the way it would certainly be universally panned today (to start with, you have to look real hard to find any actual Mexican@s in the cast - the only one I found in the named cast was Margo playing an unnamed "soldadera", though there are some others in the uncredited list).Furthermore, I think it's worth seeing for some of the theatrical bits that have entered the collective consciousness, like where Zapata demonstrates to Madero that political power really does grow out of the barrel of a gun, as Mao would later point out. And you can look at it as a sort of useful Anglo-American children's intro to the fact that, yes, there has been revolutionary history in Mexico that is worth knowing about.But still. Okay, you can look at this movie one of two ways. First, it is it really a biopic? No, it's nothing like that. Movie-Zapata is this naive, illiterate, pure son of the soil, too trusting, too honest, who shuns the corruption of real power, sort of like a movie version of Joan of Arc. The real Zapata had a merchant's education, composed the Plan of Ayala, and was an important military and political figure. Everyone else in the movie is a caricature of one kind or another also.Another way to look at this movie is that it's a romantic portrayal, a movie version of a myth. Okay, that would be all right. But then you are responsible for the kind of myth you are propagating. If you are going to falsify history in the name of didactic storytelling, let's talk about the story and about who is telling it.This is a myth about Mexican history told by Anglo-Californians Edgecumb Pinchon and John Steinbeck. I suggest that a lot of the magic-peasant-saint feel of the film is precisely due to that.It came to the screen at a time when Steinbeck, Elia Kazan, and all of Hollywood were under great pressure from the government and the film biz to disassociate themselves from communism. And it's left its mark on the film, notably in the character of Fernando (Wiseman), who is supposed to be some kind of international communist agitator, always preaching violence and ending up in the camp of the murderous generals, because, as movie-Zapata says, "Your kind always does." Also, the United States is a land of freedom and democracy and you never hear about the occupation of Veracruz for example. And it also bears on the whole tenor of the film, which is all for peasants rising up against injustice, but which is very ambivalent on the issue of what the state should do and whether or how anyone should actually be in it.Also, I can't help noting that movie-Zapata never pays any attention to anything women have to say about anything, which may or may not be historically based, but a movie which is telling a myth, not history, has to be judged for it. Furthermore movie-Zapata is offended that anyone would consider him an "Indian", and one never hears about Indians in the movie, whereas real-Zapata was reportedly fluent in Nahuatl and the actual revolt in Morelos (then as now) had serious indigenist elements.There is a scene in the movie which is on the one hand really good and on the other hand really exasperating which illustrates some of these issues. Zapata has been taken prisoner and is being led from his village with a rope around his neck by mounted police, who intend to either jail him or shoot him. But, as they travel along, "the people", who have arranged themselves all along the road and through the hills in advance, get up from the ground or come down from the heights and wordlessly join the party, in groups of two or six or ten. Eventually the police catch on to the fact that they are traveling in the midst of a throng that completely outnumbers them. Finally their path is blocked by Zapata's mounted riders, and they release Zapata without a struggle.On the one hand, who can be insensible to this picture of the power of the people? On the other hand, the aggravating part is the pure and mystical way this supposedly all happens, as if because of being in tune with the soil itself these people all arranged themselves in the right places without any actual discussion. Not even in Morelos does it go like this. If one wants a better and more informed picture of how struggle actually takes place, Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle" is a decent candidate.Anyway, I ultimately feel that the real Zapata deserves a better movie. Maybe the 1970 version is that movie - I intend to give it a look.

Few actors (I can think of none) who actually live the scenes they are in rather than act them. Brando is in a class of his own. Here are a few scenes that capture the depth of Brando's skills. The best one is the scene in the church where he tries to propose to Josepha. It goes from deep anger to incredible tenderness. He actually physically hurts Jean Peters in this scene before capturing her heart. Another one captures the depth of his anguish when he holds his brother in his arms after the latter is assassinated. It cannot but bring tears to one's eyes. There are many many more in this wonderful movie which is directed exquisitely by Elia Kazan..Viva Brando!

Surprisingly introspective and frustratingly 'quiet', "Viva Zapata!" contains more talking and less fighting than what its exclamatory title suggests. But it might not come as a surprise for a film written by John Steinbeck and directed by Elia Kazan : through the portrayal of Emiliano Zapata, the legendary Mexican revolutionary played by the no-less legendary Marlon Brando, it's the very notions of power and leadership that are questioned, much more their corruptive effect.And the result is a strange mixture of conventional Western-like escapism with the local texture provided by sombreros, white outfits for men and black dresses for women and more ambitious attempts of a character study. I particularly like the scene where a group of peasants come to ask the President of Mexico to help them and get treated with patronizing contempt ("my children" repeats President Diaz) until Zapata with quiet and confidence emerges from the crowd, asks the right questions, earning the attention of the elderly leader.At first, Brando strikes as an odd choice, with this constant expression of so non-leader-like puzzlement he carries in his eyes, but that's the way Brando 'felt' Zapata, an enigmatic and somewhat tortured man. He takes a courageous distance from the archetypal flamboyant hero, illuminating his character with a very odd modernity, even at the risk of being boring sometimes, the whole "I can't read" subplot was too underdeveloped to be of any use for the film and toned down some moments of relief the film needed.And it's not totally wrong to assume that Anthony Quinn, who was more ethnically fitting, would have made a more believable, if not better, Zapata. After watching the film for the third time, I must say that the casting of the two brothers is perfect. Brando was made to play ambiguous characters, never satisfied with any achievement because of an obsessive capability to look beyond his own existence while Quinn, with his Latin charisma had to be the Yang to Brando's Yin : a colorful, larger-than-life, more human but no less flawed character.As Eufemio Zapata, Quinn is not just the brotherly right hand's man; he's also the counterpart to Emiliano's personality. After all the fights, and all of the corruptions' attempts, he wants to retire like a general, with all the honors and awards. He embodies the path his brother refused to take in order to let the governors govern… and people being governed. Anyone with a basic knowledge of Machiavelli would know the implications of a leader bribing a general, and much more a general refusing to be bribed because it contradicts the values and ideals he stand for.Yet the power of the film isn't to romanticize Zapata, but to assess his constant status as an outcast. During one of the film's best scene, he unconsciously dismisses peasants just like Diaz did. He doesn't "my children" them, but his "it'll take time" earned him the same answer he gave years before : you can't plant corn on patience. Zapata understands the inner corruption of power from the way he became and his preoccupations are soon confirmed when he confronts his brother, a decadent 'general' outrageously spoiling people from lands and wives."Viva Zapata!" is never as interesting as when it questions the notion of power and its influence of men, and the interaction between Brando and Quinn, followed by another powerful moment with his wife, played by Jean Peters, reveal the true self-perception of Zapata, not a leader but more of a catalyzing force. Wealth and honor don't interest him, because he learned from the arrogance of his father-in-law that these considerations poison a man's value. What matters is that people are aware of their power, the irony is that after his death, peasants in a poetic denial still consider him as the true leader, and much alive prophet, the white horse hiding in the mountains.That's the reality Zapata failed to perceive, people need a leader for their own good, otherwise, like Fernando Aguirre (Joseph Wiseman) warned him: someone else will come, nature hates emptiness. Many political convictions confront one another in the film, Diaz as the patronizing patriarch, the old general treating the well-meaning reformer like a puppet, while Fernando is the cunning tactician, with no roots, no other goals in life than power in the most absolute meaning. Men like Zapata and his people can only think in terms of land, of food, of survival and this attachment to the most basic values of life is their strength… and their curses.A paradox indeed, but that's what Zapata is, he strikes as an idealistic figure but like his friend Pablo says, what good can come from a man who endures such hardship, how can peace can even be salutary for such a mind. This brilliant exchange reveals perhaps Zapata's most heroic trait: his detachment. Zapata dismisses the very idea of being a strong man, for it applies that without him, people will be weak. And maybe it's this detachment that deprived the film from the required battle scenes, as if it tried to exhilarate the pride the legendary General inspired in this people, rather than true and palpable achievements. Kazan's directing is intimate in most cases, as if Zapata himself was reluctant to forge a legend out of his character, well, he obviously failed.My only regret is that some abrupt ellipses leave many holes in the narrative, we never know exactly what happened between scenes, or we're never sure about the people they're talking about, but Brando and Quinn's performance (Oscar-winning for the latter) and the intelligence of the script, redeems these little weaknesses, although the film isn't on the same caliber than the two Kazan's masterpieces, both starring Marlon Brando, "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront" and will forever live under their glorious shadow.Still, as far as Cinema is concerned, I would always say Viva "Viva Zapata!"