Word: cortez
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...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...
...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...
...Girl of the Sea of Cortez, Peter Benchley...