One would think a film starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn, directed by Elia Kazan, and written by John Steinbeck would be a sure thing. But "Viva Zapata!", while not a bad film by any means, never manages to live up to the expectations one would justifiably have for it given its pedigree.
I know casting Caucasian actors as people of color was a common convention in earlier cinematic times, and that one needs to just suck it up and go with it if one is going to bother watching a movie like this in the first place, but my goodness was it hard to get past Marlon Brando as a Mexican revolutionary. The makeup they put on him looks distracting at best and actually disturbing at worst, and he makes absolutely no effort to sound Mexican. The film is oddly static and has none of the dynamic momentum Kazan could bring to a film like "On the Waterfront." Even "A Streetcar Named Desire," which essentially has a cast of four and no action sequences, feels more full of movement than this film. And much as it pains me to report, the weakest link in the chain is John Steinbeck's screenplay. It's extremely disjointed and disorienting, with major plot developments happening off screen so that Brando (in one example) goes from being a revolutionary in one scene to president of Mexico in the next without anything in between to explain the transition. It's like reading a novel with chapters missing.
Quinn received the first of his two Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Zapata's brother, but I'm not sure why. His performance is the consummate Quinn performance, all yelling and shouting. It's criminal that he beat Richard Burton that year in "My Cousin Rachel" when Burton was in literally every scene of his movie and played his character expertly. Brando won his second of four consecutive Best Actor nominations, Steinbeck was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay, and the film received two technical nominations for its black and white art direction and its score (by Alex North).
Not exactly a dud, but definitely a disappointment.
Grade: B-
I know casting Caucasian actors as people of color was a common convention in earlier cinematic times, and that one needs to just suck it up and go with it if one is going to bother watching a movie like this in the first place, but my goodness was it hard to get past Marlon Brando as a Mexican revolutionary. The makeup they put on him looks distracting at best and actually disturbing at worst, and he makes absolutely no effort to sound Mexican. The film is oddly static and has none of the dynamic momentum Kazan could bring to a film like "On the Waterfront." Even "A Streetcar Named Desire," which essentially has a cast of four and no action sequences, feels more full of movement than this film. And much as it pains me to report, the weakest link in the chain is John Steinbeck's screenplay. It's extremely disjointed and disorienting, with major plot developments happening off screen so that Brando (in one example) goes from being a revolutionary in one scene to president of Mexico in the next without anything in between to explain the transition. It's like reading a novel with chapters missing.
Quinn received the first of his two Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Zapata's brother, but I'm not sure why. His performance is the consummate Quinn performance, all yelling and shouting. It's criminal that he beat Richard Burton that year in "My Cousin Rachel" when Burton was in literally every scene of his movie and played his character expertly. Brando won his second of four consecutive Best Actor nominations, Steinbeck was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay, and the film received two technical nominations for its black and white art direction and its score (by Alex North).
Not exactly a dud, but definitely a disappointment.
Grade: B-