THE ROLE OF PANCHO VILLA IN THE

MEXICAN AND THE AMERICAN CINEMA

Deborah E. Mistron The Ohio State University

-Pero Sl se decirIe, amigo Montanes-dijo uno de los de Natera-que si usted Ie cae bien a mi general Villa, Ie regala una hacienda; pero si Ie choca ... , jno mas 10 manda fusliarL ..

. . . Y como Anastasio Montanes preguntara a su interlocutor si la gente de Natera habra peleado ya junto con la de Villa, se vino a cuenta de que todo 10 que con tanto entusiasmo estaban platieando solo de oidas 10 sablan, pues nadie de ellos Ie habra visto jamas la eara a Villa.

["Look here, friend," one of Natera's men told AnastasiO, "if General Villa takes a fancy to you, he'll give you a ranch on the spot But if he doesn't he'll shoot you down like a dog!"

... Anastasio Montanes questioned the speaker more particularly. It was not long before he realized that all this high praise was hearsay and that not a single man in Natera's army had ever laid eyes on Villa.]

Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo [The Underdogs]

As the title suggests, this paper proposes to elaborate the components of Pancho Villa's image in the cinema, and to examine and compare a number of representative films from Mexico and the United States in which Villa appears as a major character. In order to better understand Villa's cinematic portrayals, however, it is necessary to begin with a brief summary of the major events in his life.

Born Doroteo Arango in the state of Durango in 1878, Francisco "Pancho" Villa escaped peonage on an hacienda as a child and later became the hero of peons in the state of Chihuahua by eluding the local rura/es [Porfirio Diaz' rural police force] and stealing the cattle of the largest landowner in the state, the Terrazas family. Inspired by local leader Abraham Gonzcilez, Villa joined the 1910 revolution and helped to ensure the downfall of Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled Mexico since 1876, and Francisco I. Madero's election to the presidency in 1911-12. Pascual Orozco, a northern revolution­ary who was dissatisfied with his rewards for helping Madero, soon rebelled against the new government Villa, however, remained loyal and aided General Victoriano Huerta of the Federal army in his campaign against Orozco and his army in 1912. After Madero's betrayal and murder by Huerta, Villa (leader of a revolutionary army in northern Mexico called the Diuision de/Norte [Divi'liun of the North]) joined with Venus­tiano Carranza (former governor of the state of Coahuila and leader of the Constitu­tionalist Army) in order to overthrow Huerta. During this time, Villa also reorganized the state government of Chihuahua and attempted to implement social and economic reforms. After Huerta's resignation in 1914, Carranza and Villa vied for national power. After losing two decisive battles at Celaya in 1915, Villa was forced to retreat north while

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Carranza assumed control of the national government in Mexico City. Feeling betrayed by the United States, which had recognized Carranza's government, Villa began to raid border towns and attack Americans. With the death of sixteen people in a Villista raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, the United States sent a punitive expedition under General John Pershing into Mexico to capture Villa. With the aid of many Mexicans who remained loyal to him, Villa eluded his pursuers and continued his guerrilla warfare in northern Mexico. In 1917, he was persuaded to lay down his arms by the offer of an hacienda in Durango. Villa then retired for several years, until he was assassinated in Parra! in 1923. His murder has generally been attributed to the Mexican government, which was afraid that Villa might come out of retirement in order to oppose the succes­sion of Plutareo Calles to the presidency.

Although this outline summarizes Villa's historical role in the revolution, it barely begins to elucidate the reasons for his frequent appearance in the popular culture of both Mexico and the United States. In order to explain the perennial fascination of this histori­cal figure, one must take into account the force of his dynamic personality in conjunction with the historical events. As the above quote from Los de abajo indicates, as early as 1915, the Mexican novelist Mariano Azuela pinpointed certain contradictory qualities which characterized the charismatic leader of the Division del NoTte. Villa's personal charm, magnanimity, vitality, and military cunning earned him the fierce loyalty of his men and an extraordinery amount of popular appeal, both in MexiCO and in the United States. At the same time, Villa possessed a rather simplistic code of ethics, and tended to be capridous, impulsive, and cruel. During the revolution, Villa became a hero because of his concern for social justice for the lower classes, and because of his defiance of the oligarchy, the bourgeois revolutionary caudillo [leader] Carranza, and the United States; he also developed a reputation for unpredictability and brutality, due to his occasionally arbitrary administration of justice, the massive execution of prisioners of war, the plundering of conquered towns, and his raids on border towns. Although the soldier in the above quote exaggerates Villa's impetuosity. his comment captures the essence of Villa's contradictory, and ultimately elusive, character.

Pancho Villa is thus a compelling and controversal figure whose combination of noble and base impulses has elicited extreme reactions on both sides of the border. As a result, a fair appraisal of his historical role is difficult for the historian as well as the film­maker. Historical assessments of Pancho Villa have differed widely, as have his various portrayals in the cinema. Nevertheless, many historians have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to provide a balanced and reasonably objective portrait of Villa, or at least to separate fact from legend. 1 For several important reasons, very few cinematic portraits have been able to provide a balanced vision of Villa. First of all, the cinema makes few claims to historical objectivity. It incorporates both the facts and the legends which form around certain historical figures, and Villa has been particularly vulnerable to legendary distortions of his character since he first gained notoriety as a cattle rustler in Chihuahua before the revolution. In addition, the cinema has long demonstrated a strong penchant for melodrama, that is, the tendency to concoct stories with stereo­typically virtuous heroes and vicious villains and a rigid and simplistic code of good and evil. Villa's rather contradictory combination of attributes, however, makes him difficult to fit into exemplary and sharply defined ethical categories. As a result, he has been par­ticularly vulnerable to both positive and negative distortions of his character in order to reinforce certain moral, ethical, and political values.

Paradoxically, the very legends which may impede historical assessment of certain characters and events can serve several important historical functions. The process of

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forming legends around a revolutionary leader within his own country can serve two primary functions. During the military phase of a revolution, the stories which emphasize a leader's skill, cunning, bravery and invincibility assure the loyalty of his soldiers. At the same time, a very famous and popular leader comes to embody the ideals and goals of the revolution, and thus seems to provide concrete assurance of eventual victory and implementation of those ideals. Such legendary heroes help to ensure the success of a revolution. 2

The second function of a revolutionary hero is to help the new regime created by a successful revolution to consolidate its victory. If the leader has died, he becomes part of the pantheon of heroes who embody the revolutionary ideology which the new regime wishes to disseminate throughout SOCiety: "It is one of the first tasks of a successful revo­lution to impose its own myths on the whole of society, fuse them with the traditional body of national patriotism, and so broadcast the idea that this particular revolution has been the last one ever necessary in the country."3 The broad circulation of heroic legends about revolutionary martyrs thus helps to reinforce patriotism and stabilize the institutions of the post-revolutionary society.

Uke the Mexican novel of the revolution, the Mexican cinema has participated in the task of institutionalizing the revolution. Due in part to the encouragement of the govern­ment, the late twenties and thirties saw the resurgence of novels of the revolution in Mexico. This movement coincided with the advent of synchronized sound in the cinema and the consolidation of the fledgling Mexican film industry in the thirties, at which time Mexico began to produce many films about the recent revolution. Largely due to differ­ent conditions of production, however, the Mexican cinema has traditionally been less critical of the revolution and of post-revolutionary society than has the novel, and has been much more disposed to echo official rhetoric and glorify the revolution. A novel is usually the product of one creative mind, can be produced and published with a relative­ly small outlay of capital, and requires only a relatively small public to recoup the initial investment A film, on the other hand, is usually a collective financial and crative venture, so that the vision of one individual tends to be diluted in the process of production. In addition, a film requires a relatively large initial investment and a wide audience in order to tum a profit With a few exceptions (most notably during the administrations of Lazaro Cardenas in 1934-40 and Esteban Echeverria in 1970-76, when the government actively supported the film industry), the Mexican cinema has depended on the financial backing of wealthy entrepeneurs who gained prominence after the revolution and demanded wide audience appeal and a rapid return on their initial investment As a result, the cinema has tended to pander to the rather conservative taste and ideology of those who support it, and has been less critical of the shortcomings of the revolution and more apt to glorify it It is therefore hardly surprising that the first Mexican film with Pancho Villa as the protagonist portrays him as an exalted, mythical hero in an extremely patriotic and melodramatic prodUction. The film was Revolucion [Revolution], or La sombra de Pancho Villa [The Shadow of Pancho Villa], made in 1932 by former revolu­tionary Miguel Contreras Torres. 4

At about the same time, the advent of synchronized sound led to a renewed interest in Latin America within the American film industry. Suddenly Hollywood, which had been making a considerable amount of money by distributing its silent films in Latin America, was faced with the problem of foreign audiences who did not understand English and, due, to the high illiteracy rate, often could not read subtitles either. One solu­tion to this problem was the production of Spanish-language American films. In 1930, for example, over forty "Hispanic" films were made by Hollywood.. 5 The protagonist of

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-one of those forty films was a fictionalized Pancho Villa, who had alread~ become famil­iar to film audiences through newsreels, short fiction films and documentaries of the silent period. According to a quote in Garda Riera' 5 Historia documental del cine mEOO­cano [Documentary History of the Mexican Cinema], El hombre malo [The Bad Man], directed by William McGann, was" 'based on a popular work inspired by the adventures of the Mexican bandit [sic] Pancho Villa."'6

The two films mentioned above, the first two sound films which included Pancho Villa as a major character, emphasize the two extremes of the possible interpretations of his character-the bandit vs. the heroic popular leader. Along with Villa's essentially contradictory nature and the many legendary distortions of his life, certain national atti­tudes have also contributed to the great diversity in his cinematic portrayal. In Mexico, certain aspects of Villa's career have led to official embarrassment and ambivalence towards Villa, but they have also had the opposite effect of adding to his popular appeal, e.g., his split with Carranza, who later became president, his provocation of the United States government by his border raids, and his assassination in 1923, which has been attributed to the government He is the brave leader who never shrinks from danger nor allows others to take advantage of him; indeed, he is often the aggressor against outside forces which threaten him and the people and ideals he represents. When viewed in this light, even acts of seemingly arbitrary violence can be rationalized as necessary for the defense (or the justifiable retribution) of the downtrodden against such powerful oppres­sors as the official army, the counter-revolutionaries, and the United States. These atti­tudes, coupled with official eagerness to exploit the popularity of revolutionary heroes in order to foster patriotism and to ensure political stability, have contributed to the Mexican cinema's tendency to whitewash Villa by overlooking his shortcomings and glorifying his exploits.

In the United States, Villa's swashbuckling adventures have gained him a great deal of popularity, but the negative aspects of his career have caused a certain amount of ambivalence and/or downright disapproval, e.g., his execution of a British owner of an hacienda, his border raids, and the Pershing expedition. These attitudes are reflected in the cinema. The American version of Pancho Villa, which generally tends to oscillate between two visions of banditry, has several sources. During the revolution, the image of the Mexican as a rapacious bandit was already firmly entrenched in American popular mythology through popular journalism, literature, and films. 7 Americans could regard Villa as a heroic bandit only as long as they could overlook his shortcomings and con­sider him an idealistic defender of the downtrodden and a crusader against tyranny and injustice similar to Robin Hood; the more violent aspects of his career, however, turned American public opinion against him, and from this viewpoint he was remolded to fit the stereotypical role of the unscrupulous Mexican bandit

In either of these two possible roles, as Robin Hood or unscrupulous bandit, the American preoccupation with banditry (i.e., the use of violence) predominates. The only justification for violence, however, is to defend democracy or to defend the down­trodden against tyranny, as did Robin Hood against Prince John, Richard the Uon­hearted's regent and would-be usurper. Villa's defense of Madero, the "apostle of democracy," and his campaigns against such counter-revolutionary villains as Diaz the dictator· and Huerta the usurper could be easily cast in this mold, but as soon as his violence appears to be motivated by personal gain, revenge, cruelty or caprice, justifica­tion for his activities becomes more difficult Acts of violence which are regarded as wanton, gratuitous, vindictive or selfish would seriously damage a Robin Hood. image, especially in the United States, where one of the major concerns of its national

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mythology, particularly that of the West, has been to establish a set of ethics governing the use of violence, which American heroes must uphold and cannot transgress. 8 Villa's checkered career, therefore, has made it difficult for Hollywood to fit him into either of the two categories of bandits. As a result, the films tend to seesaw between the two, without reaching a coherent assessment of his character.

Viva Villa! [Long Live Villa!], an American film biography of 1934 directed by Jack Conway, provides a concrete example of the difficulties involved in achieving a coherent vision of Villa. Like the book on which it is based, Viva Villa! is an unsuccessful attempt at a more complex and balanced portrait of Villa. 9 Perhaps one of the major reasons for the film's shortcomings lies in the inherent difficulty of transferring an extremely complicated story which covers some 377 pages of Pinch on's book (and which would necessitate not only the depiction of Villa's actions but an exegesis of the military phase of the revolution as weI) to a film of less than two hours' duration. The film eliminates many important and illuminating scenes, Simplifies others, and reduces the analysis of the historical and politi­cal background to brief explanato:r:y intertitles which bridge the numerous gaps in the narration. The result is an extremely simplified, schematic biography and a choppy, episodic film that bears only a tangential relationship to historical fact

Perhaps the most objectionable aspect of the film, however, is the Wallace Beery portrayal of Villa himself, especially the "comic overtones" in his role. 10 Viva Villa! exaggerates and distorts Villa's shortcomings to such an extent that the film borders on screwball comedy (Le., "a film whose humor is created mainly out of developing ludi­crous situations involving zany or absurdly exaggerated characters, e.g., Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century").11 Ben Hecht, who is famous for, among other works, his screenplay for Twentieth Century, included several offensive running jokes in his screen­play for jViva Villa!. Two examples are Villa's notorious womanizing and his illiteracy (actually, Villa did eventually learn to read), which lead to a continual conflict with his scribe, who insists on drawing pigeons on Villa's letters and paper money, despite Villa's protests that he prefers bulls-an appropriate preference, given Villa's portrayal as a clumsy Don Juan in this film. In addition, Villa is portrayed as overly-sentimenal, especi­ally where "the littler feller," Madero, is concerned, and overly-preoccupied with his image in the media.

The last scene of the film illustrates many of the above observations, and sheds light on the nature of the basic contradiction which underlies the film. In the last scene, Villa is shot down in front of a butcher shop (this choice of location emphasizes Villa's major shortcoming, his use of violence). His speech, in which he asks an American corres­pondent, Johnny, to provide him with his last words, is not only pathetically comic, but also reveals his lack of education, his desire for praise and fame, and his preoccupation with his place in history. Johnny's version of Villa's parting words to posterity emphasizes Villa's questionable use of violence, while Villa's response reveals his lack of compre­hension of the issues involved.

Johnny: Goodby, my Mexico. Forgive me for my crimes. Remember if I sinned against you, it was because I loved you too much.

Villa: What I done wrong? (Closeup of medal around his neck)

By juxtaposing Johnny's words with those of Villa, this pathetic and patronizing ending reinforces the contradiction between Villa's violence (Le., his "crimes",) and his accomplishments'(Le., his medal, awarded for his "rescue" of Mexico from Huerta, and the last intertitle, which speaks of a "new MexiCO, dedicated to justice and equality," and

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which asserts that' 'the wild heart had not fought in vain"). By leaving Villa's dying ques­tion of "What I done wrong?" unanswered, the film leaves open the question of whether the ends have justified the means. Throughout the film, Villa is criticized for his use of violence; even Villa himself worships the gentle, forgiving and peaceloving Madero. Madero's love of peace, however, also means that he is weak and ineffectual, for in the film, it is Villa who wins the war against Huerta and passes the new refonn legislation. Ultimately, therefore, the film shows that Villa's violence is necessary to create the "new Mexico" which is dedicated to the ideals of "justice and equality," but the film also is compelled to condemn the means which led to this end ..

To borrow certain prototypes from the American Western, Villa is both gunfighter and laWgiver, or, to give a concrete analogy, a blend of the John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart characters of John Ford's 1962 classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. This uneasy amalgam of two conflicting prototypes reveals the American ambivalence towards Pancho Villa and allows Viva Villa! to Simultaneously laud and condemn him. The John Ford film deals directly with the problem of the necessity for violence in order to found and uphold a democratic civilization against the forces of savagery and lawlessness; Viva Villa! also appears to reinforce this frontier lesson, but it avoids any direct confrontation with this issue by its-refusal to allow Villa to reach the same level of moral awareness as the Wayne and Stewart characters. After a Ufetime of experience and accomplishments, the Villa of the final scene is still a child; he has never attained the moral maturity of nearly every decent denizen of the West in American cinema. Even as he is dying, he is still asking (significantly, he asks an American), "What I done wrong?" -the basic question which haunts the film and remains unanswered.12

In contrast to iViva Villa!, the 1935 film by Fernando de Fuentes, jVcimonos con Pancho Villa! [Let's Go with Pancho Villa!] does not attempt a biography of Villa; in­stead, it attempts to provide an assessment of Villa as a revolutionary leader and his effect on the men who followed him. Based on the first half of Rafael F. Munoz's rather episo­dic and sensational 1931 novel of the same name,13 and filmed with a subsidy from the Cardenas administration,14 the film focuses on the fate of "Los Leones de San Pablo" ["The Lions of San Pablo"], on six men who join Villa's anny and are killed one by one, until the last survivor, discouraged and disillusioned, decides to desert the anny.

The opening sequences establish the film' 5 major thematic conerns. When the lions first join the revolution, they are full of a vague but enthUSiastic idealism which is soon reinforced by their observations of Villa. As the six men approach his train for the first time, Villa (Domingo Soler) is distributing food to a hungry crowd; their first gUmpse of their idol reinforces his public image as the defender of the downtrodden. The film then shows the more glamorous and exciting aspects of battie, the camaraderie among the men, and most Significantly, the code of machismo upon which their behavior is based. In one scene, for example, one of the Dons, Meliton, is humiliated when he cannot match Villa's skill with a gun. This scene establishes Villa as the model for certain mascu­line skills and traits which the other men strive to emulate. This scene also suggests cer­tain underlying motivations for joining the revolutionary struggle, such as the desire to demonstrate their skill and valor by defying death with fear, and to prove one's mascu­linity by following Pancho Villa, their hero and role model. Significantly, the film is called jVamonos con Pancho Villa! and not Vcimonos a fa Revolud6n [Let's Follow the Revolution!].

The pervasive theme of death, which, according to the lions, should be met hero­ically and stoically, and is therefore closely tied to the code of machismo, becomes the central preoccupation of the film. Each of the next five sequences closes with the death of

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one of the comrades. The five deaths which follow are characterized by increasing senselessness, coupled

with increasing disillusionment on the part of Tiburcio, the one survivor. The first two deaths occur in battle, while performing feats of valor. The two men's dying tributes to Villa demonstrate that their feats were motivated more by the desire to prove their bravery and their loyalty to the chief than by revolutionary fervor. The third death is a turning point, as the Villistas inadvertently kill one of their own men during a daring rescue mission. After this incident, the three surviving Lions are promoted to Villa's elite cavalry, the "Dorados" ["The Golden Ones"]. Their rise in military prestige stands in ironic contrast to the manner of the last two deaths, which occur in camp rather than on the battlefield.

In the cantina, the Lions are invited to participate in a form of Russian roulette - "EI drculo de la muerte" ["The Circle of Death"]-in which thirteen men, seated around a table, toss a revolver into the air and allow it to discharge inside the circle. According to superstition, the pistol will shoot whoever most fears death. Although the Lions do not believe in such superstitions, they feel compelled to accept the challenge in order to prove themselves to the other Dorados. Meliton, badly wounded and presumably proven a coward, disproves this notion by declaring, "Ffjense como muere un Leon de San Pablo" ["Watch how a Lion of San Pablo dies"], and shooting himself in the head. Tiburcio angrily realizes the futility of this gesture.

Tiburcio's final disillusionment occurs when he is ordered to kill the youngest of the Lions, Miguel Angel, who is ill with smallpox, and incinerate his body in order to prevent an epidemic. Afraid of contamination, Villa will not approach Tiburcio. Villa's fear of smallpox triggers Tiburcio's final disgust, disillusionment, and his decision to desert. He salutes the funeral pyre and walks away into the darkness.

In the final scene, Tiburcio realizes that Villa is not the model macho that the Lions had imagined him to be. They see him aiding the needy, and bravely encouraging and inspiring his men in battle, but they also witness his acts of cruelty and caprice. At one point, for example, Villa orders the execution of several Federal musicians who are useless to him because the Villistas already have a band. He also appears callous and unfeeling in the face of Miguel Angel's death. Villa's leadership and valor, which inspire the soldiers' loyalty and their desire to emulate him, exact a certain price, for they go hand in hand with the negative aspects of this kind <;>f masculine power-unpredictabil­ity, indifference, isolation. Tiburcio's desertion, however, springs not so much from his disillusionment with this code as from Villa's deviation from it; Villa has revealed his fear of smallpox and thus, in Tiburcio's eyes, his fallibility, vulnerability, and ultimate unworthiness. And since Villa and the revolution are virtually synonymous to Tiburcio, disillusionment with one results in disillusionment with the other.

Implicit in this downbeat ending is a criticism of the revolution which is common in the novels of the Mexican revolution. In such works as Los de abajo and jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, the revolution is viewed as a struggle in which men with few ideals beyond the masculine code of honor and bravery fought out of loyalty to a leader rather than ideological conviction. Without such convictions, the revolution becomes a drculo de la mueTte-a violent game which is played in order to prove masculine valor, and which results in senseless carnage. Uke many American films, jVamonos con Pancho Villa! criticizes the violence and bloodshed which is, nevertheless, frequently necessary for revolutionary victory. Unlike in the American films, however, Villa's character is not Simplified in order to make him a convenient vehicle for mediating the frontier conflict between savagery and civilization. Instead, Villa is shown in all his historical ambiguity-

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s'll as an inspiring yet flawed leader who came to embody both the positive and negative aspects of the revolution.

After jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, the figure of Villa did not receive another serious portrayal on the screen until the 1970 adaptation of another famous work on the revolu­tion, John Reed's Insurgent Mexico. In the meantime, during the forties, fifties, and sixties, the image of Villa was guided by the requirements of legend, folklore, patriotism, and the genre conventions of the melodrama, the musical, and the adventure film. One representative example of the Mexican films of the forties which included Villa as a character is the 1948 Si Adelita se juera con otro [If Adelita were to go off with Anotherl, directed by Chano Urueta. Ironically, one of the major reasons for the failure of de Fuentes' film jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, discussed above, to serve as a model for the cinematic treabnent of Villa was the spectacular success of his next film, a 1936 musical/ ranch comedy entitled Alia el Rancho Grande [Ouer There at the Big Ranch], which firmly pointed the Mexican cinema in a different direction. 1 S Adelita reflects the film industry's inclination towards more lighthearted films with a conservative bent and! or a reactionary longing for the stability, law and order of the Di'az regime. 16

Jorge Negrete plays Pancho Portillo, a singing and guitar-strumming revolutionary with a dancing horse. When his jealous rival for Adelita's affections, the son of a local political boss, has Portillo arrested as an arms smuggler, the Federal officer in charge releases Portillo, explaining that he, too, is a revolutionary; he only remains with the army out of a sense of duty, honor, and loyalty. Portillo's response-"jPalabra que es usted un macho!" ["I swear, you're a real man!"]-offers the officer exceedingly high praise, and ignores the fact that this same officer has presumably killed many of Portillo's comrades in the name of duty. Once again, the manly qualities of personal loyalty and honor outweigh political considerations. In jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, the soldiers, out of ignorance, possess few ideological preoccupations; in Adelita, however, two con­flicting ideologies are presented, then given an artificial and misleading reconciliation.

When several Federal officers, including the one mentioned above, are captured and sentenced to be executed, Portillo persuades Villa (Pedro Armendariz) to release them, not merely because one of them saved his life, but because they deserve the pardon on moral and practical grounds. According to Portillo' 5 reasoning, Huerta is the sole enemy of the revolution; Huerta' 5 military supporters, far from being ambitious pro­fessionals, were true machos who had placed their military duty above other considera­tions, while remaining revolutionaries in their hearts. If they were not revolutionaries from the start, then the rebels' show of justice and mercy would easily convert them. The film ignores the risk of subsequent betrayal by these officers, and also ignores the fact that the simultaneous belief in these two sets of political convictions excludes the possi­bility of absolute loyalty; to kill rebels is a betrayal of the revolutionary cause, while the release of Portillo is a dereliction of duty to the Federal army. Consequently, by the time of his capture, the officer has already betrayed both sides. The film, however, resolves this conflict of loyalties by asserting that both the original demonstration of loyalty to the Federales and his aid to the revolutionary cause are commendable actions.

This artificial, reactionary resolution is an example of historical revisionism which corresponds to the more conservative policies of the presidential administrations of the forties. The regimes of Manuel Avila Camacho (1940-46) and Miguel Aleman (1946-52) emphasized national unity and rapid economic development at the expense of the social reforms which the Cardenas regime of 1934-40 had encouraged. By transferring all guilt to Herta, long since dead, and making him the counter-revolutionary scapegoat, the film fosters national unity and attempts to eliminate any lingering antagonism by

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implying that almost everyone was actually a revolutionary at heart. In addition, the film's emphasis on the Federal officer' 5 fidelity encourages loyalty to the anny and other national instituions, and discourages rebellion by draining the revolution of one of its vital convictions-that despite personal risks and traditional loyalties, one should revolt against a regime that is illegitimate and/or unjust.

Thanks to Portillo, not only does Villa learn the value of mercy, but he also becomes a surrogate father. At the end of the film, Villa is appointed godfather to the son of his namesake (Le., Portillo), who will also be called Pancho. This shared fatherhood is reinforced by an earlier intrigue, in which Portillo's rival makes it appear that Adelita and Villa have arranged a romantic tryst, which causes a rift between her and Portillo. Thus there is a suggestion of sexual complicity in Villa's godfatherhood, i.e., he is a co-father, as implied by the Spanish word, compadre. After Portillo names him godfather, Villa remarks joyfully that the newborn is "un soldado mas para la Division del Norte" ["one more soldier for the Division of the North"]; the film makes Villa the progenitor of an eternal Revolution which has been defused and institutionalized.

The film's title, which is excerpted from a line of the revolutionary ballad "La Adelita," clarifies Villa's role. He is the "other" whom AdeUta might have chosen instead of Portillo. (The use of identical first names, coupled with the fact that the two Panchos call each other tocayo-a word used to address someone witht the same given name­reinforces their roles as doubles for each other.) The use of Villa as Portillo' 5 double, or "other," aids in the film's revisionism, for Portillo is a whitewashed version of Villa. Portillo possesses the ideal attributes of the revolutionary hero-he is honorable, loyal, merciful, faithful, idealistic, and most importantly, he has the proper conciliatory attitude. The mise-en-scene, which favors Portillo, reinforces the film's preference. In one scene, for example, he stands with his back to Villa, facing the camera and the audience as he supposedly serenades his chief. Thus Adelita's preference for Portillo/Negrete is also that of the film itself, for Pancho Portillo is the film's modified version of Pancho Villa as the ideal revolutionary hero.

Miguel Contreras Torres' 1949 Pancho Villa vuelve [Pancho Villa Returns], is a representative melodrama of the forties. It employs similar plot devices, but ends trag­ically as a young lover must desert Villa in order to rescue his financee. Villa (Pedro Armendariz) is then obliged to execute him for desertion, but not before he magnani­mously allows the couple to be married. In this film, Villa is portrayed as the justidero, the compassionate man who is sometimes forced to mete out harsh punishments because of his honorable adherence to the letter of the law. Garda Riera's commentary aptly conveys the rigidity of this portrayal when he remarks that Villa "no tenfa mas remedio que fusilarlo para seguir siendo el mismo una figura hist6rica con vocacion de estatua ecuestre. " ["He had no other option than to shoot him so that he himself could continue as a historical figure with the role of an ecuestrian statue.")17

Ismael Rocliguez' 1957 filmAsi era Pancho Villa [Pancho Villa Was Like This], which is comprised of discrete anecdotes taken from Pancho Villa's life and legend, is filmed in garish color, and features a noticeably older and heavier Pedro Armendariz in the title role, ten years after having played the same role in Pancho Villa vuelve. The final product is even worse, if possible, than this description. Instead of unifying the many facets of Villa's personalisty, most of which had already been stereotyped in earlier films, Asi era Pancho Villa isolates one aspect in each episode and adds a final twist, which tends to fragment and trivialize the film's subject Most of the episodes emphasize Villa as a Don Juan, a Robin Hood, or a King Solomon. In Boda macabra [Macabre Wedding], for example, a sergeant assaults a woman and kills her enraged husband. Brandishing a

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book entitled Juicios de Salmon [Judgments of S%mon] , Villa punishes the offender and provides for the widow by an ingenious plot he marries the two, then executes the sergeant 50 that the twice-widowed woman can qualify for his military pension. The episodes with a jocular tone, such as this one, usually end with a wittcism, accompanied by a lilting, ironic musical phrase. The more serious episodes generally have Villa weep copiously or make some naive, sentimental and inconsequential remark

In spite of the film's more affectionate and tolerant attitude toward Villa's antics, its portrayal of Villa as a sentimenal buffoon witha childish streak of cruelty rivals that of the American portrait in jViva Villa! of twenty-five years before. This similarity shows that neither country has a monopoly on the triviallzation of this important figure; in fact, the film industries of both countries have perpetuated this process. As Garda Riera remarks, in the case of the Rodriguez film, the formula was so simple and effective that the director used it to make two more films: Pancho Villa y Ja Valentina [Pancho Villa and Valentina] and Cuando jViva Villa! es la muerte [When "Long Live Villa!" Means Death], both released in 1958.18 Similarily, the American cinema made two more attempts to portray Villa on the screen. Judging from the review in the New York Times, the 1958 Villa!, directed by James B. Clark, is a muddled and boring adventure film; the second, Buzz Kulik's 1968 Villa Rides! is a contemporary variant of jViva Vi/lal. 19

Villa Rides! focuses on an amoral and cynical American pilot (Robert Mitchum as Mr. Arnold) who reluctantly cooperates with Villa (YulBrynner) during his campaign against Orozco's men, who had rebelled against Madero. The film, which contains an inordinate number of violent scenes such as battles and executions, provides some justification for Arnold's suspicion that the rebels, especially Villa, are merely "shooting up a lot of peons who couldn't care less which dog's on top anyway." Villa's character offers little reassurance on that score; despite protests from his admirers that Villa is fighting for democratic principles, as in Viva Villa!, Villa's acts of violence appear to contradict his goal of justice and democracy for the downtrodden.

Villa Rides!, however, does alter Villa's character in two Significant ways. First, he is no longer a buffoon (perhaps because such a role is out ofYul Brynner's range). In addi­tion, the film wins sympathy for Villa by shifting much of the blame for the Villistas' atrocities to his bloodthirsty assistant, Rodolfo Fierro (played by Charles Bronson). In fact, Villa's character is so sketchy that his stance on the issue of violence is difficult to discern.

The ultimate judgment of the worthiness of Villa and the revolution depends on the outcome of the competition between Villa and Arnold for moral superiority. After several arguments between Villa and Arnold and more twists and turns of the plot, including the murder of Madero, Arnold decides to rejoin the Villistas in order to defeat Madero's usurper, Huerta. The motivation behind Arnold's final affirmation of Villa's principles and of the revolution, however, remains ambiguous. Presumably, Villa has convinced Arnold to act for altruistic rather than selfish motives for once in his life. In the new campaign which will begin after the film ends, Villa and Arnold will be ridding Mexico of a dictator and defending democracy; thus Villa emerges as the major factor in Arnold's transfonnation and the moral center of the film.

The final vindication of Villa appears to be, at first glance, an echo of the Western frontier lesson that the use of violence in the defense of democracy is justifiable; Villa Rides!, however, divorces Villa's vindication from the violence which permeates the film, and thus sidesteps the issue. Ultimately, the film's refusal to come to grips with the conflict between violence and democratic ideals transforms the depiction of violence into a device for prOviding exciting action and adventure rather than for exploring this

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ethical issue. As a result, the sudden transformation of the amoral Arnold into the altru­istic Arnold is unconvincing, as is the vindication of the violent Villa by the democratic Villa in the film. Thirty years after the making of Viva Villa!, the American cinema was still inable to reconcile the two faces of Pancho Villa, the historical figure who could be, as the opening intertitle affirms, both "patriot" and "tyrant"

In contrast, Paul Leduc's 1970 Reed: Mexico insurgente [Reed: Insurgent Mexico], which is based on American journalist John Reed's account of his experiences in the Mexican revolution, manages to combine the two faces of Villa into a unified vision in just one scene. During Reed's interview with Villa (Heraclio Zepeda), they discuss Villa's execution of William Benton, a British hadenda owner, and the pamphlet about the international rules of war adopted by the Hague conference, which was sent to Villa by an American, General Hugh L. Scott. The discussion in this one scene directly confronts the issue of the ethical use of violence which both Viva Villa! and Villa Rides! raise but ultimately sidestep.

When Reed asks Villa about his reasons for the execution of Benton, Villa's reply­that the Englishman was one of three types of "sons of bitches" -demonstrates his propensity to form strong opinions based on his emotional response to a situation rather than on intellectual rumination. His comments on the "Rules of War," however, reveal Villa's attempts to reason, however rudimentary they may seem. His response to his study of the pamphlet is to formulate questions based on his own practical experience. He finds it odd, for example, to make rules about warfare, since it is not a game; if one were to have a fight in a cantina, one would not stop to review the rules beforehand. Given his vision of warfare as a large-scale brawl in which both sides fight with no hands barred, Villa finds it difficult to comprehend the difference between "civilized" war as advocated by the pamphlet an any other kind of war.

This interview pinpoints the central issue of the controversy surrounding Villa-the question of the choice of the proper means to an end which haunts the history books and the two American films about Villa. This film refuses to either whitewash or condemn him; instead, Reed: Mexico insurgente recreates the historical Villa in all his robust earthi­ness, candor, humor, and most importantly, his ethical ambiguity. Because he realizes the importance of international public opinion, Villa demonstrates some concern for the ethics of his method of warfare. At the same time, however, he reveals his lack of educa­tion, his reliance on a simplistic code of good and evil which does not always allow for the subleties of his own complex historical situation, and his insistence on maintaining independence and flexibility in handling this situation, despite international criticism. In this one short scene, Leduc and Zepeda create a Villa with more verisimilitude than many films which are .entirely devoted to his portrayal, and address the most important ethical issues which surround him.

Given Villa's contradictory and elusive character, and the controversy which surrounds his role in the revolution, it is hardly surprising that there should be so many variations in Villa's portrayal on the screen. The very ambiguity of this historical figure gives the Mexican and American film industries more latitude in their interpretations of Villa, and thus more freedom to mold his character according to national preoccupations or genre conventions. In the United States, for example, Villa has been used to mediate the typical preoccupation of the Western with the justifiability of the use of violence. Because of the historical evidence of Villa's occasionally arbitrary or vengeful use of violence, particularly certain acts directed against Americans, the American films tend to emphasize Villa's violent nature, and then sidestep the issue or contradict much of the action when they conclude that Villa was, indeed, a defender of justice and democracy

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and is therefore a hero. In Mexico, the film industry has capitalized on Villa's popularity by using his image to glorify the revolution. At the same time, however, these films also reveal certain ambivalent attitudes towards Villa and the revolution which he personifies. jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, for example, reflects a certain amount of disillusionment with the revolution, while Adelita's offer of an alternate, whitewashed Villa reveals a certain amount of discomfort with the negative aspects of Villa's career and a desire to foster national unity. After jVamonos con Pancho Villa!, only Reed: Mexico insurgente, made outside the established film industry with indpendent financing, has managed to offer a portrait of Villa in all his ambiguity without contradicting itself or refusing to confront the issue of violence. After the three decades of melodramas which followed jVamonos con Pancho Villa! in Mexico, it is appropriate that Reed: Mexico insurgente finally allowed Villa to "speclk for himself' on film. When he does speak, Villa is revealed as neither a rapacious bandit, nor a buffoon, nor a heroic "ecuestrian statue," as some films would have it, but as a more ambiguous historical figure. He is shown to be a flawed yet effective leader who may have made many mistakes in his attempts to improve the lot of the lower classes, but he also rallied many people to the revolutionary cause and thus changed the course of Mexican history.

NOTES

1. The foUowing passage is a representative example of a faily balanced appraisal of Villa's character by two American historians: " ... the Mexican guerrilla chief was an enigmatic person and evey today remains one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history. Born in poverty and reared in ignorance, Pancho Villa rose to power in the flames of a brutal revolution and civil war. He wanted to do what was best for his people, but was often led astray by bad advisors or by the irrationality of his own emotions. Above all, he lacked the sophistication and intellectual ability to master effectively the complexities of diplomacy and economics. He realized, however, that land reform and education were an absolute necessity to raise Mexico's poor from their depressed condition. As [John] Reed reports, Villa had a lifelong passion for education. He had learned to read while in jail in Mexico City, and read prodigiously, if slowly. At one point in the Revolu­tion (in an absolutely characteristic gesture that reveals him, simultaneously at his best and worst), he promised to execute parents who did not send their children to school, because the Revolution was being fought '50 that every Mexican child may go to schooL'" Albert L. Michaels and James W. Wilkie. ed., introduction to John Reed, Insurgent Mexico, 2nd ed. (1914: rpt New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), p. 28.

2. See John Rutherford, Mexican Society during the Revolution: A Literary Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 130-182.

3. Rutherford, p. 131. 4. Emilio Garda Riera, Historia documental del one mexicano, 9 vals. (Mexico: Ediciones Era,

1969-78),1:32. 5. Garda Riera, 1:20. 6. Garda Riera, 1:21. The "sic" was added by Garda Riera, who is quoting from a film journal

entitled Cinelandia. 7. See Arthur G. Pettit, Images of the Mexican American in Fiction and Film (College Station:

Texas A & M University Press, 1980). 8. For a detailed discussion of Western mythology, see John Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mystique

(Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, n.d.). 9. Edgcurnb Pinchon, jViva Villa! (New York: Harcourt, 1933).

10. Allen L. Woll, "Latin Images in American Films, 1929-39," Journal of Mexican American

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History 4 (1974): 28-40. The following is Woll's account of the Mexican reception of jViva Villa!: " ... Although the government approved a final script which toned down the Don Juan nature of the revolutionary hero, both the press and the public were offended by the comic overtones in Wallace Beery's portrayal of Villa. Additionally, the film's cast showed little respect for Mexi­cans who assisted in the making of the film .... The film received a chilly reception when it finally premiered in Mexico City as vandals threw firecrackers into the crowded theatre and wounded three women. From this date even the slightest mention of Villa in North American films was looked on with disdaine. "

11. Harry M. Geduld and Ronald Gottesman, An l1Iustrated Glossary of Film Terms (New York: Harcourt, 1973), p. 81.

12. Carlos Monsivais offers the following perceptive observation about Villa's role in the cinema: "La atraccion hollywoodense por Villa jamas menguante desde la interpretacion de Wallace Beery en i Viva Villa! de Jack Conway, se explicara quizcis en !erminos de la hipnosis auto­complaciente que el 'primitivo' Ie provoca al 'civili2ado'; en !erminos de la fascinacion que, desde las metropolis despiertan Tarzan 0 King Kong: todo heroe folclorizable, todo 'salvaje puro' (domesticable a traves de su muerte 0 de su veneracion hacia los valoes occidentales) es extraordinario." ("Hollywood's attraction to jViva Villa!, which has not waned since Wallace Beery's interpretation in Jack Conway's i Viva Villa!, is perhaps explicable in terms of the self­obliging hypnosis which the 'primitive person' evokes in the 'civilized person'; in terms of the fascination which Tarzan or King Kong awakens in the metropolis: every hero who can be folk­lorized, every 'pure savage' (who can be domesticated through his death or his veneration for occidental values) is extraordinary. "1 "El cine nacional," in Historia general de Mexico, 4 vols. ed. Berta Ulloa, et al. (Mexico: Centro de Estudios Historicos, EI Colegio de Mexico, 1976), 4:438.

13. Rafael F. Munoz, "jVamonos con Pancho Villa!," in La nouela de la Revo/ucion Mexicana, 2 vols., ed. Antonio Castro Leal (Mexico: Aguilar, 1960),2:657-753.

14. For a discussion of the effects of the Cardenas administration on the film industry, and the pro­duction of i V3amonos con Pancho Vii/a!, see Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society 1896-1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 42-45.

15. Garda Riera, 1: 112. 16. Jorge Anaya Blanco has grouped togethe a body of Mexican films of the latter type under the

chapter heading, "La anoranza porfiriana" ["The Longing for the Draz Regime"], in La aventura del cine mexicano [Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1968), pp. 40-47.

17. Garda Riera, 4:68. 18. Garda Riera, 1:348. 19. Bosley Crowther, review of Villa!, the New York Times Film Reviews 4 (New York: Amo Press,

1970), p. 3100.

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