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 Entertainment | May 2007 
A Widespread Legacy
 kansascity.com
| | Marlon Brando in “Viva Zapata!” This is actually not a bad performance by the Omaha-born method actor, perhaps because Brando was acting opposite Anthony Quinn, who really was Latino. Still, as revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, the accent is suspect, and it’s hard to get past the taped-back eyelids. |
Our critics each choose five notable Mexican contributions to arts and entertainment culture.
Outstanding classical music and dance performers
• José Limón. This native of Culiacán, Mexico, moved to the United States and became one of the pioneers of modern dance. He joined the technique of Isadora Duncan, Doris Humphrey and Harald Kreutzberg to create a sharply etched narrative style that has had great impact. Among his successors is Kansas City native Doug Varone, who danced with Limon’s company before forming his own. Doug Varone and Dancers perform at 8 tonight at the Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College.
• Ballet Folklórico de Mexico. Founded by Amalia Hernández in 1952, this group of up to 65 dancers is a tourist favorite in Mexican and travels the world extensively. But it is not a cliché: The company and its repertoire continue to exert powerful energy, a flamboyance that grows from the genuine and centuries-old strains of folkloric dance of the Mexican people.
• Ramón Vargas. One of the greatest tenors of his generation, Vargas was born in Mexico City and in 1986 won the Caruso Tenor Competition in Milan, Italy. That year he joined the Vienna State Opera, and since then he has become a staple of most of the world’s major companies, in particular New York’s Metropolitan Opera. His bright, vigorous voice is complemented by a riveting and deeply human stage presence. (Note: Tenor Plácido Domingo spent much of his early life in Mexico but was born in Spain.)
• Carlos Chávez. The greatest Mexican composer of classical music wrote music that blended folk tunes with symphonic styles to create something unique. The “Sinfonia India” (Symphony No. 2) even uses Yaqui instruments. Chávez also founded the Orquesta Sinfónica de México and was director of the National Conservatory of Music and the Bellas Artes Institute.
• Silvestre Revueltas. Born in the state of Durango, Revueltas wrote film music, chamber music and symphonic scores, most notably among the latter the 1938 “Sensemayá: Chant for the Killing of a Snake,” a popular favorite among orchestras today. He died at age 40 but made a considerable mark in world music in a short time.
Pop musicians AND MORE
• The Nortec Collective. Nortec Collective coalesced in Tijuana at the end of the 20th century as an alliance of music producers and visual artists. On the musical side, that means treating the norteno music of the Mexican border — with its accordions and brass-band oompah — with the computer technology of sampling, looping and layering.
• Jaguares: The biggest rock band Americans have never heard is still carving out its niche in the States, but they’ve sold millions of albums, landed the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums and Heatseekers charts, and they’ve led Mexico’s ravenous underground rock scene into the mainstream.
• Lila Downs: Her popularity grew after she appeared in Salma Hayek’s “Frida” in 2002 and subsequently sang the film’s Oscar-nominated song, “Burn It Blue,” on the 75th Academy Awards broadcast. She mixes traditional Mexican music with American pop.
• Molotov: The rap en español group’s album “Dónde Jugarán las Niñas?” was originally banned in Mexico, but some critics claim it’s Mexico City’s answer to Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.”
• Juan Gabriel. The biggest pop singer-songwriter Mexico ever produced is Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Elvis all rolled into one. Tickets to his Kansas City appearance in 2005 matched the Rolling Stones’ all-time local top ticket price of $250. His songs are covered by pop singers all over Latin America as much has those of any other songwriter.
• Selena. She was born in Texas, but her roots were deep in Mexican culture and musical styles. Her music spoke to fans on both sides of the border, and her tragic assassination at age 23 devastated fans from all backgrounds. She was one of the more recent of Mexican-American musicians whose impact has felt throughout U.S. culture for decades, including Vikki Carr, José Feliciano, Trini López, Ritchie Valens, Carlos Santana and Los Lobos.
• The mariachi. The phenomenon of ambulatory musicians — violins, trumpets, guitars, vihuela and guitarrón — dressed in charro outfits is so pervasive in American culture that for many Anglos it has come virtually to represent Mexico itself. Mariachi music was the mainstay of such superstar singers as Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Vicente Fernández, Javier Solís and Lola Beltrán.
• Música norteña. Few styles of music have had the impact, especially along states bordering the Rio Grande, as the accordion-spiced musica norteña. Born chiefly in northern Mexico, it has exploded into a U.S. phenomenon with regular tours of Los Tigres del Norte, Ramón Ayala and Los Tucanes de Tijuana. It branched out to embrace the narcocorrido ballad glorifying the exploits of the drug smugglers. It also had a huge impact on Tejano music, the uniquely American mix of rock, soul, country, conjunto and (of all things) polka music.
Films by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, now available on DVD
• “A Little Princess”: The famous children’s story about a young girl’s Dickensian life becomes a tiny movie classic.
• “Great Expectations”: A modern-dress version of the Dickens novel, with Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro, Chris Cooper and Anne Bancroft.
• “Y Tu Mamá También”: Two randy Mexican teens (Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal) go on a road trip with a beautiful but troubled young woman (Maribel Verdú) in this steamy but touching effort.
• “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”: During Harry’s third year at Hogwarts he’s stalked by prison escapee Sirius Black.
• “Children of Men”: In a dystopian future, humans have stopped reproducing. Then, miraculously, one woman finds herself with child. With Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine.
The worst film performances by gringo actors playing Mexican characters
Our friends in Hollywood have often gotten in trouble for promulgating Mexican stereotypes, especially when roles were played by non-Mexicans. Consider:
• Marlon Brando in “Viva Zapata!” This is actually not a bad performance by the Omaha-born method actor, perhaps because Brando was acting opposite Anthony Quinn, who really was Latino. Still, as revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, the accent is suspect, and it’s hard to get past the taped-back eyelids.
• Yul Brynner in “Viva Rides.” OK, so they let the actor born to Russian parents in Vladivostok have hair to play Pancho Villa. But where’s the paunch? And what about that accent? It’s the same accent we heard in “The Magnificent Seven,” in which one character (in an effort to explain Brynner’s odd speech to the audience) calls him a “crazy Cajun.”
• Eli Wallach in “The Magnificent Seven.” Brynner was the straight man to Wallach’s outlandish performance as Calvera, the bandit chief. Wallach, born to Jewish parents in an Italian neighborhood of Brooklyn, was a fine method actor and for this role was coached by legendary Mexican actor/director Emilio Fernandez. And let’s face it: Wallach had to have brass cojones to pull this performance off surrounded by real Mexican actors. And by the way: Don’t overlook German-born Horst Buchholz’s Hollywood debut as “Chico.”
• Charlton Heston in “Touch of Evil.” In later years Heston declared that if he had it to do over again he’d probably employ a Mexican accent in this stylized trouble-on-the-border crime film from director Orson Welles. But he didn’t. So narcotics detective Ramon Miguel “Mike” Vargas sounds just like Chuck Heston!
• Jack Palance in “The Professionals.” Palance, a native of Pennsylvania, was a man among men as bandit chieftain “Jesus Raza” in this testosterone-fueled action film. Palance chews the scenery (mainly sand and boulders) with cartoonish delight as a hybrid of all previous movie Mexican bandidos. Oh, and don’t forget Tunisian-born Italian actress Claudia Cardinale as a Mexican lust object. |
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