Annotations for Artistic Medium: Film

The bilingual film chronicles the struggle of immigrants to form a union in Southern California during the 1990s.

Laverty convinced director Ken Loach there was a film in the story of the janitors and he began poking around the union where he ran into organizer Jono Shaffer.

But over time he, you know, sort of wore on me. He said he was making a movie. I was like, yeah, right, everybody in L.A. is going to make a movie. You know, it's like this will end up in some trash can somewhere.

Shaffer, who bears a resemblance to the film's organizer, says Laverty and Ken Loach took some artistic license, making the work of the organizer a little more reckless and spontaneous than it is in real life.

But he says they didn't exaggerate the difficulty of organizing a union in the United States.

Real life janitor Dolores Sanchez says she saw a lot of herself and her co-workers in Bread and Roses.

It doesn't have Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson, it doesn't have a lot of action, it's got a political bent to it about union organizing and those just aren't easy things. It's not a popcorn, bubble gum kind of movie.

The film was made independently, backed by a group of investors from Europe, but says Ortenberg he hopes it's successful enough at the box office to convince Hollywood to take on similar projects.

Bread and Roses debuts June 1st in 15 to 18 cities across the country with more to follow in the coming weeks.

This is the fact, the fantasy, the music, the myth, the magic, the movie. Zoot Suit. Universal Pictures presents Zoot Suit, an American Original.

Seven years went by between the release of the film of Zoot Suit and Valdez's second film, La Bamba.

La Bamba, the story of 1950s singer Ricardo Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens, grossed 55 million dollars in the United States, 90 million worldwide.

And in order to ensure that, and some movies have made over 50 million on their first weekend, in order to ensure that they have to pack films with movie stars with a lot of flash, a lot of stuff that is really aimed at the target audience, in most cases the largest audience is the 17 to 25.

So a film has to cater to those tastes, meaning action, meaning male action oriented films. And occasionally they allow themselves, these investors in studios to gamble with an unusual project. Occasionally a surprise comes along and a sleeper becomes a big hit. But there are limits. Nothing can compete with the big blockbusters.

Though Luis Valdez is widely considered a pioneer, he himself doesn't consider his work nearly done yet. Last year, Valdez premiered a new original play, The Mummified Deer. Zoot Suit had a successful revival in Chicago. And in the long term, a number of important film projects remain on El Teatro Campesino's horizon.

Well, I have the movie on Cesar Chavez, you know, that I'm struggling. That's another protracted struggle. But for all the reasons that made Cesar who he was, this is another film that is a long time struggle. Maybe just because I've chosen, you know, this life of struggle that happens this way. But there's a lot of truth in it that California is not ready to acknowledge yet.

And I will continue to work with the family, with United Farm Workers, and with Hollywood in order to make that a reality. So the ultimate result though, and I know Dolores Huerta feels this way, is that maybe what that project is, is an independent film. You know, unrestrained by any corporate pressures. And I think probably Cesar would have appreciated that more.

Poor, you know, in the sense that they won't have a huge budget, but it will be a labor of love and a labor of commitment, a political and social commitment, human commitment, which I think really explains who Cesar was. So maybe that's the way it'll get done.

And don't be surprised if it comes out of this packing shed, because this is a very natural place for it to come out of. And really just looking at it, it's very difficult to take Cesar and to try to put him through the sieve of Hollywood. You know, it somehow doesn't work. And I think he knew that. He knew that for 10 years, the last 10 years of his life, when I was talking to him about this. He resisted the notion. He didn't want a Hollywood movie about him. He hated that stuff.

And I understand. I understand exactly what he meant. And so maybe it'll get done that way. Maybe it'll get done by somebody else. You know what I'm saying? But at least I will have carried the ball this far.

And I have written seven drafts of the Cesar Chavez story, some major drafts that deal with the history of the farm workers from my perspective and my experience in it. I was six years old when I met Cesar Chavez. And he was a pachuco. He was a zoot suiter who ran with one of my cousins.

So you see, what it comes to is the fact that really I'm talking about a member of my own family here. And that's the best way. This is the way I feel about it. So I'll try my best. And we shall proceed and persevere.

And my father gave me permission to watch this movie about something happening in New York and of course you were there.

You're speaking of West Side Story.

And certainly that moment for me became an incredible moment in recognition. In that someone who had my name existed in this country which of course I previously felt that no one did exist in this country with that name.

My goodness that movie did more things for more Latinos than you can possibly imagine.