1. John Sayles writes Lone Star in a way that White southerners and Latino's in Frontera, Texas live separately but a lot of their history is intertwined. Why does he connect Sam Deeds and Pilar Cruz through incest to bring the story together? Why couldn't the tension in Frontera have been strictly historical?
2. Throughout the movie there are historically references made about Native Americans, Black slaves, and Mexicans. How are these groups used in the story line to make the situation in Frontera contemporary?
3. What are the themes used in this film? Does the film succeed in getting the point across to audiences?
Uncle Sam - Strong Features
"Uncle Sam is a Man of Strong Features" (1898)
In response to the first question: As we discussed in class, White and Latino history is fraught with tension. In the movie, Sam and Pilar find out that they are half siblings - making their relationship incestuous. I believe that John Sayles does with to evoke a sense of shock in his viewers. Although in seems far fetched that two people who are half siblings fall in love and not know that they are related --> this absurdity directly points to the idea that the history of the White and Latino communities in Texas were more intertwined than people wanted to admit. This episode in the movie is a commentary on race relations at the time. I believe that Sayles was trying to encourage the viewers to think about wether or not it is possible to accept the other (wether white or latino) as part of yourself, or do these two groups always have to be separate? Sayles did not portray these tensions in a strictly historical way in order to show how personal these stories of cross cultural fertilization are.
ReplyDelete3. There are a few themes used in this movie. On one side the author is trying to show us the difficulties in relationships between white Americans, Mexicans and Blacks, on the other side I guess to make film less documentary, there is a love story involved. I think it's very interesting that even though Mersedes is trying to act like an fully American person (runs her own business, reminds everyone to speak English in America and even calls to board patrol about illegal immigrants crossing the board; in the end of the movie she takes care of the Mexican girl with a broken leg and helps her and her friends to avoid immigration police. It's interesting that she says to her Mexican worker that he is not doing favor to his friends by bringing them to Texas without documents and that they will probably become crimes there, but since she once crossed the board herself illegally, does it mean that she didn't have a happy life in U.S.?...
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite parts of the film is when Chucho Montoya draws a line in the sand and says, “a bird flying south, you think he sees this line? Rattlesnake? Javelina? You think halfway across that line they start thinking different? Why should a man?” This scene embodies the way in which Americans are obsessed with creating barriers in order to reinforce American norms. Montoya is implying that a foreigner’s eyes are not fixed on issues of whether or not they have trespassed a border. Instead, many immigrants, especially the Chicanos portrayed in the film, are mainly concerned with making enough money to support their families back home. Therefore, most of them disregard the restrictions that were created to control them. This is because they believe that such barriers are nothing but imaginary lines that are not static and are constantly changing.
ReplyDeleteMany times in a place where different ethnicities coexist, intermarriages or even relationship mixtures are bound to take place. A perfect example of this as seen in the film, is Texas. Being that Texas lies on the borderline alongside with Mexico, whether legal or illegal, many Mexicans have physical relations with Anglo Americans, resulting in the production of a mixed child. Many people might deny it but Mexicans partake a big role in Texas, historically being that the land that Texas lies on was originally Mexican soil. In the film, the director decides to relate the roles of Pilar and Sam by physical attraction in reflection to the fact that even though they did not know they were related, there was a mutual connection in between. This dilema relates to how the relationship between Mexicans and Texans view each other, they deny a connection is existing meanwhile the connection is way deeper than they can imagine.
ReplyDeleteJohn Sayles connects Pilar and Sam through incest to make a clear and valid point about relations between different races. I think he was trying to show that although we may try to find ways to put ourselves above another group, whether it is because of their religion, skin color, language, style of dress, or other cultural/biological factors, we are all the same. By allowing Sam and Pilar to be both in love while simultaneously being brother and sister, he shows that it is not at all impossible for people of seperate races to be together. One of the most common issues/fears people tend to have in reagrds to people who may be apart of a different race from them, is to actually mix with that race socially or in this case intimately. Therefore by connecting SAm and Pilar through their dual relationship, John Sayles is disbanding many racial taboos that have existed in our country for centuries.
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