WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

evanston_dad One would think a film starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn, directed by Elia Kazan, and written by John Steinbeck would be a sure thing. But "Viva Zapata!", while not a bad film by any means, never manages to live up to the expectations one would justifiably have for it given its pedigree. I know casting Caucasian actors as people of color was a common convention in earlier cinematic times, and that one needs to just suck it up and go with it if one is going to bother watching a movie like this in the first place, but my goodness was it hard to get past Marlon Brando as a Mexican revolutionary. The makeup they put on him looks distracting at best and actually disturbing at worst, and he makes absolutely no effort to sound Mexican. The film is oddly static and has none of the dynamic momentum Kazan could bring to a film like "On the Waterfront." Even "A Streetcar Named Desire," which essentially has a cast of four and no action sequences, feels more full of movement than this film. And much as it pains me to report, the weakest link in the chain is John Steinbeck's screenplay. It's extremely disjointed and disorienting, with major plot developments happening off screen so that Brando (in one example) goes from being a revolutionary in one scene to president of Mexico in the next without anything in between to explain the transition. It's like reading a novel with chapters missing.Quinn received the first of his two Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Zapata's brother, but I'm not sure why. His performance is the consummate Quinn performance, all yelling and shouting. It's criminal that he beat Richard Burton that year in "My Cousin Rachel" when Burton was in literally every scene of his movie and played his character expertly. Brando won his second of four consecutive Best Actor nominations, Steinbeck was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay, and the film received two technical nominations for its black and white art direction and its score (by Alex North).Not exactly a dud, but definitely a disappointment.Grade: B-

MartinHafer If it weren't for yet another weird casting decision, I might have scored this film even higher. Who else but Hollywood would not cast a charismatic half-Mexican-American (Anthony Quinn) in the supporting role instead of in the lead? And who would cast a white bread guy like Marlon Brando as a Mexican revolutionary?! Remember--this is the same group of folks who cast a man of Swedish descent (Warner Oland), Mickey Rooney AND Marlon Brando all as Asians?! Now I am not saying Brando did a bad job--he was quite good. But why not cast a Hispanic man in the role?! If you can ignore the odd casting, the rest of the film is pretty good and a decent overview of part of the Mexican Revolution. I say part because Emeliano Zapata only led part of the revolutionary forces--other leaders like Huerta and Villa are barely mentioned in this film. Now this is no complaint--just letting the viewer know it's only a portion of what happened in the war. But as far as Zapata's career as a revolutionary goes, it is pretty good--sticking reasonably close to the facts and explaining his peasants' campaign for land reform reasonably well. And, with writing by John Steinbeck and direction by Elia Kazan (a great director, by the way), it's not surprising this film is far better than average. Well worth seeing and quite inspiring.

MisterWhiplash At first he doesn't look much like we remember him - Marlon Brando appears as his Mexican Emiliano Zapata with a stern face at the Mexico Priesidente demanding, simply, land rights and making sure boundaries can be drawn. His name is circled on the President's desk, not a good sign, and from here on in Zapata is fighting and fighting (what one character says is as simple as it is - it's all he knows) so that the farmers can have their land, as opposed to time and patience, to grow their corn with.When Brando first appears as this revolutionary figure he doesn't quite look like himself, and at the same time does very much, and it's disarming. I didn't buy it entirely in the first scene... and then the scenes kept coming, and Brando, playing Zapata as stubborn and headstrong and without much in way of a sense of humor as a leader as a General (and rightfully so as revolutionary figures tend to be, see Che for more details), is spot on. It's worthy of the rest of his oeuvre at the time, if not quite up to the monolithic status of Streetcar and Waterfront then at least as good if not better than the underrated The Wild One. This is vintage Brando every step of the way, absorbing us in this figure who reminds us all why it's necessary to have such heroes - but also the lacerating side of the double-edged sword where-in those in power will do all they can to destroy the hero. That and, well, revolutions and movements of ideas amongst people end up turning things pretty damn bittersweet; just look at the very end for that, as four peasants talk of Zapata's status as an idea as well as a man.Viva Zapata! presents Mexico in some fresh and amazing cinematography, sturdy and sometimes clever and heartfelt direction from Elia Kazan, always best with his actors (even Anthony Quinn who again proves why he was best as taking on an ethnicity and making it believable, if only up to a point as his powerhouse turn shows here), and some very interesting writing from John Steinbeck. The script sometimes takes its turns and movements that don't make it quite flow as well as it would in a book; individual scenes are knock-outs, mini-masterpieces of words exchanged with underlying meaning or trying to find the meaning in how people can persevere, or not as it turns out (one such scene I loved is when Zapata has been installed as the President- as Pancho Villa says there's "no one else"), and the farmers he says he knows comes and demands the same things he did once before, but at a personal price.There's lots of great things like that, or just the uncomfortable but true rapore between Zapata and his future-wife's family when they talk in metaphors. If only Steinbeck didn't sometimes jerk the story ahead without some warning (it will be hard to explain, you just have to see it to understand, though this may have more to do with the direction than writing, more research is needed for this assumption) it would be unstoppable as a classic. As it stands though Viva Zapata! is an essential chronicle of a rebel with a cause, an honest man of principles who tried to do too much good in a country where it just wasn't possible. Or, perhaps, things like this just aren't possible; one can see the parallels and maybe even find this to be like a condensed version of Soderbergh's Che in taking a sobering look at the sweet highs and sobering lows of rising up against the powers that be (and yes, this is quite the leftist movie, all the more odd considering it's John McCain's favorite film!)

bkoganbing Although in fact Emiliano Zapata never became president of Mexico, for the most part this is a pretty good account of the illiterate peasant who became a romantic revolutionary. For this portrayal in his third film Marlon Brando got a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, but lost to Gary Cooper for High Noon.And as a film concerning the turmoil in Mexico during the teen and twenty years of the last century Viva Zapata! is far better than MGM's Viva Villa that starred Wallace Beery. Then again Marlon Brando is a much better actor.One critical thing that was left out of the story is how much land the Roman Catholic Church held in Mexico. It was not just the rich Estancias that kept the masses in Mexico in peonage, the Church had a really big share of the real estate there. If the story were written today the Church's involvement would be shown. My guess is in the years of the Cold War and the height of Joe McCarthy, no one in Hollywood wanted to make a film that criticized the church in any way. But even a few years earlier the overreaction against the church was done in the John Ford film, The Fugitive which takes place within 10 to 20 years after Zapata died.Zapata as played by Brando may be illiterate, but he is possessed of a simple eloquence and a charisma that made him a revolutionary figure, in the same manner Che Guevara became forty years later. He tries hard to hold to the ideals of the revolution, but finds as most do that tearing down a government is relatively easy, building one from scratch is a task that has defeated many.Anthony Quinn plays Emiliano's swaggering brother Eufemio who's not quite as idealistic as Brando. Quinn received first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the part. Quinn fills the screen with his bluster when he's on, it provides a perfect counterpoint to Brando's more idealistic role.The guy who never gets praise for his performance is Joseph Wiseman. Wiseman, a product of the Actor's Studio in New York like Marlon Brando. This is a man whose type I've come across in numerous endeavors in my life, a professional stirrer of resentments. He's not happy unless there's some kind of battle going on. A type mind you that is ultimately dangerous for any movement. He intrigues for the sake of intrigue, but never accomplishes anything. It's a very good job by Wiseman, not often talked about for some reason.Besides Quinn's Oscar and Brando's nomination, Viva Zapata! got Oscar nominations for Best Art&Set Direction for black and white film, Best music, and Best Screenplay. The last would have been a great honor for John Steinbeck, I'm not sure how many if any writers won a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. That's three horse parlay that can't be beat.For some reason Elia Kazan was overlooked for Best Director, possibly because he had won the year before for A Streetcar Named Desire.Still Viva Zapata! is a work that stands up very well even with the historical inaccuracies.