About
"The Rise of Latino Cinema"
The Rise of Latino Cinema will be the third-hour of a four-hour documentary series (with an accompanying companion book) entitled The Latin Lens about the history, evolution, and impact of Latinos in American cinema from the birth of Hollywood in the early 1900s to the beginning of the 21st century.
The Latin Lens is an American story; of stereotypes created and later broken, identities sometimes downplayed or hidden and at other times exaggerated or even flaunted, how Latinos expanded cinematic language and national mythologies in ways that have forever changed the country, ultimately advancing, and expanding the idea of what it means to be American.
For this fellowship I will be writing a documentary film treatment for a show III of the series, tentatively titled The Rise of Latino Cinema. The film will tell the saga of a handful of cinematic artists from roughly the 1970s through the early 1990s.
For cinema's first 70 years in the United States, the movies most Americans saw were authored almost entirely by white people. Latinos were actors in the cinematic narratives, dramas, fantasies, longings, propaganda, and entertainment as others saw them. But, then in the late 1960s, things began to change.
Filmmakers Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit, La Bamba), Moctesuma Esparza (The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Selena, The Milagro Beanfield War) and Gregory Nava (El Norte, Selena) created the first nationally successful Latino authored films. Informed by Chicano civil rights struggles like the fight against police brutality, access to education and better schools, resistance against the war in Vietnam, and the United Farm Workers Union led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta they began to use cinematic narratives to re-tell American history from Latino perspectives, and re-framed those experiences as a form of American identity. Nava embraced the plight of the central American refugees fleeing the repression of American backed Juntas in central America, Valdez explored Chicano culture and white racism during World War II, and Esparza recast the true story of a Tejano outlaw as a tale of racial injustice. At the same time, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong had a series of hit films using self-deprecating comedy as social commentary to re-cast Chicano identity as a form of popular entertainment. Marin confronted the deportation of American citizens (Born in East LA), wielding satire as a vehicle to delve into issues of race and national belonging. And Nancy Savoca (True Love, 24-Hour Woman, If These Walls Could Talk) broke new ground when she became the first Latina to win top prize at the Sundance film festival. Her work brought nuance and complexity to narratives about work, Latina empowerment, and abortion, presenting harrowing reproductive struggles from a woman’s perspective.
John J. Valadez is a Professor, Film, Television, & Media.
