Criterion Collection: The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez | Blu-ray Review
In 1901 Texas, an uneasy cohabitation exists amongst the American and Mexican population in land which had only recently been won by the U.S. from Mexico. When Gregorio Cortez (Olmos) and his brother are questioned about the stealing of a horse by a sheriff (Timothy Scott) and his deputy (Tom Bower), neither who speak Spanish very well, the interaction leads to bloodshed and the death of the sheriff at the hands of Cortez, who becomes an immediate fugitive, evading a massive manhunt for days, which resulted in the death of more law enforcement officials.
As outlined quite efficiently in Charles Ramirez Berg’s insert essay “A Cinematic Corrido,” The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez served several functions, beginning first as a folk song selling a correct version of news events to the disenfranchised Mexican populous existing along the border. Charting the narrative’s fashioning into the 1958 book With His Pistol in His Hand by journalist Americo Paredes (who sings the ballad on the soundtrack, which also features contributions from Olmos), Berg notes how Young’s succession came during an indie period which saw the birth of the Coen Bros., Jarmusch, and Spike Lee.
But what The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez feels like is more along the lines of the unsentimental revisionist Westerns of Walter Hill, who had only recently released his outlaw spectacle The Long Riders (1980) but two years previously. What Young accomplishes is a sympathetic immigrant hero who is played by a Latino actor (purportedly the first time in American cinema) and whose perspective is used to visually rewrite the film’s dramatic climax both omnisciently and in his own correctly translated monologue. Olmos, who performs the title role entirely in Spanish, is an effective, brooding martyr, whose work here went sadly unrecognized by any major awards committees. He’s supported by a wide variety of white and Mexican-American character actors who would go on to proliferate American cinema, including Pepe Serna, Tom Bower, Bruce McGill, Brion James, James Gammon, and even a brief stint from Ned Beatty (who had also appeared in Alambrista!).
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and Alambrista! are dueling counterparts as Young’s greatest narrative directorial achievements (he would return to documentary filmmaking again, winning accolades for 1993’s Children of Faith: Life and Death in a Sicilian Family). His tenure in documentary filmmaking lend both these immigrant narratives, which both featured hybrid tendencies leaning into neo-realism, unlike later collaborations between Young and Olmos, such as 1989’s Triumph of the Spirit and 1993’s Roosters. However, like Young’s more extravagant star-vehicles, such as 1986’s Farrah Fawcett headlined Extremities, the director enjoys juxtaposing the perspectives of his narratives. Like the rapist in the Fawcett title, the white men in control of Gregorio Cortez are revealed as callous and unrepentant about those whose lives deemed trivial and inconsequential, often deliberating casually.
Victor Villasenor’s script, when it’s not steeped in the essence of the chase narrative, allows for these white men to talk amongst themselves, in deliberation of how to exact their laws and their consequences without any sort of consideration—it’s these trenchant moments of banality with resonate powerfully when Cortez at last speaks with his lawyer, relating the stunning miscommunication which led to senseless bloodshed and stereotypical mob rule born of Anglo-Saxon fury which bubbles blindly whenever their xenophobic tendencies are challenged.
Disc Review:
Criterion presents The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez as a new 2K digital restoration in 1.85:1 with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Picture and sound quality are excellent in this transfer, which has been color corrected and digitally restored from 35mm and 16mm prints. The disc includes several worthwhile extra features.
Edward James Olmos:
Criterion recorded this twenty-seven-minute interview with Olmos in Los Angeles in April 2018, where the producer-actor discusses the important of playing a Latin hero as well as the significance of how the film was promoted and distributed. Olmos confirms the United States Historical Society sites the film as the only accurately filmed Western.
Chon A. Noriega
Criterion recorded this nineteen-minute interview in Los Angeles in April 2018 with Chon A. Noriega (director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and author of Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema in the 1980s, discussing how this film reinvents the western.
Cast and Crew Panel:
Recorded ay the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles in 2016, this panel discussion on The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez features Robert M. Young, producer Moctesuma Esparza, cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos, producer-actor Edward James Olmos, and actors Bruce McGill, Tom Bower, Rosanna DeSoto, and Pepe Serna.
Final Thoughts:
Olmos is devastating as the titular Gregorio Cortez, and much like Criterion’s recently restored Canoa: A Shameful Memory (1976), is another stellar recuperation of Latin-American cinema ripe for rediscovery.
Film Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review:★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
