Viva 'Villa'
The revolution has been televised
By Mick Farren
The Mexican revolution of the early twentieth century has always fascinated Hollywood. From Viva Zapata to The Wild Bunch and A Fistful of Dynamite, it has been a source of exotic romance, comforting conservatives that such unbridled, unshaven liberation couldn't happen here, and providing vicarious fulfillment for those who wish it would.
The old movies taught us the names of the good guys and the bad guys: Villa and Zapata, Huerta and Madero. We accepted the formula of an American adventurer, often Robert Mitchum, playing a pivotal role, but we rarely made the connection that Pancho Villa's 1914 overthrow of the Huerta military dictatorship was precisely contemporary with the motion picture industry's early steps. Villa was aware of the movies, the movies were aware of him, and he actually cut a cash deal with Birth of a Nation director D.W. Griffith for the screen rights to the uprising.
Now this odd twist of history comes to the small screen as And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, with Bruce Beresford directing a Larry Gelbart script, and Antonio Banderas in the title role. It's a rip-roaring homage to Sam Peckinpah, but Beresford and Gelbart interweave the dusty tequila swashbuckling with enough political and cinema history to give this made-for-cable spectacle the kind of substance we expect from HBO original movies. Much of this context is supplied via Matt Day's cameo as the historically accurate John Reed (appearing for the first time since Warren Beatty played him in Reds), and the resonances in modern politics are easy and clear, as Big Oil and the Hearst media empire attempt to stampede President Woodrow Wilson into preemptive military action against Villa and his "socialist bandits," while these first-generation filmmakers find themselves "embedded" in Villa's Division del Norte.
In the past, Pancho Villa has been played by such unlikely gringos as Wallace Beery, Alan Reed, Yul Brynner with hair, and an implausible Telly Savalas. Banderas, who is at least Spanish, romps through the part with a cunning, cock-of-the-walk gusto that is part Zorro and part Che Guevara, but he still encompasses the less pleasant aspects of how brutality can overtake the noblest of causes. In the process, he endears himself and Villa to every schoolboy raised on The Magnificent Seven and The Treasure of Sierra Madre, but now the Mexicans rule, refusing to be relegated to bit players who don't need no stinking badges.
Violent, Wild Bunch set-pieces are offset by Gelbart movie-maker in-jokes. Villa riddles an unacceptable script with bullets, lines up director and cameraman in front of a firing squad, and changes his entire plan for the crucial battle of Torreon to get the light right. The real delight, however, is Alan Arkin as the Yankee adventurer - about as far from Robert Mitchum as one can get. The character of veteran machine-gunner Sam Drebben, a Jewish anarchist from Brooklyn, provides a crucial anchor with his glorious cynicism and stirred-but-unshaken idealism.
That's right, neighbors. I shamelessly loved it.
WATCH! The Belzer Connection. Opening a season when everyone from Sharon Osbourne to Ellen DeGeneres has a talk show, comedian, actor, and conspiracy theorist Richard Belzer hosts an hour-long paranoia special and panel discussion on UFO coverup and the death of Princess Di. In this time of terror alerts, the topics may be tired, but panelists include Johnny Rotten, G. Gordon Liddy, Ice-T, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Musto, and Al Franken - which, one hopes, will guarantee chaos, acrimony, and surrealism rather than enlightenment. At least no one will be promoting his or her movie - although I find myself wary of Franken in his new role as leader of the liberal revolution.
Published: 09/04/2003
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