And you are right, Jean Peters is the
exact same Jane Peters who was Polly Cutler alongside
Marilyn Monroe in Niagara.
And here they are frolicking about:
MARILYN MONROE AND
JEAN PETERS - NIAGARA 1953
20th Century Fox
Those were the days. But back to Zapata.
No, wait. Here's one more of Jean
Peters.
JEAN PETERS RATHER
UNIMPRESSED BY MARLON BRANDO
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
Alright. Let's go...
The movie starts at Mexico City in
1909.
A delegation of peasants from the
State
of Morelos have come to the Capitol for an audience
with their President,
Porfirio
Diaz, because the haciendas took the land where
the villagers formerly grew their corn in order to plant their sugar
canes.
President
Diaz advises to be patient and to let the courts settle it. Emiliano
Zapata replies calmly,
We make our tortillas out of corn, not
patience.
Zapata ends up getting his name circled by Diaz on Diaz' list of
visitors.
Zapata Gets Earmarked
by Diaz
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
The villagers cut through the hacienda's fences to access
their stolen lands. The hacienda's guards chase them away.
Zapata is now an outlaw.
From his hideout in Texas,
Francisco Madero tries to rally
against Diaz. Zapata sends his man to check Madero out, to see if he
is worth risking a neck for.
Zapata is not too successful with the
girls, as can be the case when you're without money, without land, and a
fugitive of the law. Emiliano would like to marry Josefa, but she
got a good point. She
tells him she's not too keen on ending up making tortillas in a
ditch.
Zapata tells her about his job options as
a horse trainer, things are therefore not looking too grim and
besides, he could very well easily just
take her without her permission. Josefa helps Emiliano understand
the obvious consequences of such potential caveman behavior.
Sooner or later you
will fall asleep . . .
Here she makes her point:
Yes I Would, Because I
Am a Respectable Girl
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
Josefa's governess:
He's an outlaw and a
criminal.
Josefa: Yes, I like him, too.
Zapata asks for permission to marry Josefa. Josefa's father sums it
up eloquently.
You are a man of
substance without substance.
Zapata becomes a revolutionary general, hence gaining substance and Josefa.
Word spreads that President Porfirio Diaz has left the country.
Except a few people who know better, everybody celebrates, thinking
their troubles came to an end at long last. Little do they know the
bigger and bloodier part of the Mexican Revolution lies still ahead
of them.
Madero asks Zapata's men to disarm.
Zapata doesn't understand how they would be able to get their lands
back if unarmed.
Huerta: Kill
Zapata now, save time, save lives. Perhaps your own.
Madero: General Huerta, I do not shoot my own people.
Huerta: You'll learn.
The movie well illustrates Zapata's
predicament. For him it was rather simple. This is the land of the
people, give it to the people. But Madero points out:
Madero: Before
you can do anything by law, you must HAVE law.
Zapata agrees reluctantly to disarm
but the deal goes sour when he hears of Huerta's approaching army.
Madero doesn't get it.
Madero: Huerta
disobeyed my orders? He would not dare.
Huerta dares more than that and Madero
enters the twilight zone.
ELIMINATING MADERO
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
Pancho Villa enters the
picture. Huerta is exiled. Zapata and Villa meet in Mexico City.
And now we know the story behind the
famous photos taken at the presidential palace in Mexico City in
December 1914.
Zapata Villa Photo Op
Mexico City
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
The people are coming to Zapata with their complaints. When a
delegation from
Morelos arrives, complaining about Zapata's brother Eufemio, one of the men is very persistent. Zapata circles his name
on his list of visitors and is having a déjà vu.
He can't stand it, packs his bundle,
and goes back home together with his fellow men from Morelos.
Emiliano questions his brother regarding the accusations and Eufemio
points out the lack of pay despite the good job he had done as a general. Point taken.
Emiliano tells his people,
You won't be here long
if you don't protect your land.
Eufemio gets killed and Anthony Quinn breathes away while supposedly
lying there dead.
A trap is set to assassinate Emiliano. Emiliano finds it "strange
enough to be true." Josefa, already with downscaled living standards
and by now living in a hut, is not thrilled and warns her husband
that this is a trap.
Josefa wants to know what would happen
to the people if Emiliano gets himself killed. Emiliano says that
they are strong people and that they don't need him anymore.
Josefa, romantically leaning against a
machine gun, points out that the people would always have to be led.
Emiliano says yes, but by each other. A strong man makes a weak
people. Strong people don't need a strong man.
And speaking of strong. Josefa has
this strong hunch that she's not going to see her husband again. She
begs him not to go, tries to stop him as he rides away on his horse.
He pushes her away and Josefa ends up in the dirt. Ah, the drama.
Sure enough, not much later Emiliano
gets hugged by Jesús Guajardo
aka death by assassination.
The tiger is dead.
Emiliano's enemies throw his dead body in the middle of the
marketplace for everybody to see. And following Anthony Quinn's example, Marlon Brando is doing the
breathing dead man.
Crouching over Emiliano's remains,
the villagers decide that Emiliano Zapata is immortal.
They can't kill him.
He's in the mountains.
So is Elvis. Viva Zapata!
MARLON BRANDO ACTION
Viva Zapata! 1953
20th Century Fox
What's True, What
Ain't?
The movie well portrays Emiliano
Zapata's love of the land, his hesitation to assume the role of a
leader, his dislike of being rich and famous, and his great ability
to get to the point and cut through all the bull that came his way.
When clever intellectuals tried to lull Emiliano with big speeches, he
would just put their noses right back to the core of the matter.
Pardon me, Sir, but
when will the village lands be given back?
Marlon Brando is terrific and won Best
Actor at the Cannes Film Festival 1952. He was nominated Best Actor
for an Oscar in 1953, but Gary Cooper won it with High Noon.
Anthony Quinn delivers a brilliant Eufemio Zapata, a real joy to watch, and people gave him an Oscar in
1953 for Best Supporting Actor. Although the real brothers Emiliano
and Eufemio probably weren't that black and white kind of different
from each other as shown in the movie.
And let's give the girl Josefa a
little bit more credit and let's say in real life she probably had a
better understanding of the meaning of the political developments
around her. But then again, who knows.
Emiliano was able to read and write,
but in the movie he first complains to Pablo that he had promised
him to teach him how to read and then he tells the bright girl
Josefa that he can't read and asks her to teach him. Which she does,
using the easiest book around, the bible.
Above mentioned Pablo Gonzalez,
the guy who hung out with Emiliano and Eufemio throughout the first
part of the movie until Emiliano shot him for secretly consulting
with Madero, is fictional and not to be confused with the real
Pablo
Gonzalez Garza.
In the movie, Emiliano sent Pablo
Gonzalez to check out
Madero.
In real life, Emiliano sent
Torres
Burgos to do it. Check the
1911 Timeline of the Mexican Revolution
for more details on Torres' mission.
Also fictional is the character Fernando Aguirre.
Don Nacio refers to
Ignacio de la Torre y Mier for
whom Zapata actually did work for a short period of time.
Summing up the ten years of the chaotic
Mexican Revolution is a huge
task. The people who made Viva Zapata! deserve medals. So what if they skipped the
entire
Venustiano Carranza chapter.
With Viva Zapata! you've got a
real Classic that is not too far from the actual
historical events. There are some minor bumps in the
editing department, but hey.
All in all a very fine movie. And if you
get a kick out of a Brando with wickedly shaped, draped, and painted eyelashes,
please holler. You're gonna love it.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
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