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Alex Cox' film Walker
Submitted by arlington on Sun, 2005/11/06 - 10:55.
I've read the reviews here, and though I love the film and the soundtrack, I know others don't feel the same. What I was wondering is in 1987 how rough was Granada's infrastructure or did the set designers have to do a lot to return it to the look of the Walker period.
My take
This is a spoof on Walker and his antics in the C. Americas. It made him out to be a idiot in the eyes of most people. We watched it here in the states many years ago with our friends who are from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. Although the film did have some extreme parts, (taking out the Time magazine and Coke advertisements) most of us see it as a bad “B” movie. I did have a friend from the US who was an extra in the movie, he enjoyed working on it but he too felt that parts (like the Russian helicopter) was a bit much.
Nicaus
Idiot...
I think what you say is 100% true. The thing not touched on by the movie, or most books, is why would such an idiot --if that is what he was-- find it so easy to attact followers and financial backers, since idiots usually fail immediately, and are not worth most people's attention, no less their money. The problem was that while Walker failed, he was not, in real life, an idiot, and was far more learned in almost every aspect of life and culture, than most all of the people who then criticized him. So, making him seem a sort of moral retard only helped the movie fail, and fail miserably. No one saw Walker's antics for what they really were, and that is 100% Cox's fault; maybe he shot himself in both feet by not telling a reasonably true story, and instead making some sort of ill-conceived politically-based comic book. It is incredibly hard to be both pure entertainment and history, but Cox managed to fail at both, very badly. But, the film is still worth watching, because there are failures and there are noble failures, and at least Cox had a vision, even if it was one he could not follow through on in any decent way in 90 minutes...
Anyone want to buy a very good VHS copy of the movie?
After seeing so much talk about the movie and never being able to find it at any of my local video stores, I recently found and bought a copy at a local joint for $12.00. Enjoyed finally watching it, but I don't have the space for VHS tapes. So if anyone would like to cover my purchase cost of $12.00, I am happy to pass it on to the next person. I will be in Nicaragua in a couple of weeks and can even bring it with me if anyone would like to have it there. It is in the original box and all is in very good condition. Copies of the movie are for sell at Amazon for $20-$30 plus shipping.
the look
It is debatable if they returned it to the look of the Walker period, and there may or may not be a many people who could verify this. They did as much "covering" as "restoring". There is a lot of scaffolding in the film, and construction work, and "street stuff" (all probably on point, historically), which you see around in most of the Granada scenes. This is what was later set ablaze when the city in ransacked. Probably necessary in that few things would burn well and view well cinemagraphically, if the city was more or less cement buildings and tiled roofs. The market stuff and things in doorways and scaffolds and tarps all burn easily, and light up the later night scenes of the film. Although several buildings appear in the film, I do not recall a single aerial of the city, nor a single roof-top shot encompassing more than a small part of a carefully chosen street or frontiswall of a structure. Many shots are framed small, and quite a few are indoors in the city, or just a meter outside a wall or doorway. I do not know about the streets, and paving. The Rivas scenes were probably not Rivas, and the San Juan scenes probably were.
Why shoot on location?
I admit I am not sure why Cox wanted to shoot on location, since so little of Granada is obvious in the film (I read somewhere it was shot there because he wanted to be there in Nicaragua at this point in history, not because being there was in any way needed for the actual filming, which is believable in that back then so few people on the planet would know if it was done in Granada, or countless other places). To me, it does not look like they did much of anything. Most scenses were not shot from any vast perspective. It couldnt have been much work, unless they did a lot of work and then paid an editor to see to it that all the aerial and long-distance street shots ended up on the cutting floor. My friend was there at this time and claimed there was little public shooting, and this is the only kind of shooting requiring serious $$$ for infrastructure alteration. I liked the soundtrack more than the film. Ed Harris is one of my favorite actors, but the film still failed I thought.
Have you seen it with fresh eyes
it's an 1848 or whatever travelogue of Granada. The last half of the movie is shot in the parque and the plaza, and several of the colonial buildings in the core. to each his own but, I thought Cox made a brilliant point. A point obvious to the choir, but not to the majority of Americans who had no idea where Nica was or how often Marines had been used to subjugate CA in the name of American interests. Of course that story is still being told, and willl continue to be told unfortunately, empires die hard.
Brilliant?
Fresh eyes? I think so. I have seen the film many times, and a friend ownes a copy VHS. Making a film on location does not necessarily make a film any better. Many great films were not shot on location.
25% of the movie is done before they get to Nicaragua. The actual battle in Rivas takes place on one short calle and only about 50 meters of it is shown with maybe 5 horses and 40 men. Even the chases and retreats use again one of two streets. The street may or may not be in Rivas. It is just white washed walls and tile roofs. It could be anywhere, since no distinctive building is ever seen in any scene. In San Juan it is but a minute before they focus on conversations before making the march North. The Granada reception is inside a building, and the street scenes are often shot tight, like the whippings and theatre and newspaper and slavery scenes all are. The widest angle scenes are probably the burning of the city at the end, but this is at night, and not that much of the city proper es discernable at night. In this film it is not obvious that they are on location, until they are in Granada, but even then it is not a feel for Granada that Cox wants to conveys to viewers, but a focus on contradictory and illogical and insane things Walker says and does. Cox, or any good moviemaker does not need the real Granada to accomplish this.
My appreciation is less not more every time I viewed it. I have seen it maybe 5 times, mostly because friends have not and wished to view it. I think it is fair to say no one has ever learned anything important about Walker or Nicaragua from this film, unless theys was curious what 3-4 buildings in Granada might have looked like in the 19th century. If you knew who Walker is/was, then you knew more than Cox's film has to say. If you did not know who Walker is/was, then this film by Cox will not help you. The film is a farce, really, and because of that serves no educational mission at all.
Brilliant? I do not see it. He wants people to know that recent intervention has long historical roots and that Walker's invasion was the first of many? Well, what is brilliant about that (anyone who might care already knows that)? And if there were people who did not know this, what is brilliant about telling them or trying to tell them this through a historical movie that is not really historical, an adventure film which is not at all adventurous, and a comedy that is not funny? Liking the conclusions drawn from a film or agreeing with the ideas of the film director is not the same as liking the film and certainly such things are not evidence of a good film. Fresh eyes would require one to judge not the politics of the movies filmsmaker but the movie itself and this movie, as a movie, is just plain bad. People often disagree what is a good movie or what makes a good movie good, or if a particular movie is good, and, you can often find bad reviews in magazines, of movies which are very good, and the reverse of course - though if it is good you can always find some good reviews, somewhere. But how many films do you know of which really are good, or brilliant, which lack 2-3 good reviews, in any language, anywhere in the world, even 20 years after they has been made?
Backgrounds
Not really at all shot as an "epic", but mostly with close-ups and controlled depth-of-field within carefully chosen backgrounds. Their set work was probably not all that extensive, and with a fairly small budget this is understandable (note the scenes with Vanderbuilt, or some battle scenes, or Walker's Nicaraguan lover, etc., as most could have been filmed in any number of places, no trin Nicaragua).
I have not seen/read it, but there is a fairly recent book, c2000, about Cox by Steven Davies (who has written a handbook to "cult films", a study of film director Mike Hodges, and also an encyclopedia guide to the television show, "The Prisoner", as well as numerous studies of the films made by so-called "brat pack" members), "Alex Cox, Film Anarchist", which is reputed to have an introduction written by Dennis Hopper. Elsewhere, Davies has given interviews about Cox's concern with U.S. politics in the Latin world, though I haven't any link at hand just now. Here is a little somewhat related link, first-hand:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_107/TECH_V107_S0780_P002.pdf
Also, though a movie and not a work of literature, Professor Brady Harrison does consider Cox's film in his book, "Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature" (c2004, University of Georgia Press). There is a lot of Cox-related data on the www, though I haven't seen much of anything which addresses your question directly. There might not be much out there on this, but Cox has an official website, and he seems not to routinely shy away from interviews, so there is a lot on the web, just not on the actual set design:
http://www.alexcox.com/dir_walker.htm
more about Granada
I was more interested in how much dirt road vs paved road there was in Granada in 1987. Whether they covered the parque central and plaza streets with earth or whether they were still earthen in 1987. I've seen some folks travel photos in the 1990s and a lot has changed since then with restorations etc. The condition of the convent/museum is 100% improved even since 1995.