VIVA ZAPATA!

42° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
MARLON BRANDO

VIVA ZAPATA!

VIVA ZAPATA!
by Elia Kazan
Country: USA
Year: 1952
Duration: 113'


The story of Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), who, during the Mexican Revolution, led the campesinos against the big landowners and with his brother Eufemio sparked the rebellion in the south, under the guidance of the reformer Madero. After the fall of the dictator Díaz and Madero’s rise, he turned down the offer of land and saw how power can corrupt anyone, including his own brother. He became the President of Mexico but remained in power for only a short while and went back to fighting with his peones. A great performance by Brando, inflexible and heroic, but the Oscar went to Anthony Quinn for best actor in a supporting role. Directed by Kazan (cinematography by Joe MacDonald), who was inspired by the Soviet avant-garde; the screenplay is by John Steinbeck.

Biography

film director

Elia Kazan

(Constantinople, Turkey, 1909 - New York 2003), born Elias Kazancıoğlu, was a director, screenwriter, actor, author, movie and theatrical producer of Greek origin, and a naturalized American citizen. Famous for having founded the Actors Studio in New York in 1947, as a film director he made some of the most important Hollywood movies of the 1950s and ’60s, all the while maintaining his ties with theatre and contemporary literature (in particular with John Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams, whose play A Streetcar Named Desire he adapted for the silver screen), before dedicating himself to writing novels. He won Oscars for best director for Gentleman’s Agreement (1948) and On the Waterfront (1955), and an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1999. His name is associated with McCarthyism because of his controversial collaboration with the McCarthy Commission.

FILMOGRAFIA

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Un albero cresce a Brooklyn, 1945), The Sea of Grass (Il mare d'erba, 1947), Boomerang! (Boomerang - L'arma che uccide, 1947), Gentleman's Agreement (Barriera invisibile, 1947), Pinky (Pinky, la negra bianca, 1949), Panic in the Streets (Bandiera gialla, 1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (Un tram che si chiama Desiderio, 1951), Viva Zapata! (id., 1952), Man on a Tightrope (Salto mortale, 1953), On the Waterfront (Fronte del porto, 1954), East of Eden (La valle dell'Eden, 1955), Baby Doll (Baby Doll - La bambola viva, 1956), A Face in the Crowd (Un volto nella folla, 1957), Wild River (Fango sulle stelle, 1960), Splendor in the Grass (Splendore nell'erba, 1961), America, America (Il ribelle dell'Anatolia, 1963), The Arrangement (Il compromesso, 1969), The Visitors (I visitatori, 1972), The Last Tycoon (Gli ultimi fuochi, 1976).

Cast

& Credits

DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan. SCREENPLAY: John Steinbeck. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joseph MacDonald. EDITING: Barbara McLean. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Leland Fuller, Lyle R. Wheeler, Thomas Little, Claude E. Carpenter. COSTUMES: Travilla. MUSIC: Alex North. CAST: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn, Mildred Dunnock, Joseph Wiseman, Arnold Moss, Alan Reed, Margo, Harold Gordon, Lou Gilbert, Frank Silvera, Abner Biberman. PRODUCTION: Darryl F. Zanuck per 20th Century Fox.

CONTACT: Park Circus www.parkcircus.com

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