Film Review
It was during the recording of
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
that director Elia Kazan approached his star Marlon Brando with a view
to making another film, on a subject that could not have been further
from the Tennessee Williams play.
Both Kazan and the novelist John Steinbeck wanted to
make a historical drama about the legendary Mexican revolutionary
Emiliano Zapata, who played a central role in the Mexican Revolution of
1910. Kazan and Steinbeck's motivation was not to attempt an
accurate account of Zapata's life but rather to make an overt
attack on Stalinism, which they both saw as a betrayal of
Communism. The central theme of the film would be how men could
start out with honest motives but end up becoming totally corrupted by
the power they win for themselves. Zapata represented an ideal,
the mythical hero who would resist corruption and walk away from power
when he realised how little it could achieve, in contrast to Stalin,
who, in Kazan's mind, epitomised the exact opposite. In pursuing
this crude allegory, Kazan and Steinbeck did a spectacular whitewashing
job on the real-life Zapata, to the extent that their film's portrayal of the
revolutionary bares scant resemblance to the brutal fanatic who is
reputed to have carried out over a thousand executions during his
campaign of terror.
Given the astronomical liberties that the film's director and writer
took with Zapata's life story, it hardly matters that the actor
playing Zapata bore absolutely no resemblance to him. Make-up
artist Phil Rhodes did a marvellous job of altering Marlon Brando's
appearance to the extent that he resembled a native Mexican, and the
actor did the rest - he was in fact the only member of the cast who
bothered to master a Spanish accent (which he did by spending several
weeks in a remote Mexican village). Cast opposite Brando in the
role of Zapata's brother was Anthony Quinn, the very actor who had
replaced him in the successful Broadway production of
A Streetcar Named Desire. The
two actors had a difficult working relationship, although they did
break the ice by periodically walking off from the location
set together and partaking in pissing contests, seeing who could
project their urine the furthest.
To heighten the realism of the pivotal scene in which the two Zapata
brothers come to blows, Kazan stoked up antagonism between Quinn and
Brando by telling each of them separately that the other had boasted he
was the better performer in the
Streetcar
production. Although Brando was nominated for the Best
Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Zapata, he came away empty handed,
whilst Quinn took the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actor.
Brando had to content himself with the Best Actor award at the 1952
Cannes Film Festival. Such is the exceptional quality of the
performances from both Brando and Quinn - sensitive and nuanced
portrayals of a pair of fanatical paranoiacs - that they virtually
eclipse the contributions of the other actors. The only
other performance of note is that of Harold Gordon, whose
Francisco Madero is probably the film's most historically
accurate portrayal.
Whilst it is a beautifully crafted piece of cinema, as intelligently
scripted and imaginatively photographed as any other Elia Kazan film,
Viva Zapata! offers only the
crudest of approximations to real historical events. Not only
does the film take enormous liberties with its central character,
casting Zapata as an illiterate, monogomistic and incorruptible hero
(which is wrong on at least three counts), but it also massively simplifies
the details of the Mexican Revolution (reducing Pancho Villa's
contribution to a footnote). Viewed, however, in the
terms which Kazan intended, as a metaphor for the corrupting influence
of power, the film is extremely effective. Zapata's unwillingness
to seize power for his own advantage strangely echoes Brando's
reluctance to play the part of the conventional Hollywood star - both
were motivated by far more complex motives than a mere desire for
personal glory.
© James Travers 2011
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Next Elia Kazan film:
On the Waterfront (1954)
Film Synopsis
In 1909, the Mexican President, Porfirio Díaz, is visited by a
delegation of peasants who complain that their land has been illegally
taken from them. Díaz's recommendation for the peasants to
register a formal complaint and follow the process of the law provokes
a hostile response from one of the peasants, a young hothead named
Emiliano Zapata. Assisted by his brother Eufemio, Zapata drives
his people to open rebellion. Díaz is toppled and replaced
by the reformer Francisco Madero. Having secured for himself a
stake in the running of his country, Zapata soon becomes disillusioned
when he learns that nothing has really changed. His people are
still led by a corrupt government that has little interest in the
problems of the poor. By resigning his position, Zapata sends a clear signal
to his former associates that he has become a dangerous threat, a
threat that must be disposed of...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.