Featured Article - November 2009
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NEW MEXICO IN THE MOVIES
5 Top Movies You've Never
Heard Of
This list is inspired by the saga surrounding Citizen Kane—a box-office bust when released in 1941 and now considered one of the best films of all time, thanks in part to its resurrection via a top-10 list in a 1962 issue of Sight & Sound magazine. In that spirit, Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker rounds up five fabulous New Mexico Movies to be seen for the first time—or savored again.
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21 Grams (2003)
Dark, intricate, and delicate, this film remains one of the most haunting New Mexico movies ever made. The title refers to the weight of a hummingbird and is purported to be the exact weight of the human soul.
21 Grams was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who went on to become Mexico’s first director to receive an Oscar nomination, for Babel (2006). The cast includes Sean Penn as Paul Rivers, a brilliant math professor with a critically ill heart; Naomi Watts as Cristina Peck, a happily married woman; and Benicio Del Toro as Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con. When Jack’s vehicle accidentally strikes Cristina’s husband, leaving him brain-dead, she consents to organ donation, and Paul receives her husband’s heart. Paul then becomes curious about the circumstances that saved his life, and hires a private detective, who leads him to Cristina and Jack.
The plot snaps together piece after irresistible puzzle piece as it explores how three strangers’ lives randomly intersect and are forever changed. The inherent challenges of acting must have been magnified by working with a director who barely spoke English, but all three principals give the performances of their lives. Watts and Del Toro were nominated for Academy Awards.
Locations included Albuquerque, Milan, Moriarty, and Zia Pueblo, but it was Grants that won the location manager’s heart. A seedy motel, complete with an empty, barren swimming pool, sets the tone of perfect darkness, as 21 Grams reminds us that life is fragile, and much too precious to waste.
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Ginger in the Morning (1974)
This film, directed by Gordon Wiles and written by Taoseño Mark Miller (A Walk in the Clouds, 1995; Savannah Smiles, 1982), would be your basic, cleverly written “boy meets unusual girl on the road, plans a few days of fun, falls in love instead,” except for one surprise: Sissy Spacek. Miller loves to spin yarns about his “Ginger film” because it was one of Spacek’s early film roles. Badlands, the film that made Spacek a household name, hadn’t yet been released when Ginger was in preproduction, and Miller, who was also the film’s executive producer, had never heard of her when buddy Gene Hackman called and urged him to give “the talented little gal” a chance. Luckily, he listened.
Bruce King was governor then, and when the lights went out during a midnight shoot on the Santa Fe Plaza, a quick call to the Guv’s residence got them turned on again. The charming romantic comedy was shot on location at Rancho Encantado (now renovated and called, simply, Encantado) and the Santa Fe Plaza, but Spacek, looking as fresh as a Santa Fe sunrise, steals the show. Ginger in the Morning set the stage for her career to follow.
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Salt of the Earth (1954)
The creation of a blacklisted group of McCarthy-era filmmakers, Salt of the Earth is based on the true story of Silver City’s Empire Zinc Mine, and the long, bitter miners’ strike of 1950. Shot on location in Silver City, it featured many of the actual people involved in the strike and gained notoriety because it is the only film the U.S. government has ever banned.
Director Herbert J. Biberman, screenwriter Michael Wilson, producer Paul Jarrico, and
actor Will Geer tell a story of Mexican-Americans who strike to be paid the same wage as their Anglo counterparts, and to be treated with dignity by their bosses. What the miners don’t count on is the pivotal roles their wives will play. Against their husbands’ wishes, the women stand up to beatings, and even imprisonment. The result is a film that anticipated the feminist and civil rights movements by more than a decade—and which must have been threatening to the prevalent social morés of the day.
This exploration of prejudice bears witness to the truth that dignity must begin with small steps in order to be realized on a large scale.
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Tortilla Heaven (2007)
When they descended on New Mexico to tell this Southwestern version of a morality tale inspired by a true story, writer-director Judy Hecht Dumontet and her production crew transformed the entire village of Dixon. All the locals were incredibly supportive as they became residents of fictitious Falfurrias, New Mexico (population 73), and showed what happens when the face of Jesus appears on a tortilla at a struggling New Mexican restaurant.
There are several familiar faces in the cast, which is mostly Native American and Hispanic. For Santa Fe native Miguel Sandoval, who now stars as D.A. Manuel Devalos in the hit series Medium, it was a homecoming. Another recognizable face is that of comedian George Lopez, but perhaps the biggest surprise is Olivia Hussey, still considered by many the most beautiful woman in the world. But it’s the image of Jesus that takes center stage. We see the consequences that miracles bring, as we learn that the real miracle is the unconditional love that gives life meaning.
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First Snow (2006)
Death, the great motivator, is the theme of First Snow, in which the fear of death changes a small-time hustler’s life for the worse, then for the better. Guy Pearce plays Jimmy Starks, a man who always puts himself first. Destiny plays a hand when Jimmy, killing time at a pit stop, meets the psychic Vacaro (J. K. Simmons).
Jimmy has a reading as a lark, and is amused by Vacaro’s petty predictions about sports and money. But days later, after they’ve come true, Starks returns for more. Vacaro tells him that he’s safe—but only until the first snow.
Albuquerque and Bosque Farms play their parts, but New Mexico’s favorite acting son, Nicholas Ballas, playing tavern owner Pete, reports that his seedy scenes were staged off I-40 in a colorful Moriarty truck stop that in real life doubles as a strip bar. The script is excellent, and cowriter Mark Fergus (Children of Men, 2006; Iron Man, 2008) here makes his directorial debut. It takes a good production team to support a first-time director, and Fergus got one. Even the snow was real.
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NEW MEXICO IN THE MOVIES
O'Keeffe on Film
See O'Keeffe country in living color as the Lifetime Original Movie Georgia O'Keeffe hits the small screen this month. In honor of the film's premiere, we explore six myths about O'Keeffe's life and work. Plus: See exclusive images from the film and more of the artist who inspired it.
