7 April 2015 (Series 30:10) , EL NORTE (1983, 141 minutes)

National Film Preservation Board, , 1995

Directed by Gregory Nava Written by Gregory Nava (story) and Produced by Trevor Black, Bertha Navarro, Anna Thomas Music by The Folkloristas, Malecio Martinez, Linda O'Brien, and Emil Richards Cinematography by James Glennon Film Editing by Betsy Blankett Milicevic Costume Design by Hilary Wright Art Design by David Wasco and Gregg Barbanell Sound Design by Michael C. Moore and Marshall Winn

Ernesto Gómez Cruz ... Arturo David Villalpando ... Enrique Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez ... Rosa Alicia del Lago ... Lupe Mike Gomez ... Informer Jose Martin Ruano ... Foreman Stella Quan ... Josefita Heraclio Zepeda ... Pedro Fools Fall in Love, 1997 , 1995 My Family, 1988 A Time Emilio Gomez Ozuna ... Luis of Destiny, 1983 El Norte, 1976 The Confessions of Amans, and Daniel Lemus Valenzuela ... Encarnacion 1972 The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva (Short). He also Rodrigo Puebla ... El Puma the Soldier wrote 9 films and television shows: 2006 Bordertown, 2002 Yosahandi Navarrete Quan ... Josefita's Daughter , 2002 American Family (TV Series), 1997 Selena, 1995 Rodolfo De Alexandre ... Ramon My Family, 1988 , 1983 El Norte, 1982 The Emilio Del Haro ... Truck Driver End of August, and 1976 The Confessions of Amans. Jorge Moreno ... Old Man on Bus Palomo Garcia ... Coyote at Bus Station James Glennon (cinematographer) (b. James Michael Diane Cary ... Alice Harper Glennon, August 29, 1942 in Los Angeles, California—d. October 19, 2006 (age 64) in Los Angeles, California) was the Gregory Nava (director, writer) (b. Gregory James Nava, April cinematographer for 61 films and television shows, among them 10, 1949 in San Diego, California) directed 11 films and 2006-2007 “Big Love” (TV Series, 8 episodes), 2004-2006 television shows, which are 2007 “Making of Selena: 10 Years “Deadwood” (TV Series, 19 episodes), 2005 The Big White, Later” (Video documentary short), 2006 Bordertown, 2002 2005 Madison, 2003 “Carnivàle” (TV Series, 6 episodes), 2003 American Family (TV Series), 1999 “The 20th Century: Good Boy!, 2003 The of Leland, 2002 About American Tapestry” (TV Movie documentary), 1998 Why Do Schmidt, 2002 Local Boys, 2002 Life Without Dick, 2002 “The

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West Wing” (TV Series), 2001 Viva Las Nowhere, 2000 Playing David Villalpando ... Enrique (b. January 2, 1959 in Mona Lisa, 2000 South of Heaven, West of Hell, 1999 The City, Distrito Federal, Mexico) appeared in 21 films and TV Runner, 1999 Election, 1997 “Two Voices” (TV Movie), 1997 shows, which are 2008 “La rosa de Guadalupe” (TV Series), “L.A. Johns” (TV Movie), 1996 Mojave Moon, 1996 Invader, 2004 “La escuelita VIP” (TV Series, 45 episodes), 2003 “La casa 1996 “Co-ed Call Girl” (TV Movie), 1996 Citizen Ruth, 1994 de la risa” (TV Series), 1999 “Acapulco H.E.A.T.” (TV Series), Judicial Consent, 1993 “Angel Falls” (TV Series), 1993 “The 1998 The Mask of Zorro, 1998 “Cero en conducta” (TV Series), Disappearance of Nora” (TV Movie), 1992 The Lounge People, 1997 Dance with the Devil, 1997 Men with Guns, 1997 Por si no 1992 “In the Deep Woods” (TV Movie), 1991 December, 1991 te vuelvo a ver, 1996 The Arrival, 1994 La hija del Puma, 1993 “Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Wojas Smart Story” “Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7” (TV Movie), 1992 (TV Movie), 1990 A Show of Force, 1988 Lemon Sky, 1986 The Harvest, 1991 Retorno a Aztlán, 1990 “Nazca” (TV Series), Flight of the Navigator, 1985 Smooth Talk, 1985 “My Wicked, 1989 No se asombre sargento (Short), 1989 Goitia, un dios para Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn” (TV Movie), 1984 sí mismo, 1987 The Delos Adventure, 1987 Y yo que la quiero Up the Creekz, 1984 “Last of the Great Survivors” (TV Movie), tanto (Short), and 1983 El Norte. 1983 El Norte, 1981 Prisoners, and 1977 Jaws of Death (Documentary). Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez ... Rosa (b. November 2, 1959 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico) appeared in 71 films and Betsy Blankett Milicevic (editor) edited 7 films and TV shows: television shows, among them 2015 “Que te perdone Dios” (TV 1997 “Dead by Midnight” (TV Movie), 1988 Riding Fast, 1988 Series, 37 episodes), 2013-2014 “Qué pobres tan ricos” (TV A Time of Destiny, 1985 “The Blue Yonder” (TV Movie), 1983 Series, 167 episodes), 2013 Actores S.A., 2012 “A Shelter for El Norte, 1981 “The Sophisticated Gents” (TV Movie), and 1979 Love” (TV Series, 159 episodes), 2010-2011 “Para volver a Penitentiary. amar” (TV Series, 146 episodes), 2010 El Narco, 2008 Enemigos íntimos, 2008 “La rosa de Guadalupe” (TV Series), 2007 Niñas Mal, 2006 “Duel of Passions” (TV Series), 1996- 2006 “Mujer, casos de la vida real” (TV Series, 19 episodes), 2003 Zurdo, 2002 Dark Cities, 1996 Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda, 1992 Wild Blue Moon, 1991 Highway Patrolman, 1991 City of the Blind, 1987 Gaby: A True Story, 1986 Firewalker, 1986 Miracles, 1985 Viaje al paraíso, 1983 El Norte, and 1975 La lucha con la pantera.

Alicia del Lago ... Lupe (b. January 11, 1935 in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico) appeared in 73 films and television shows, some of which are 2006 “Heridas de amor” (TV Series), 2006 The Girl on the Stone, 2003 “Real Love” (TV Series), 2001 Green Stones, 1997 “Gente bien” (TV Series, 87 episodes), 1997 “Madame le consul” (TV Series), 1996 “Marisol” (TV Series), 1995 La revancha, 1995 My Family, 1992 Gertrudis, 1989 Old Gringo, 1983 El Norte, 1978 The Children of Sanchez, 1978 Cananea, 1977 The Chosen One, 1975 The House in the South, 1975 El valle de los miserables, 1971 Mama Dolores, 1969 Ernesto Gómez Cruz ... Arturo (b. November 7, 1933 in Memories of the Future, 1967 The Female Soldier, 1963 The Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico) appeared in 178 films and Paper Man, 1959 The Soldiers of Pancho Villa, 1958 Sierra television shows, including 2014 “El Mariachi” (TV Series), Baron, 1958 The Bravados, 1958 Los salvajes, 1956 The Hidden 2013 Las Armas del Alba, 2012 “Capadocia” (TV Series, 10 One, and 1954 Roots. episodes), 2012 The Fifth Commandment, 2010 El Narco, 2010 On Childhood, 2008 Teo's Journey, 2007 El guapo, 2002 El crimen del padre Amaro, 2001 The Mexican, 1999 Herod's Law, 1998 Fraude en el sexenio, 1996 Los vuelcos del corazón, 1994 Tramp, 1993 Santo: The Legend of the Man in the Silver Mask, 1992 Mister barrio, 1991 Highway Patrolman, 1991 Latino Bar, 1990 Sandino, 1987 Zapata en Chinameca, 1985 Dos pistoleros violentos, 1984 Arizona, 1984 The Evil That Men Do, 1983 El Norte, 1983 Eréndira, 1983 El guerrillero del norte, 1982 La combi asesina, 1982 Días de combate, 1982 A Married Woman, 1979 Life Sentence, 1978 Roots of Blood, 1977 The Rattlesnake, 1975 Tívoli, 1975 The One Who Came from Heaven, 1974 La muerte de Pancho Villa, 1972 Tacos al carbón, 1971 No Exit, 1970 Zapata, and 1967 The Outsiders.

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Héctor Tobar: “Promised Land: El Norte” (Criterion notes) fought in the Western Hemisphere. Nava filmed much of his movie in Mexico because Guatemala was then ruled by the In the 1980s, with the wounds of the Vietnam War still fresh in military dictatorship placed in power by a CIA-orchestrated coup the collective American memory, Hollywood took up the themes d’état in 1954. In the 1980s, in response to growing militancy of empire, democracy, and war. A series of films transported among Mayan Indians, the Guatemalan army launched a Americans to distant countries and exotic locales where small scorched-earth policy in the country’s Mayan-speaking regions. and bloody conflicts of the cold war were being fought. Ronald Entire villages were wiped off the map: it was the closest thing to Reagan had called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.” The genocide in Latin America since the Spanish conquest. These focus of U.S. foreign policy had turned to a handful of Latin acts of rebellion and repression are the backdrop of the events American countries where right-wing dictators waged war depicted in El Norte, which is the family drama of Enrique and against leftist rebels. In response, filmmakers raided studio Rosa Xuncax, the earnest brother and sister whose flight from wardrobe closets for the uniforms of foreign armies and their Guatemala’s violence becomes a grand, cross-border epic. gold-braided epaulets; and they lined up Latino actors to play There isn’t a word of English spoken for almost the banana republic strongmen and right-wing hit men. entire first hour of El Norte. Instead, Nava’s fine ensemble of For Salvador (1986), dozens of actors were hired to Mexican, Central American, and U.S. Latino actors speak the portray the tortured corpses of El Salvador’s recent history, and K’iche’ Mayan language and Spanish with well-practiced Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman paired up to tell a story about the Guatemalan and Mexican idioms and accents. Even the beer revolution against Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in served at the table of Rosa and Enrique’s village home is a real Under Fire (1983). These films borrowed heavily from the Guatemalan brand, as Nava brings to El Norte a unique blend of narrative formula mastered decades earlier by British writer authenticity and dream realism. Graham Greene. In novels such as The Quiet American, Our Man Nava’s dreamlike imagery, though, is grounded by a in Havana, and The Comedians, Greene tossed idealistic and realistic brutality. The violence that falls upon the family after cynical Westerners into the absurd theater of third world political the act of defiance by Rosa and Enrique’s father, Arturo, rings conflict and imperial intrigue. Salvador and Under Fire offered with truth: tens of thousands of Guatemalan families suffered up American journalists as protagonists, as did other political similar fates. The Guatemalan chapter of the film ends with the thrillers of the era, such as The Year of Living Dangerously and arrival of soldiers, and an act of brutality as gruesome as Missing (both 1982). anything in Salvador or Under Fire. But what gives Nava’s The authoritarian regimes of the era provided an ample remarkable film its lasting power is what happens from that supply of dread, and each film re-created mass arrests, horrific moment onward, as Rosa and Enrique undertake a massacres, and forced journey northward that parallels “disappearances” in chilling that canonical American tale of detail. The filmmakers’ desperate people in flight: The indignation sprang forth from Grapes of Wrath. each screenplay in soliloquies Like the Joads of Steinbeck’s of moral outrage: U.S. novel, Rosa and Enrique are politicians and diplomats were headed for California, a place taking the side of venal, tin-pot they have come to think of as a regimes in the name of cold- promised land. “In the U.S., war victory and tainting the even the poorest people have good name of American toilets,” their godmother tells democracy. “I believed in them. “You flush it, and America. I believed we stood everything vanishes.” for something,” declares James Woods as Richard Boyle, the “In the North, we won’t be treated this way,” Enrique antihero of Salvador, written and directed by a Vietnam veteran says. “We’ll make a lot of money. We’ll have everything we named Oliver Stone. “I don’t want another Vietnam.” want . . . We’ll have good luck now. I’m sure of it.” “The North” In 1983, filmmaker Gregory Nava, with his writing partner and is his only hope for salvation, and he clings to the faith that the producer, Anna Thomas, also brought the story of a cold-war myth might actually be true. But the Xuncaxes soon discover that battleground to the screen. They shared the moral outrage that the road north is a kind of “war” in itself. On the route from the marked the works of their brethren working in Hollywood, but lush mountains of Guatemala to the deserts of northern Mexico, their film was made under very different circumstances, and with they encounter helpful strangers, smugglers, thieves, and an a very different narrative, if not political, point of view: the unrelenting sense of strangeness and threat. Rosa and Enrique independently produced El Norte explicitly rejected the Graham pass underneath the U.S. border in an abandoned sewer drain and Greene formula and told a story in which politics was secondary are attacked by rats, a powerful metaphor for the dehumanization to a universal (and ongoing) human drama. Moreover, Nava and inflicted upon everyone who undertakes such a crossing. Thomas made a courageous decision: they told the story entirely Rosa and Enrique’s first look at California is of the from the point of view of the colonized “natives,” eschewing an gleaming lights of the San Diego skyline. It’s a modern, urban English-speaking protagonist. version of the green fields of abundance the Joads gaze upon Guatemala was then suffering through what was after crossing the Mojave in The Grapes of Wrath. Like the arguably the most sanguinary of all the late cold-war conflicts Okies and other down-and-out migrants who arrived in Nava—EL NORTE—4

California before them, Rosa and Enrique will soon discover that Reed Thompson, “Gregory Nava’s film ‘El Norte’ marks 25th California is at once a place of magical reinvention and cruel anniversary, LA Times, 28 January 2009 exploitation. Enrique looks for work at one of the infamous day- When Gregory Nava's "El Norte" opened in U.S. theaters 25 laborer sites that dot Los Angeles. He eventually finds a job at an years ago, immigration was less of a political hot-button issue upscale restaurant: when he sheds his scruffy clothes and dons a than it is today. white busboy’s uniform, he is transformed into a beaming prince. Back then, the mass exodus of refugees from Central Rosa evades capture in an immigration raid and finds work in an American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala was orderly mansion much like one she admired in a Good driven as much by civil war as by economics. California's Housekeeping magazine back in Guatemala. Brother and sister Proposition 187 in 1994 and the pro-immigration marches of study and quickly master the lingua franca of all ambitious May 2006 still were years away. Californians: English. But in recent months, until the global economic swoon But the Xuncaxes’ fragile hold on the American dream took center stage, immigration became one of the most pressing quickly slips away in the final, tragic half hour of the film. We and polarizing issues on the national agenda. That gives a are left with El Norte’s deeply renewed potency to Nava's subversive message: the $750,000 independent movie ligatures that bind us to the about a Guatemalan brother and suffering and violence of the sister's harrowing odyssey to the third world are everywhere to United States -- including a be seen in our daily American memorably grueling crawl lives. We are surrounded by through a rat-infested tunnel -- people whose flight from their and their struggles in adapting to homes ensures the comfort we their new life in Los Angeles. enjoy in our homes. Nava’s The movie's quality and triumph is that he succeeded enduring influence is being in placing the courage and acknowledged with this month's dreams of people like Rosa release of a 25th anniversary and Enrique at the center of edition of the film on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion his story, rather than making them mere extras in the background Collection. While Nava says he's tremendously pleased by the of an exotic political thriller. And he foresaw what would recognition and thankful to Criterion, he sees a bittersweet become a defining fissure in America’s social fabric: the dimension to his movie's stature. marginalization of millions of Latino immigrants. "We made the film not to make a commercial hit but to Just a few years after the stories of Central America make a film about the human tragedy of a very tragic situation began to reach U.S. movie screens, the Berlin Wall came that still continues to this day," says the writer-director, speaking crashing down and the cold war fizzled to an end. Military men from his Santa Fe, N.M., home. "I'm very, very gratified that the no longer dominate the El Salvador of Oliver Stone’s film or the film is still considered to be so relevant, and it saddens me Chile of Missing or the Guatemala of El Norte. At the same time, because the issues are still there." the continuing arrival of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border Criterion's release includes a number of bonus features: has grown into a central issue of the American political debate. an audio commentary featuring Nava; an intriguing documentary The perils of the migrant road northward haven’t changed all that about the making of "El Norte"; and a gallery of location- much in the quarter century since El Norte’s premiere. The scouting photographs from Chiapas, Mexico. border is officially “militarized” now, and the crossing routes It also includes Nava's haunting black-and-white student have moved deep into the Arizona desert. For most people, the film, "The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva" (1972), which journey remains as awful and degrading as a long crawl through explores the theme of forced exile that Nava would further a rat-filled tunnel. develop in "El Norte." The award-winning earlier film also Nava filmed El Norte, in part, with funding from U.S. provides evidence of the lyrical visual style that Nava would public television. Back then, there was no Fox News or powerful bring fully to bear on "El Norte." anti-immigration lobby to complain about American tax dollars Nava refers to this style as "dream realism," which he paying for a film sympathetic to the undocumented. And characterizes as less "folkloric and cute" than magic realism and although PBS has continued to put forth inspired works about more deeply engaged with "tough social problems." He counts immigration issues, a “compassion fatigue” toward immigrants Luis Buñuel's 1950 masterpiece, "Los Olvidados," about Mexico has spread generally through American society. Poverty and City's slum children, and Luchino Visconti's "La Terra Trema" as corruption continue to feed social conflict in Latin America and major inspirations. out-migration to “el Norte.” Cities and towns from Montana to Among the filmmakers' crucial and risky decisions for Maine are filled with Rosas and Enriques, and Latino "El Norte" was to shoot much of it in Spanish and indigenous immigration has transformed the cultural fabric of the United Guatemalan languages as well as English. "We shot in incredibly States. Today, El Norte endures as the epic chronicle of a journey isolated and difficult locations because we wanted to get that deeply embedded in the American experience. world on the screen," Nava says. "We had a very small crew of people in two Volkswagen vans." Nava—EL NORTE—5

"We were young, and so we were in a way kind of Considered by many as one of the greatest films about insane." immigration, “El Norte” tells the story of a brother and sister "El Norte" came about, in part, through the confluence fleeing persecution in their home country of Guatemala and of two trends in the early 1980s. One was the increasing public traveling across México to start a new life in Los Angeles. attention paid to the effects of the Cold War between the United Celebrating its 25th anniversary, “El Norte” was States and the former Soviet Union in places like Latin America released on Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray late last month. I spoke and Africa. to Nava about “El Norte,” a movie he considers “more relevant As novelist and Times columnist Héctor Tobar points today than when it was made 25 years ago.” out in an essay in a program booklet accompanying the Criterion Did you realize when you were making “El Norte” that release, in the early 1980s Hollywood produced a handful of 25 years later immigration would be such a controversial issue? films examining these conflicts, such as "Missing," "Under Fire" I saw [immigration] as part of a pattern. I didn’t think it and "Salvador." But their protagonists typically were non- would ever stop somehow. Now, it has become the greatest Latinos. "El Norte" broke from this pattern by making the young migration event of the U.S., even greater than the migration of siblings played by Mexican actors Zaide Silvia Gutierrez and Europe at the turn of the century. It is something that is changing David Villalpando the center of the action. the lives of everybody in this country and this entire nation. Another factor in "El Do you have faith Norte's" success was the rise President Obama can find an of a new wave of U.S. answer to immigration reform independent filmmakers. Nava that will please both sides? was one of several young The laws that exist independent directors, such as today are inadequate to deal with Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, John what we are facing. I believe we Sayles and David Lynch, who, cannot begin to come to a Nava says, felt "there was a solution unless we embrace the need at that time to deal with humanity of the people that have different sorts of subject come here to work. They are like matter, different things the shadows that pervade our Hollywood film was not society. I made “El Norte” to dealing with." bring a heart and a soul to those shadows. Until that happens, As Thomas says in the Criterion documentary, "El there will never be any kind of reform that will be meaningful or Norte" was able to attract both the non-Latino "I go to art long-term. movies" crowd and the Latino "This is a film about me" crowd. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans fled Throughout his subsequent career, Nava, a San Diego their country because of the destruction taking place… native who has many relatives in Tijuana, has continued to And people of the U.S. were unaware of the impact these wars explore aspects of the immigrant experience, in 1995's "Mi were having on immigration. [Refugees] who came here said Familia," 2006's "Bordertown" and other movies. And he's they were from México because they didn’t want to be shipped working on another film, "Gates of Eden," that will update those back to their home countries. The statistics said 98 percent of the themes to the present. people in the U.S. illegally were from México, but that was "You need a film to help you on a human level to deal hardly true. I wanted to shed light on that with “El Norte.” with the changes that you're seeing. That's true for Hispanics and “El Norte” was the youngest film to be listed in the U.S. for non-Hispanics." National Film Registry in 1995. Why do you think it was so important for the Film Registry to recognize the film so quickly? Kiko Martinez: “Gregory Nava—El Norte” Cinesnob Some films on that list had to wait over 100 years. “El Norte” Growing up between the cities of San Diego, Calif. and Tijuana, waited 12. México, filmmaker Gregory Nava saw firsthand the immigration I think people felt that it was a groundbreaking film. It issue that existed between the two neighboring countries. He says was dealing with very important subject matter in a way that had the passion he had making his 1983 film, “El Norte,” stemmed never been done before. It had an epic quality and brought the from his childhood. Crossing the border three times a week Latin American dream realist storytelling style that was so became part of his lifestyle. familiar in novels. It was giving a voice to the voiceless.

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

Coming up in the Spring 2015 Buffalo Film Seminars Apr 14 Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995 Apr 21 Bela Tarr, Werkmeister Harmonies, 2000 Apr 28 Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville, 2003 May 5 Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men, 2007

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