Release Date: August 14, 2018
Prices and links:
Criterion - $31.96
Amazon - $39.95
Director: Robert M. Young
Starring: Tom Bower, James Gammon, Edward James Olmos
Forced to run from the Texas Rangers after a heated misunderstanding leads to the death of a lawman, Mexican American farmer Gregorio Cortez sets off in desperate flight, evading a massive manhunt on horseback for days. Producer-star Edward James Olmos, seeking to shed new light on a historical incident that had been enshrined in a corrido (folk song), enlisted director Robert M. Young, a longtime practitioner of socially engaged realism, to helm this trailblazing independent film, a landmark of Chicano cinema. Shifting its perspective between the pursuers and the pursued, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez is a thrilling chase film and a nuanced procedural that peels away the layers of prejudice and myth surrounding Cortez, uncovering the true story of an ordinary man persecuted by the law and transfigured by legend.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Prices and links:
Criterion - $31.96
Amazon - $39.95
Director: Robert M. Young
Starring: Tom Bower, James Gammon, Edward James Olmos
- United States
- 1982
- 106 minutes
- 1.85:1
- English, Spanish
- Spine #940
Forced to run from the Texas Rangers after a heated misunderstanding leads to the death of a lawman, Mexican American farmer Gregorio Cortez sets off in desperate flight, evading a massive manhunt on horseback for days. Producer-star Edward James Olmos, seeking to shed new light on a historical incident that had been enshrined in a corrido (folk song), enlisted director Robert M. Young, a longtime practitioner of socially engaged realism, to helm this trailblazing independent film, a landmark of Chicano cinema. Shifting its perspective between the pursuers and the pursued, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez is a thrilling chase film and a nuanced procedural that peels away the layers of prejudice and myth surrounding Cortez, uncovering the true story of an ordinary man persecuted by the law and transfigured by legend.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interview with actor and producer Edward James Olmos
- New interview with Chon A. Noriega, author of Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema
- Cast-and-crew panel from 2016 including Olmos; director Robert M. Young; producer Moctesuma Esparza; cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos; and actors Bruce McGill, Tom Bower, Rosanna DeSoto, and Pepe Serna
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Charles Ramírez Berg
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