Crossing the Language Barrier

THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ is at once a Western, a tale of the first Hispanic hero, and a portrait of turn-of-the-century America, and on all three of these levels it works impressively well. Equally impressive is the filmmaker's dedication in producing this unusual movie with a $1.3 million budget, a fraction of the cost of the typical Hollywood release.

The drama chronicles the Texas Rangers' 11-day, 450-mile manhunt of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican-American cowhand accused of killing a sheriff in 1901. Cortez was eventually captured and sentenced to 50 years in prison, though his attorney proved later that the confrontation and killing had been a mistake--the result of a misinterpretation of Spanish. Cortez' struggle became a legend, and a ballad hailing him is still sung in the Rio Grande Valley.

Around these facts, director Robert M. Young '49 constructs a multifaceted tale of cultural conflict, in which the main events are retold from perspective after perspective. The film begins with a chilling scenario of the sheriff and Cortez' first meeting as recounted by posse leader Boone Choate, played by Tom Bower. A reporter from the San Antonio Express, who travels with the Rangers, strings together various accounts of the "Cortez gang," but it is not until the last third of the movie that we see the event from Cortez' point of view.

Speaking to his lawyer through an interpreter, Cortez explains that the sheriff came to his home, interrogated him through an interpreter, arrested him, and subsequently shot his brother. Cortez, in a slow-motion, surreal sequence brilliantly played by Edward Olmos, shoots the sheriff three times. The moment of understanding, for Cortez, his lawyer, and the audience, comes when the interpreter clarifies a linguistic misunderstanding--the difference between "horse" and "mare."

ALTHOUGH THE STORY is inherently dramatic, it was hardly the kind of material Hollywood producers would have picked up. Film distributors have tended to feel justified in rejecting scripts because "there's no Hispanic market." They cite the example of the last Hollywood film about Chicanos--Zoot Suit--which brought Hispanic audiences out in Los Angeles but did not do well in other parts of the country. The Ballad's final release is due to a dedicated effort on the part of several Chicano artists who had made it in mainstream film. The credits include an amazingly large number of Spanish surnames--Moctesuma Esparza, producer; Edward Olmos, lead; Raymond Villalobos, cinematographer; David Ochoa and H. Frank Dominguez, executive producer.

In an even less Hollywood-like vein, funds for the project had already been obtained by the National Council of La Raza from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The Council had funds to produce "something which would counteract the negative portrayal of Hispanics on television and in film," said project coordinator Guadalupe Saavedra. But in order to insure universal appeal. Saavedra continues. "We had to resist the temptation to exploit the good versus bad. Anglo versus Mexican aspects of the story."

The creative, collaboration of the Ballad began in the summer of 1981 at the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford's resource center for independent filmmakers and actors. It was there that director Young, producers Esparza and Michael Hausman and actors Olmos and Tom Bower coincidentally met and began discussing the movie's potential.

Young, whose attraction to the project stemmed from its flexibility as much as its subject matter and whose film credits include a host of docudramas and independent ventures, agreed that Cortez' story had to be told as it was, without making an explicit social statement. The film is "an explanation of something that happened in history, with different viewpoints, so that people could evaluate what happened themselves--they need the ambiguity and contradiction," said Young, who rewrote the original script--adapted from the novel With His Pistol in His Hand by Americo Paredes--in the six days before production began.

Young's personal interest in the Ballad project was mirrored by most of crew and cast. Bower participated in the casting, writing, location scouting, and promotion of the film. (Bower and Olmos have been travelling the country for the past year and a half, "preparing" audiences for the film.) Bower sees the movie's main drawing card as its universality: "All of our ancestors were immigrants whose languages weren't understood when they got here." Such cross-over appeal is evident in San Francisco, where the film is in its tenth week, and has grossed over $200,000.

THE MOVIE'S SIGNIFICANCE as a film about Hispanics and made largely by Hispanics cannot be overstated. Edward Olmos, who received a Tony nomination for his role in Zoot Suit and stars as Cortez, says with unabashed pride, "Gregorio Cortez is the first American hero of Hispanic ancestry that we've ever had in film." Although he does not attack racism explicitly through his acting, he believes that art and humanitarianism "are the only things that can supercede prejudice," Olmos's performance radiates authenticity and sincerity precisely because it is so understated, so implied. He carries the lead without speaking a word of English and with few Spanish lines.

The decision for Cortez to speak Spanish, without using subtitles, was a conscious one and augments the film's impact on the non-Spanish speaking audience, who identifies with the interpreter as he gradually realizes that his lack of understanding, his ignorance, cost half a dozen lives.

But the picture does not accuse or judge either side. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez allows its audience to walk away knowing a wrong was committed but understanding emotionally how it took place. We see how the Texas Rangers used their chase of "the Cortez gang" to sustain an institution whose purpose was outlived. We see how the Mexican community of Gonzalez, Texas used the Cortez predicament as a unifying cause. Young condemns neither side; he simply presents them as they are.

The American Historical Association has commended the film's historical accuracy and plans to present it at its annual convention in December. In rewriting the script, Young looked at the original court transcripts, depositions, and newspaper articles from the case. The film is already being used in schools and colleges to document the social climate in the border states in the early twentieth century. But its importance for the present is even more pronounced. Watching the cultural conflict between Cortez and his Anglo adversaries brings the audience closer to dealing with its own cultural biases. The tragedy that resulted from the language gap between Cortez and the sheriff underlines the need for appreciation and tolerance between cultures--needs still relevant to today's debates over bilingual education.

And Americans can apply the lessons of the movie beyond their borders as will. "We go into Central America, and we went into Vietnam, without asking the right questions, making assumptions, and ignoring their history," Young says, "just as the sheriff went to Cortez' house with certain preconceptions." It is a message worth spreading.