THE BALLAD of GREGORIO CORTEZ (1982)

Actor/producer Edward James Olmos was the driving force behind this groundbreaking ‘Chicano’ Western, based (pretty accurately) on a simple verbal misunderstanding during an arrest-gone-wrong that snowballs into a manhunt and scores of innocent dead.  A real life ‘failure to communicate’ tragedy from 1901 Texas.  Olmos is Gregorio Cortez, a man on the run after killing that local arresting officer, a sheriff who drew a gun on Cortez, murdered his brother and put Cortez on the run, but doomed to be caught.  A non-linear presentation, along with actions repeated from alternate POVs, lifting this beyond simple suspense.  But not before a unit of Texas Rangers blunder into indiscriminate murder of uncomprehending local Mexicans they take for Cortez confederates.  The purposeless killings only stopping when a legit sheriff takes charge, informing the Rangers there’s no gang involved, it’s been a one man job . . . and possibly self-defense.  Once arrested, Cortez is soon being mythologized by the Mexican community in Texas (as he is to this day) though the situation remains complicated.  Something Olmos doesn’t shy away from, hiring Robert M. Young, a superb technician too often pigeon-holed as a one-trick socially-conscious director, who rewrote an overly hagiographic script to admit nuance without softening the basic injustice.  Even more important, making a one million dollar ‘Super 16' budget look fully realized.  (Superb natural-light lensing from Reynaldo Villalobos.)  Only a few bad actors and a synthesizer score giving away the cost factor here and there.  The film doubly important for offering a rare Mex/Tex tilt historically (1901) and currently (1982) in presentation & attitude.  (It plays in English and Spanish without subtitles to emphasize language barriers.)  The film briefly heralding a road across a cultural  border still not taken.

DOUBLE-BILL:  Instead of another film with Chicano orientation, watch the excellent Extras on the Criterion edition, especially Olmos’s talk on how it all came about and, especially, how its distribution was purposefully fucked up by the head of Embassy Pictures.