Annotations for Subject-headings: Motion Pictures

This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as "El Danson" and "Como Agua para Chocolate", "Like Water for Chocolate". "Like Water for Chocolate" is a saying, un dico, meaning that something is near the boiling point. And in her film and the haunted narrative of her novel, screenwriter and author Laura Esquivel, finds the boiling point in the kitchen and in relationships between men and women. From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Archos prepared this report.

Tal parecía que en un extraño fenómeno de alquimia su ser se había disuelto en la salsa de las rosas, en el cuerpo de las codornices, en el vino y en cada uno de los olores...

It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba. Porque a mi me encanta cocinar... [transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story.

Set in a border ranch during the Mexican Revolution, "Like Water for Chocolate" is the story of Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to Mama Elena. It is a family tradition that the youngest daughter not marry, but stay at home to care for her mother. Soon, however, Tita falls in love, but her tyrannical mother makes no exception and arranges for Tita's older sister, Rosaura to marry Tita's love, Pedro. Tita's sister is played by actress Yareli Arizmendi.

Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversacion, no crees? Creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio. Empecemos por ahí si quieres... In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate", the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold. Ya no hablemos del pasado, Pedro se caso conmigo y punto. Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mí... But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it, and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.

Yo tengo una teoría que atraves de la comida se... I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one.

What drew my interest more in terms of this use of recipes and cooking and all of this, this presence of it, is really the issue that's been dealt with quite a bit by the feminists, which is female space.

Raymond Williams, professor of Latin American literature and coordinator of the novel of the America Symposium at the University of Colorado in Boulder says that "Like Water for Chocolate" is a novel that goes against a traditional literary point of view.

Departing from the female space of a kitchen rather than departing from, say, the great Western adventure stories that were typically kind of the male stories of the traditional novel. And I think that's that female space is one what really drew my attention in my first reading of the novel and my first viewing of the film.

The recipes in "Like Water for Chocolate", which range from turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds to chilis in walnut sauce, are far removed from fast food and frozen dinners. They require a lot of dedication and can take days or weeks to prepare. And in the age of microwave ovens and technology, Esquivel says, people have moved away from that which is naturally human.

Para nosotros, el elaborar la cena, es el carácter de una ceremonia... For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with a commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.

Last year, the film "Like Water for Chocolate" received over 10 international awards, including one for best actress at the Tokyo Film Festival, and for Best Picture, Mexico's Ariel Award. The film is a collaboration between Esquivel and director Alfonso Arau, one of Mexico's leading filmmakers and Esquivel's husband. The novel has been published in English by Doubleday. The film is currently playing in major theaters across the country. For Latino USA, this is Beto Arkos in Boulder, Colorado.

After stealing the show in movies like Do the Right Thing, White Men Can't Jump and Untamed Heart, actress and dancer, Rosie Perez will soon star in films with Jeff Bridges and Nicholas Cage. Perez is also starring in an HBO special which puts the spotlight on rap music. From New York, Mandalit Del Barco profiles Rosie Perez, the multi-talented Nuyorican.

Hi! Oh, I know where that is. That's in this neighborhood, babe. [nat sound]

At Fort Green Park in Brooklyn, up the street from Spikes Joint where filmmaker Spike Lee sells clothing and memorabilia, Rosie Perez sits on a park bench to talk about growing up not far from here. She remembers living with a big extended family in a low income area of Brooklyn called Bushwick. That's where she caught the dancing bug that eventually made her famous.

Because they used to go to the disco all the time with the hustle and everything. So, they used to use us as their partners and stuff and they would burn holes in our stockings and then our socks. They would twirl us around so much. I'm like, "All right, man, I'm tired." "Get up!" They wanted to be the king of the disco, you know, and stuff. And that's how we started.

[highlight hip hop music]

After high school, Rosie moved to Los Angeles to study biochemistry and ended up choreographing for singer Bobby Brown, rapper LL Cool J and Diana Ross. Her big screen break came in 1989 when Spike Lee cast her as Gloria, who danced like a prize fighter and cursed up a storm as his girlfriend in Do the Right Thing.

That's it. All right? [movie excerpt]

I have to get my money from Sal. I'll be back. All right? [movie excerpt]

Shits to the curb, Mookie, all right? And I'm tired of it, all right? Because you need to step off with your stupid ass self, okay? And you need to get a fucking life, Mookie, all right? Because the one you got, baby, is not working, okay? [movie excerpt]

After Do the Right Thing, Rosie landed a gig choreographing the Fly Girls on TVs In Living Color, where she brought hip hop dancing from the New York streets and nightclubs into mainstream America. After stints on TV shows like 21 Jump Street, Rosie's film career took off, playing rather loud characters like she did in the film Night on Earth. To avoid being stereotyped, Rosie says she fought hard to win roles like the Jeopardy! game queen in White Men Can't Jump.

Jeopardy! is going to call Billy. It is my destiny that I triumph magnificently on that show. [film excerpt]

Who is Peter the Great? Who is the Emperor Constantine? [film excerpt]

It's like when people think of Latin women, they think of kind of just sex-crazed maniacs that are kind of lightheaded and not really that smart. You know what I mean? And everything. And I hate that. And that's why I went after White Men Can't Jump with a vengeance because you got to be smart to get on jeopardy and win money. And, to my agents, I said, "I got to get this role, man. And I got to keep her Puerto Rican, man." I know they wanted a white girl, an Irish girl from Boston, initially for the role. I said, "But, yo, if I get in there, I got to represent, man. You got to keep her Puerto Rican, man." Look at films, look at TV. We're always the maid. We're always the one that's having the extramarital affair. Wearing the tight dress and ay... You know, all that and everything. That's fine, but don't pigeonhole us and don't have that represent us as a whole.

Soon Rosie Perez will be starring with Jeff Bridges in Fearless and with Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda in Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million Tip. She's also producing her own projects, including a possible film about the Puerto Rican independence movement. Comedian David Alan Grier works with Rosie on In Living Color.

The thing I like about her is that she's a hustler. I mean, she has this plan. She's building this power base. And she's got her own company, she's managing groups. I'm going to be asking her for a job in just about two or three years. She's a powerful woman.

[hip hop music highlight] [nat sound]

Grier also calls Rosie the harbinger of hip hop, youth culture that includes street dancing, graffiti and rap music. HBO, in fact, is now airing a series on hip hop that she executive-produced. The show Rosie Perez Presents Society's Ride features cutting edge rappers before a live audience at a New York nightclub. While Leaders of the New School, Brand Nubian, and Heavy D and others rock the crowd. Rosie gives the flavor backstage and on the dance floor. [background hip-hop music]

Hi!

Hi!

Society's Ride means... Leaders of the New School, the Electric Records recording artists, they gave me the name. Because I said, "I want to take people on a ride to my world. I want them to see what I feel and what I do and how I be living and everything." And they were like, "Society's ride. Society's ride." And so it just stuck and everything. And the hip hop community gets it. Everybody else goes, "what?" But that's cool. But that's what the show is about. We're showing you real. We'll teach you. We'll take you on the ride. We're in the driver's seat this time.

Rosie says HBO was nervous about the rap special at first, thinking the material would be too racy for TV. But at a time when radio and TV waters down or sensors rap lyrics, she says she fought the network to let the artists show the real deal, uncensored. With this latest project, Rosie hopes to be taken seriously as a Hollywood producer because being boss is something she loves.

I feel great. I keep all the money.

The show Rosie Perez presents, Society's Ride is airing Friday nights on HBO. For Latino USA. I'm Mandalit Del Barco in New York.

From acclaimed director, Alfonso Arau, a sensuous portrait of love and enchantment, change and revolution.

This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as el Danzón and "Como Agua para Chocolate," "Like Water for Chocolate."

Like Water for Chocolate is a saying, un dicho, meaning that something is near the boiling point. And in her film and the haunting narrative of her novel, screenwriter and author Laura Esquivel finds the boiling point in the kitchen and in relationships between men and women.

From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Arcos prepared this report.

Tal parecía que en un extraño fenómeno de alquimia su ser se había disuelto en la salsa de las rosas, en el cuerpo de las codornices, en el vino, y en cada unos de los…

It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba por que a mi me encanta cocinar…[transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural, human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story…[transition to original audio] escribe como hacer una receta poder narrar una historia de amor...

Set in a border ranch during the Mexican Revolution, "Like Water for Chocolate" is the story of Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to Mamá Elena. It is a family tradition that the youngest daughter not marry, but stay at home to care for her mother. Soon, however, Tita falls in love. But her tyrannical mother makes no exception and arranges for Tita's older sister, Rosaura, to marry Tita's love, Pedro.

Tita's sister is played by actress Yareli Arizmendi.

"Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversación, no crees? Si. Y creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio, empecemos por ahí si quieres."

In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate," the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold.

"Ya no hablemos del pasado. [unintelligible) Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mi."

But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands, every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.

Yo tengo una teoría que, a través de la comida se invierte…[transition to English dub] I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged, and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one…[transition to original audio] a traves de la comida penetra en el otro cuerpo.

What I drew my interest more in terms of this use of recipes and cooking and all of this, this presence of it, is really the issue that's been dealt with quite a bit by the feminists, which is female space.

Raymond Williams, Professor of Latin American Literature and Coordinator of the Novel of the America Symposia at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says that Like Water for Chocolate is a novel that goes against the traditional literary point of view.

Departing from the female space of a kitchen rather than departing from, say, the great Western adventure stories that were typically kind of the male stories of the traditional novel, and I think that female space is what really drew my attention in my first reading of the novel and my first viewing of the film.

The recipes in "Like Water for Chocolate," which range from turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds to chiles in walnut sauce, are far removed from fast food and frozen dinners. They require a lot of dedication and can take days or weeks to prepare. And in the age of microwave ovens and technology, Esquivel says, people have moved away from that which is naturally human.

Para nosotros el elaborar la cocina el carácter de una ceremonia…[transition to English dub] For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with the commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.

Last year, the film "Like Water for Chocolate" received over 10 international awards, including one for Best Actress at the Tokyo Film Festival and for Best Picture, Mexico's Ariel Award. The film is a collaboration between Esquivel and director Alfonso Arau, one of Mexico's leading filmmakers and Esquivel's husband. The novel has been published in English by Doubleday. The film is currently playing in major theaters across the country.

For "Latino USA," this is Betto Arcos in Boulder, Colorado.

[background music] Pancho Villa, a name out of Mexican history, the subject of corridos, a hero or a villain, depending on your perspective. Well, on November 3rd, an episode of the public television program, the American Experience takes a look at this controversial figure in American and Mexican history in a documentary called The Hunt for Pancho Villa. With us from Austin, Texas to talk about the production is the director of the Hunt for Pancho Villa, an award-winning filmmaker, Hector Galan. Welcome to Latino USA Hector.

Thank you Maria.

Hector, as we've said, the name of Pancho Villa really is familiar to so many people on both sides of the borders. Certainly to me as a Mexicana, it was seeing him all over in so many posters, este, throughout Mexico and the United States. But what inspired you and writer Paul Espinoza to develop this project, the Hunt for Pancho Villa, and to add even more information about this mystique of the character Pancho Villa?

Back in college in the seventies, it seems like, or even in our homes, we all had posters, and as you mentioned of Pancho Villa, who represented something to us as Chicanos. Some of us do understand and know a little bit of the story of his life, but to most people in America it's more of a caricature. We see a lot of the restaurants and some of that imagery, stereotypical Mexican imagery with Pancho Villa as a bandit and so forth. So that was one of our motivations to really bring this story to the American public who don't have much knowledge about who Villa was and what role he played in history. So we were just discussing this about four years ago. And we had worked on one project, Los Mineros, on the Mexican American minors coming into Arizona from Chihuahua at the turn of the century and their struggle for equality. And we said, why don't we do a story on Pancho Villa? And let's try to understand what happened in the raid when Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico. And that's really how it began. Just through a conversation.

[crickets] March 9th, 1916, Columbus, New Mexico, three miles from the US-Mexico border. [hoofbeats]

A little after midnight, they came across the border, about 600 of them, to attack the town.

[hoofbeats] [gun clicking and firing, gunfire, shouting]. Viva Pancho Villa!

Tell me, este Hector, what do you think is the most outstanding characteristic or trait that you learned about Pancho Villa throughout this process of making the film and that you think others will learn as they watch the film?

Well, that's a difficult question because Pancho Villa is a very complex character. I had my own ideas, which were those of the mythic hero, those of the Centaur of the North, if you will. But actually he had many more skills than just the romanticized ideas that I had. And that is as a statesman, as a good person and also a very complex personality where some of the witnesses that we encountered in Mexico who were with Villa, who knew Villa told us he would just turn immediately on people and could be capable of bloodshed at a moment's notice.

I think these things and their suddenness and yet their complexity is something that I learned as we were in the process of doing this film. And it's interesting too, because the witnesses that we talked to are not just the Mexican witnesses, because we did film in Chihuahua, most of the principal photography is in Chihuahua, but on the US side of the border and those people's understandings and misunderstandings of the man. We were able to track down witnesses who were there during the Columbus raid in 1916 and their concept of who the man was, and of course Americans looking at Pancho Villa would only see, especially those that were attacked, a bloodthirsty bandit, and can't get beyond that. But to the poor and the down-trodden of Mexico, he represented a hero.

Se le comparan aquel entonces como el Robin Hood…[transition to English dub] He was seen as a Mexican Robin Hood of this region, the north of Durango and the south of Chihuahua, because it was said that he helped the poor by taking from the rich [transition to original audio]…a los ricos.

[rooster] One of Villa's wives described how his early life shaped his character. He and all his people had to work like slaves from daylight to dark on the hacienda where he was born. He grew up suffering the cruel…

It must have been interesting for you and your writer, Paul Espinoza, to tackle the image of Pancho Villa. Considering that he's such an important icon in the Chicano community in the United States. Did you have some issues about that, about actually having to uncover this person who you had probably at one time admired and thought was the perfect man?

Well, that's a very interesting question, Maria, because as part of the series, we do have an executive producer, Judy Creighton, who's based in New York, and when we would show her our rough cuts, we would go there and we would view them and she would say to us that the film is very emotionally confusing because we don't know who to root for. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that we're Latinos, we're Chicanos, and at times we're looking at it from American perspective, and at other times we're looking at it from a Mexican historical perspective as well.

And so that was a real interesting situation for both of us, especially discovering some of the more say, negative incidents that Villa was involved with and as well as trying to balance it with some of the more negative American perspectives of Mexicans in general. Because Villa is just one person they can point at but a lot of the feelings along the border against Mexicans weren't... They had their own stereotypical negative views of Mexicans, and we know that as a story too. So as Chicanos, it was very, very interesting to go through that process. I think eventually what we came up with is a very balanced picture on both sides.

Pues muchas gracias and congratulations, felicidades, on yours and Paul Espinoza's production, The Hunt for Pancho Villa. Speaking to us from Austin, Texas, Hector Galan. The premier of The Hunt for Pancho Villa will be on November 3rd on public television stations across the country.

Gracias Maria.

Gracias.