Old Gringo

Plot synopsis:
American schoolteacher Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) goes to Mexico to work as a governess for the Miranda family, and becomes caught up in the Mexican revolution. Mexicans transporting her from Chihuahua, secretly soldiers of Pancho Villa's army, use her luggage to smuggle weapons to the servants at the Miranda hacienda. The servants in turn aid the attacking revolutionary army of General Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits). During the attack, a sardonic "Old Gringo", American author Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck), joins the fighting on the side of the revolutionaries; he operates a railway switch that sends a railroad flatcar laden with explosives to its target.
After the Miranda hacienda is taken, Winslow becomes romantically attracted alternately to Bierce and then Arroyo. Bierce has come to Mexico to die in anonymity; he feels that his fifty years as a writer have won him praise only for his style, not for the truth that he's tried to tell. Arroyo, by contrast, has returned to the hacienda where he was born. His father was a Miranda who had raped his peasant mother. Later in his youth, Arroyo murdered his father.
While his army enjoys previously unknown luxuries on the war-damaged palatial estate, Arroyo becomes obsessed with his past. Transfixed by childhood memories of his family buried there, he fails to move his army when ordered by Villa. To bring Arroyo to his senses and avert a mutiny of his officers, Bierce burns papers that the illiterate Arroyo considers sacred—papers that supposedly entitle the peasants to the hacienda land. Arroyo responds by shooting Bierce in the back, killing him. Bierce dies in Winslow's arms.
Winslow goes to the U.S. embassy in Mexico to claim Bierce's body and bring it back to the United States. She claims that he was her long-lost father. This puts Villa in a predicament because a U.S. citizen was murdered by one of his generals. Wishing to avoid American meddling in the revolution, he has Winslow sign a statement that her father had joined the revolution and was executed for disobeying orders, as was General Arroyo who had shot him, and that she witnessed both executions. She signs the statement, is provided with the coffin bearing Bierce's body, and witnesses the execution of Arroyo.

Tags: romantic, avant garde

Review:
Mexico in the teen years of the last century was no place to be, not even for Mexicans as the country broke down completely after the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz.
A lot of people grabbed for power, including one Pancho Villa who got emboldened enough to cross the U.S. border and shoot up Columbus, New Mexico.
That got Woodrow Wilson to sending the army to capture Villa without success.But that's getting way ahead of this story.
It concerns American writer Ambrose Bierce who went to revolutionary Mexico and disappeared into obscurity much in the manner of the French poet Francois Villon.
The plot of this film offers a theory as to what could have happened to Bierce.Dominating the film is Gregory Peck in the title role.
This Bierce has all the reason to just want to leave his world behind, his wife had recently died, but not after being discovered to be involved with another man.
Bierce was a man who felt he had no reason to live on.Peck gets involved with two other people in a romantic triangle, Jane Fonda as a spinster who gets hired to tutor some landowner children and Jimmy Smits who's using the revolution to settle some personal scores with that same landowner family.
In fact Smits gets himself rather caught up in the whole ambiance of being to the manor born with what he feels are good reasons.All though all three of the leads have been in much better product, Old Gringo still is a good piece of cinema and does capture some of the anarchy that was revolutionary Mexico..
In 1913, Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) is hired by a Mexican family as a governess, but she then is kidnapped by Gen Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits) and along with other revolutionaries.
She also meets Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck), who conceals his true identity and who is ready to die on this foreign land.
The three of them form a love triangle, Harriet becomes Tomas's lover and her affection towards Bierce is rather like a daughter to a father.
In the end, things get tragic- Harriet is determined to fulfill Bierce' dying wish of not being publicised and Tomas has to face his ultimate punishment.
Jimmy Smits is excellent as the tormented general and Gregory Peck was marvellous as the disillusioned writer and journalist.
Back in 1913, a sickly and aging writer (Ambrose Bierce) decided to go to one of the most exciting and dangerous places on the planet--Mexico during the revolution that followed the ouster of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz.
While no one knows for sure why he chose to do this, the film's contention that he was suicidal and wanted to "go out with a bang" seems quite reasonable.
This film seems to create a fictionalized idea of what COULD have happened to Bierce (played by Gregory Peck).
However, the film did so by creating a fictionalized character of an American teacher (Jane Fonda) who gets tricked into walking into the midst of the fighting--and, naturally, slowly is won over to the side of the soldiers of Pancho Villa--though Villa himself does not appear in the film until the end.
In the meantime, Fonda and Peck meet with and spend time with General Aroyo (I have no idea if he was a real person or fictionalized--I assume he was fictionalized since I found nothing on him on the internet).
Aroyo is played by Jimmy Smits.So what did I think of this film?
However, despite these factors, the film also had a lot of problems--too many to make it worth seeking out yourself.
While it looked good, the film was, after a while, incredibly boring.
It's rare to see a movie that has characters that are more ill-defined--and excellent acting can't make up for that.There is one final problem with the film, though most who watch it won't realize it.
The ideas of land reform and democracy were wonderful--too bad no one leading any of the factions really did anything to actually improve the lot for the average Mexican!
A lot of people died, but essentially the country wasn't much better off when all was said and done.
As for Miss Fonda and Mr. Peck, they both have been long-time leftists--and very pro-revolution.
Puenzo took us behind the scenes of a sweeping political struggle and made the viewer examine the personal details and the personal confrontations of the actors as they tred the stage of events that were much bigger than themselves.I know, I know-all of this has been done before;  it's formula scrip work but the brilliance of the cast and the direction make Old Gringo into a movie that you will return to over and over again like a favourite old wine or a dish that you never tire of eating.The principal cast of Fonda, Smits and Peck enliven an already sumptuous tapestry woven by Puenzo.
In early-20th Century Mexico an American school teacher (Jane Fonda) is kidnapped by a desperado (Jimmy Smits) and his rebellious gang.
The titled character (Gregory Peck) is slowly dying of an illness and tries to get himself killed by Smits on numerous occasions as he also tries to get Fonda to safety.
"Old Gringo" is a lot of smoke and sand that tries to become the "Dr. Zhivago" of its time, but falls completely.
There is more soul in this film than in 50 'modern' films.While there is a lot of bad acting, and many other flaws in this movie, there are some GREAT scenes, great dialog, great characters, and great performances.
Gregory Peck has some very memorable, outstanding monologues, there are many interesting and complex relationships, and there are no simple resolutions to conflicts.Again- there are many areas of the film that do not work: doesn't matter, ignore them.
Peck and Smits are great, and even Fonda has some excellent moments.They don't make 'em like this any more, and they don't make actors like Peck..
Peck's Great Ambrose Bierce Buried.
A truly wonderful performance by Gregory Peck as Ambrose Bierce is blurred & upstaged by the director..
Mix a sexually repressed teacher(Fonda),a fiery revolutionary(Smits), and a dying author(Peck) with hundreds of Mexican extras, mariachi's, romance, pretty photography and you've got Old Stinko: a boring, lackluster cliché ridden waste of time for all involved.
Smits is cliché but less ridiculous than the other 2 characters who suck the life out of the movie and get in the way of the background which while pretty and pleasing to the eye is too pretty and overblown for the sketchy story being told.
Peck plays Ambrose Bierce like Atticus Finch, and the scenes between he and Fonda recall Atticus and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.
As the wide eyed pupil/teacher Fonda is unconvincing and embarrassing, and Peck is a hollow bore.
They didn't, and the film was a box office and critical disappointment.
Gregory Peck's over the top performance and Jimmy Smits in over his head do not however destroy a good story.
Jane Fonda truly loved this story but even she looks lost in the pages told.
A good film about a young general who wants to change the world, and an old writer who wants to bid it farewell.
The time of the film is 1913, when the American frontier was closing fast Mexico, on the other hand, was still in a romantic era, the time of Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution Luis Puenzo presented the violent scenes passionately and it is his passion that makes the picture interesting His use of slow motion to prolong dying remembered me the great Sam Peckinpah in his great Western "The Wild Bunch." The film begins with Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda), a repressed American spinster caught in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, when Pancho Villa's revolutionary army was moving against important families in Mexico, declaring them enemies of the Revolution and confiscating all their property The state of Chihuahua was in that moment revolutionary country, and Winslow was seen heading to the Miranda hacienda controlled by FederalesAt first, Harriet (who accepted a job as a governess) saw herself caught in a shoot-out and asked for help to return to the border but later on, she starts to see that something in her face has begun to open Her clear blue eyes were sweeter than before And since she never felt in love for being always afraid of the unknown, it was here where her life begins, in a land where death was not the end, but only the beginning Jimmy Smits had his moments when he told our heroine that the battles have made him general The land that he fought for and the people he has killed, starting with the old landowner who raped his mother and made him a bastard His mother was an Indian peasant while his father was a rich aristocrat This wasn't just his history It was the history of everybody in Mexico Peck does a fine job in his touching portrait of the intolerable gringo old enough to be an observer He had dared to say farewell to a world, where he wrote every day of his life without exception He wrote when his youth drifted by, and while love betrayed him Ambrose Bierce grows fond of the young general, considering him too much like him, capable of fighting for words written on pieces of paper In an especially poignant scene, his best moments come long before the end, when not knowing if this might perhaps be Harriet's ' first time' he requested that she participates with him in what will undoubtedly be his 'last time' "Old Gringo" depicts the Mexican music, life of the Mexican people, their special cult to the death, their drunken fiesta, their cheerful whores trading sex for books, the faces of the children, sometimes observers, sometimes participating in the whole twisted ethic of violenceThere is some nice cinematography in the film, and the Mexican countryside is well taken Most of the film's action takes place in a fine hacienda.
I watched this movie a few times trying to figure out why it left me feeling slightly let down.
The technical work is good, but somehow the movie never finds it's story.
Jane Fonda plays an old maid school "marm" who decides to go to Mexico to see the world.
Along the way, Ambrose Bierce(played by Gregory Peck), joins them.
Mr. Bierce who has a mysterious illness, and is bitterly tired of life, more than anything wants to die a glorious death on the battlefield instead of dying in bed.
Gen Arroyo (Smits) and Ambrose Bierce develop a Father/Son kind of thing.
Here's how.The story is directed as if it were about Jane Fondas relationships with the two men, when in reality the movie is about the terrible internal strife of Gen. Arroyo, and his love/hate for his father, who comes to be personified by Mr. Bierce.
In some ways the whole scope of the history of Mexico can be seen as a working out of the Father/Son relationship.
I think Peck is great in nearly everything he does, and this film is no exception.
For me personally, having lived in Mexico a year, I may have had more background understanding that helped me see what Fuentes was doing with this story.Bierce was a curmudgeon and an aging one at that when he slipped south of the border to flirt with his final destiny.
The themes of the book are dimly reflected in the film, but having the book inside you makes you understand the significance of the story, what "the revolution" was really all about, and the tragedy that is Mexico.
It might be worthwhile to read the book, then watch the movie again to see why those who appreciate the film actually get something out of it..
At one level, this film focuses on a much delayed coming of age adventure for Jane Fonda's character, Harriet Winslow, who suddenly decides she has had enough of her mother-dominated spinster school marm life.
However, her relatively advanced age makes her crush on Peck's 70 year old character, Ambrose Bierce, more believable.
Peck's characterization of Bierce is somewhat at odds with what I have read of this man.
We get the impression that, like Harriet, he has decided to forsake his bookish life, as a sick old man, for a final hands-on adventure, as an aid to the rebels in the Mexican revolution.
He was not a one-dimensional bookish writer, by experience.Fonda simultaneously develops a crush on both Bierce and General Arroyo(Jimmy Smits).
Harriet reminds Bierce of his daughter, whom he hasn't seen for many years, while Bierce reminds Harriet of her father, who abandoned his domineering wife for a new love, and who fought in the Spanish American war to help free Cuba.
Arroyo's bedding of Harriet on the very bed where he was conceived symbolically reverses the power relationship in which his European father raped his native American mother.
Arroyo's shooting of his favorite horse and of Bierce reinforces his determination to stay at the hacienda of his birth instead of joining Villa.There are several references accusing Arroyo of having become the new Miranda, and thus betraying the revolution.
I can see why this film was important to Jane Fonda.
That's what old gringo Gregory Peck (as an aging writer) and middle aged gringa Jane Fonda learn in this study of life going on during a revolution in Mexico during the early part of the 20th century.
Thanks to revolution leader Jimmy Smits, they learn quite a bit, although I wonder if Fonda needed to learn to stop gaping at Peck in awe and remind herself to get back in character.Fonda is a bored wealthy American who runs out on society and ends up in Mexico where she is a first hand witness to the violence at hand.
Smits, initially ridiculing both Fonda and Peck, slowly begins to understand and trust them, and through him, they begin to learn what the Mexicans are fighting for, and through them, he learns that there's more than just national pride in living your life.
(It wasn't.) But pre- release buzz is often disappointing, and while Peck was praised, the film wasn't.
This should have been his pass to a successful film career as it was a wind down in Peck's.
The other Hispanic actors in Smit's circle also are very diverse, from the young paper boy trained from birth to fight to the prostitute who gives Peck a freebee to the other young women who laugh at gringa Fonda's foreign ways but secretly envy her.
I regret to say it, because I always admired him, but this was one film too many for Gregory Peck.
At 73, Peck had gotten too old for a starring role such as this.But that's not the only problem with this film.
A young woman (Jane Fonda) wants to experience life (although why she would place herself in the middle of the Mexican Revolution is unclear).
An old man (Gregory Peck) -- a writer -- is ready to die.
And a young Mexican (Jimmy Smits) wants to lead his countrymen to their rightful place in a free Mexico.
And the story comes together as all 3 main characters find themselves together in the middle of the Revolution.Jane Fonda, who gets top billing here, is fine in some scenes, but just a little too wide-eyed in other scenes.
At least she gets to kiss Gregory Peck and have sex with Jimmy Smits.
She has come of age, so to speak.Jimmy Smits probably does the best acting in the film.
He's very believable as a local leader of the Revolution.The film lasts just under an hour, but seems much longer.
The main reason to watch this film is the absolutely mesmerizing performance of Gregory Peck.
There is a scene in which he woos Jane Fonda as they sit on a log; it is hard to imagine any woman not falling for the aging Peck as his words pour forth to her like poetry.
This is the voice I imagine God speaks with.Peck's character is world-weary, and he engages everyone around him with detachment and some irony; except, watch for the scene towards the end in which he takes General Arroyo's black horse out for a ride in the country.
The pure joy on Peck's face is delightful, genuine and pleasing to see.And speaking of the horse: one of the most spectacular and shocking animal moments in screen history has to be the shot of General Arroyo shooting his horse in the head, near the end of the film.
The timing of the sprawling horse is flawless, the effect electrifying.Jimmy Smits is excellent as General Arroyo, and it is interesting how the general becomes more sympathetic as the movie moves along.Sadly, though, the parts don't come together to make a great whole.
Yes, "Old Gringo" is beautifully filmed, but it goes on for too long, and furthermore, it is tiring to have to work out, through the first half-hour, who is fighting for which side, and who are the Mirandas.Worst of all is the presence of Jane Fonda.
If you don't want people to notice that your acting is wooden and uninspiring, don't appear in a movie with Gregory Peck.
I think an actress like Kate Capshaw (who plays a similar character in the 1987 TV-movie version of "The Quick and the Dead") would have played Ms. Winslow much more appealingly.A final question: is Peck already dead when he is "executed" at the movie's end?
Hard to say."Old Gringo" is worth watching to see Gregory Peck still eat up the screen in this, the winter of his career; but have the fast-forward ready..
Don't rent this movie expecting a realistic characterization of Ambrose Bierce.
Rent it for an interesting look into the lives of a few small and large players in a sweeping political movement.The acting's not Oscar-calibre, but it's more than acceptable for a western that plays a little bit like a documentary.