Overall, your observations on the film are excellent (perhaps the best batch of timed writings so far), and I have chosen several that I believe are particularly perceptive, profound, and persuasive. The selected comments fill in important gaps that remained after our discussion of the film in class. Please read through them carefully. You will note that I have also used a few of the comments to offer some further insight and clarification on the film.
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Upon research, this film was one of the first films in [Hollywood] cinematic history to hold an entire Latino cast. I think this film plays on several clichés: the dramatized love/hate relationships among characters, the knife fighting scene (Westside Story reference), and the strong family relationships. However, I think they all work to serve a greater purpose of relatability for Chicanos and Mexican-Americans who grow up on the West Coast and experienced similar experiences to this film. [Professor Cope’s comment: Great observation! I would add that the film unequivocally makes use of clichés. I want to point out, in contrast, that El Calentito objectifies women. Knowing the identity of the filmmaker (i.e. gender or ethnicity) becomes consequential, therefore, in how we interpret the films: I would argue that Nava and Gutiérrez employ cliché and objectification instrumentally and not gratuitously as part of a serious exploration of important social issues related to Latinos (Nava) and women (Gutiérrez).]
The film elicits many different emotions, ranging from laughter to tears, during scenes that provide images of both crudeness and beauty and holds a sense of overwhelming energy the audience shares with characters within intense scenes. [Professor Cope’s comment: Yes. And I confess that some scenes make still bring tears to my eyes, and many make me laugh. This leads me to Rosenstone’s question: “To what extent do we wish emotion to become a historical category? Part of historical understanding (56)?” Rosenstone isn’t suggesting that emotion shouldn’t form part of the historical narrative we see on screen; in fact, he is challenging the professional historians (or purists) who say it shouldn’t. Personally, I want to be made to feel what a particular historical reality was like for those who lived it because I care about the injustices of the past and I see their continuity in the present; I want the historical film to make me feel empathy and outrage; furthermore, I want the film to let me live vicariously through the characters (some of whom I might even identify with on a personal level), because I want to feel connected. If I just wanted to learn the history, I would read a book. Film has this ability to elicit emotion, and Rosenstone certainly does not argue that this is any kind of a weakness.]
[The film] illustrates the socioeconomic inequality, racism, and police brutality. The movie purposefully does this to demonstrate all of these injustices, but to also humanize the people who live there. This movie tries to illustrate the residents as regular people because the image of East LA was that of only violence and gangs.
When Chucho kills his rival and later gets murdered by the LAPD in front of his little brother, it shows a reality that many people have lived and are still living. [Professor Cope’s comment: Yes, and, Jimmy also witnessed the cops congratulating each other on their marksmanship and disrespecting his parents.]
Unlike the 60 Minutes report that constrains East LA to images of violence and gangs, My family is a movie that shows the beauty and complexity of Hispanic culture in California.
The report from 60 Minutes contrasted sharply with the atmosphere of the film. During the report, the audience was only told of the gang violence. It bluntly explained how gangs handle conflict—for every member that is killed, there are two or three more that will be killed in response. There was minimal discussion of the cultures, heritage, or personality of Los Angeles and its citizens.
Nava contrasts many of these ideas in his film and shows us a very different depiction of East LA than the one the reporters from 60 Minutes did. While the report highlighted the presence of gang life and gang-related issues, Nava demonstrates how such things did not consume all of East LA. Rather, gangs affected some but not all.
A scene that illustrates people, especially gang members in a different light than in the 60 Minutes segment, is the scene with Chucho and when he is teaching the kids in the neighborhood to mambo. This scene shows how this ‘gang member’ who is supposed to be so big, tough, and heartless, has an emotional, fun, and caring side to him. …. Scenes like this help to try and give a better representation of the lives of these people in East LA, and contrast with the rhetoric and popular perception of the public, so that outsiders can have a better view of what these people experience daily, and how they earn’t what the stereotypes describe them as.
In A Better Life, the police were not seen as the ultimate villain like how they were seen in Mi familia. As a person of color, I’m often told that it’s not really like that and people didn’t really think certain ways. Since the movie was made by someone of Hispanic descent, the emotions and the racial injustice were more pure than if it wasn’t someone of Hispanic descent.
There is definitely a connection between the set design and paintings in the movie and the paintings of Patssi Valdez. From her website, the vibrant colored paintings and portrayal of domestic Mexican American scenes, reflect those in the movie and the set design.
The camerawork was phenomenal. The use of crane shots, low shots, panoramic shots, and long takes gave the movie a gritty feel to it, almost like if you were in the character’s shoes. …. Along that same train of thought, silence and symbols were one of the biggest assets of the movie. They spoke to the unspoken hurt of the characters and to some of these bigger themes of incarceration, numbness, and failure of the system to uphold the law.
As stated in the notes on the class homepage, up until this part of the movie, the story and plot follow a theatrical style, romanticizing events such as Chucho’s death and the narrator’s trip to America. While it is unknown why exactly the director chose to use this style to continue the film, I think it has something to do with the age of the narrator. He was not present when any of the major scenes in this part of the film were present, and had to go off the stories of an embellishing father or a first-person source. Furthermore, it is possible that the narrator himself didn’t truly have experience with those types of life struggles, and therefore romanticizes the events.
The family remains a cohesive group that continues to come together even during stressful moments. This depiction resembles the cultural elements and traditions and values of Latino families and in this way is neorealist.
Cultural assimilation into America is shown through the speaking of English while celebrating cultural heritage and roots is shown through the continued use of Spanish. To only use one language in the film would erase part of the identity of the family.
One of the more interesting moments in the movie for me was when Memo came back with his fiancée and her family. It becomes painfully obvious that when he told these more “posh” individuals about his family, he used a fantastical narrative of his own, one in which everyone was calm and collected and his brother had never gone to jail. I think Nava is explicitly commenting on the duality of family stories, more specifically on the difference between a family story that glorifies and a family story that falsifies.
Con la narración podemos ver lo que el narrador está sintiendo y nos deja saber cosas que la actuación no nos deja saber. Cuando Paco no estaba narrando me enfocaba aún más en poner atención en las escenas y en las actuaciones de los personajes. La narración es para darle un efecto personal a la película porque nos deja entrar a la familia y parecemos ser parte de ella cuando vemos lo que ocurre, especialmente las tragedias.
Carlitos is playing and shoots an elderly woman with a bow and is chased onto the porch. There he is shown behind the bars of the porch, indicating future jail time if he continues in his father’s footsteps. Though the film ultimately suggests a different fate for Carlitos and Jimmy, the scene illustrates how the cycle of crime can span generations.
Also, the scene where El Californio dies and on his gravestone has it written that he died in the land that used to belong to Mexico, but is now the United States. I think by this he wanted to show that Mexican-Americans earn’t ‘illegal’ or ‘should go back home’. This is their land as well, it was taken from them… [Professor Cope’s comment: LA became the capital of Mexican California after Monterey submitted to the invading American forces at the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Mexicans living in LA, in turn, died fighting the invading American forces and continued to resist afterwards, as the film suggests via the figure of El Californio.]
By using a neorealist style for the contemporary struggles, Nava shows not only how these struggles persist, but how they affect the entire population. Likewise, the importance of the shift to neorealist style upon reaching the contemporary period depicted in the film cannot be understated; in Zavattini’s view, one of the hallmark aspects of neorealist filmmaking is the emphasis on ‘today, today, today’.
In my opinion, Memo is a character far more likely to be created by a Latino director than by someone else. It is easier to show the harms of violence and living on the edge than it is to recognize what is lost when one tries to fit in. Memo’s lifestyle is glorified in the United States. He is non-threatening and he is accomplished. His family is proud of his success. He is the guy politicians talk about when they want an example of the ideal immigrant.
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