Scenes from the film. From the left: Gregorio Cort6z, played by Edward James Olmos;
Valeriano CortBz, played by Mico Olmos; Director Robert Young consulting with Edward
James Olmos. Top left: Carlota Munoz, played by Rosana de Soto. Above: Gregorio Cort6z,
with Victoria Plata as his wife Carmen, and Cleo Ann de Yapp as his daughter.


 To take that metaphor from literature and
to translate it into film takes more than great
skill. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, star-
ring Edward J. Olmos as Gregorio Cortez,
and directed by Robert M. Young, succeeds
excellently. It is not a cowboys and Indians
type of movie. It is not good guys versus bad
guys (white hats vs. black hats). Nor is it
man versus nature. It is a complex, interpre-
tive effort but it is not new wave psychology;
it is not even man versus man, ultimately. It
is, in the end, a humanization of the dif-
ferences between men and women of dif-
ferent cultural perspectives-an attempt at
understanding and the tragic circum-
stances of misunderstanding and inability
to communicate between cultures.
 Language then is the important ele-
ment-the spoken and the unspoken. With
excellent technique there is also the lan-
guage of color and sound, the tactile as well
as the olfactory nuances. The film is an


integrity of the sense as well as the integrity
of the difference in mind sets.
 Edward Olmos' performance is superior.
In this truly bilingual movie (characters
speaking their native language naturally)
Gregorio Cortez speaks hardly at all. Yet the
viewer understands the soliloquy. The fact is
he has committed the ultimate act of taking
someone else's life. He is one and apart.
During the manhunt he speaks to his horse
often. When he is helped by an "anglo cow-
boy" each speaks in his own tongue. Yet
they understand their need for each other.
But Olmos excellently portrays the ac-
cumulation of his cultural background by
his actions, by his facial and body language,
and by his circumstance of constantly
being on the verge of not only being caught,
but communicating. The scene in jail, when
an interpreter is brought in to translate for
him, is as classic and subtle a denouement
as has ever been filmed.


 The casting, the wardrobe, the back-
ground scenery, the railroad cars (explicitly
replicated for this movie) add an aura of
authenticity to the film. The film succeeds in
its historicity.
 Yet the film is not a replica of the book on
which it is based. It shouldn't be. The excel-
lent study by Paredes creates the myth and
adds to the legend. The film with Olmos in
his very best interpretation recreates a spir-
itual history and allows Gregorio Cortez to
converse silently throughout history. The
film is not a study nor a true interpretation
ultimately, but a different metaphor, as
human as the one wrought by the book. It is
clear and true poetry, the stuff of humans.
 O


Tombs Rivera, Chancellor of the University of
California at Riverside, is a frequent
spokesperson for the Chicano community.


CAnBBEAN PEVIE,/33