El Mariachi
El Mariachi | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Rodriguez |
Written by | Robert Rodriguez |
Produced by |
|
Starring | Carlos Gallardo Consuelo Gómez Peter Marquardt |
Cinematography | Robert Rodriguez |
Edited by | Robert Rodriguez |
Music by |
|
Production company | Los Hooligans Productions[1] |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates | |
Running time | 81 minutes[2] |
Country | United States[1] |
Language | Spanish |
Budget | Production: $7,225 Post-production: $200,000 |
Box office | $2 million[3] |
El Mariachi is a 1992
The success of Rodriguez's directorial debut led him to create two sequels (Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico) with Antonio Banderas taking over from Gallardo for the character, though Gallardo co-produced both films and had a minor role in Desperado.[5][6]
In 2011, El Mariachi was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[7][8] The film is also recognized by Guinness World Records as the lowest-budgeted film ever to gross $1 million at the box office.[9]
Plot
After breaking out of jail in a small Mexican town, a ruthless criminal, nicknamed Azul, ventures off with a guitar case full of weapons and vows revenge on the local drug lord, Moco, who had him arrested in the first place. Meanwhile, a young musician arrives in town carrying his own guitar case which contains his signature guitar. He hopes to find work in the town in order to pursue his dream of becoming a mariachi like his father.
From the confines of his heavily guarded villa on the outskirts of town, Moco sends a large group of
When Azul visits the bar for a beer and information about Moco, he accidentally leaves with the Mariachi's guitar case. Moco's thugs capture Azul on the street but release him when they learn that the case he is carrying contains only a guitar. A short time later, the Mariachi is captured and taken to Moco, who identifies him as the wrong man and sets him free.
Meanwhile, Azul, who has no directions to Moco's home, takes Dominó with him and orders her to take him to Moco's, or Moco will kill the mariachi. Dominó agrees to save the Mariachi's life. When they arrive at Moco's gated compound, Azul pretends to take Dominó hostage in order to gain entry. Moco soon realizes that Dominó has fallen for the Mariachi and, in a fit of rage, shoots both her and Azul. Suddenly, the Mariachi arrives to find the woman he loves gunned down. Moco then shoots the Mariachi's left hand, rendering him useless as a guitar player, and proceeds to taunt and laugh at the Mariachi. Overcome with grief and rage, the Mariachi picks up Azul's gun with his right hand and kills Moco, avenging Dominó's death. Moco's surviving henchmen, seeing their leader dead, walk off carelessly and leave Moco's body and the wounded Mariachi behind, as Moco had consistently treated them disrespectfully.
The Mariachi leaves the town on Dominó's motorbike, taking her pit bull and her letter-opener as mementos of her. His dreams to become a mariachi have been shattered, and his only protection for his future are Azul's former weapons, which he takes along in the guitar case. He rides off into the sunset.
Cast
- Carlos Gallardo as "El Mariachi"
- Consuelo Gómez as Dominó
- Peter Marquardt as Mauricio "Moco"
- Reinol Martínez as "Azul"
- Jaime de Hoyos as "Bigotón"
- Edith González as Electra
- Ramiro Gómez as The Waiter
- Jesús López Viejo as The Clerk
- Luis Baro as Dominó's Assistant
- Óscar Fabila as The Boy
Production
The film was shot in numerous locations in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, located in Northeastern Mexico adjacent to Del Rio, Texas. The film used 16 mm film and was shot in 14 days.[10] Rodriguez had a $7,000 budget (equivalent to $15,659 in 2023), almost half of which he raised by participating in experimental clinical drug testing while living in Austin, Texas.[11] The opening scenes, featuring a shootout in a jail, were filmed at the local Acuña jail situated on the outskirts of the town.[12] The female warden and the male guard were the real-life warden and guard; Rodriguez thought it was convenient because it saved him the cost of hiring actors and renting clothing.[12] The intro bar scene was shot inside the Corona Club and exterior street scenes were shot on Hidalgo Street. The shootout was filmed outside at "Boy's Town", the local red-light district.
Not everyone in Acuña was pleased with the filming. Local journalists Ramiro Gómez and Jesús López Viejo were especially critical of the filming, and to win them over, Rodriguez gave them small parts in the film.[13] Due to the high body count of the film, Rodriguez increasingly had difficulties finding adult men to play thugs, as dead characters obviously could not return; for that reason, when the Mariachi meets Moco's gang at the end of the film, the gang consists mainly of teenagers.[12]
On the El Mariachi DVD, Rodriguez devotes both a DVD commentary and an "Extras" section to explaining the tricks of filming a feature-length film with just $7,000. Rodriguez heavily stresses the need for cost cutting, "because if you start to spend, you cannot stop anymore."
Rodriguez gave insight into his low budget approach to simulate machine gun fire. The problem was that when using real guns, as opposed to the specially designed
Several aspects of the film were improvised. The tortoise that crawls in front of the Mariachi was not planned, but was kept in anyway.[12] Similarly, there is a scene in which the Mariachi buys a coconut, but Rodriguez forgot to show him paying for the fruit; instead of driving back to the place to shoot additional scenes, Rodriguez decided to build in a voice-over in which the Mariachi asserts that the coconuts were for free.[12] Improvisation was also useful to cover up continuity mistakes: at the end of the movie, the Mariachi has his left hand shot, but Rodriguez forgot to bring the metal glove to cover up the actor's hand; he solved it by packing his hand with black duct tape.[13]
In the DVD commentary, Rodriguez describes the acting of Peter Marquardt who portrayed gangster boss Moco. As the language of the film was Spanish, which Marquardt did not master, he had to learn his lines without understanding what he was saying.[12] The running gag, in which Moco lights up his match using the moustache of his henchman Bigotón, was described by Rodriguez as a means to start and end the film: the end scene is a parody of this scene. When Moco was hit in the chest in the final shooting, Marquardt's blood squib exploded with such force that he actually crumpled to the ground in pain.[12]
Originally, the film was meant to be sold on the Latino video market as funding for another bigger and better project that Rodriguez was contemplating. However, after being rejected from various Latino straight-to-video distributors, Rodriguez decided to send his film (it was in the format of a trailer at the time) to bigger distribution companies where it started to get attention.
When the sequel Desperado was produced, Antonio Banderas replaced Gallardo as the actor for the main character of the series. The filmmakers re-shot the final showdown from El Mariachi as a flashback sequence for Banderas' character in Desperado.
Music
For the scene in which the Mariachi delivers a song in front of Dominó, Rodriguez hired Juan Francisco Suarez Vidaurri, a local entertainer. Recording the song with little more than a microphone held next to the musician, Rodriguez pitched the voice to match the voice of Mariachi actor Carlos Gallardo.[13]
Book
The story of the film's production inspired Rodriguez to write the book Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.
Television adaptation
Sony's AXN channel confirmed that it would air TV series adaptation called El Mariachi. The series premiered on March 20, 2014.[14][15]
Reception
Critical reception
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The film received universal critical acclaim.[16] Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes shows a 91% score based on 75 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's consensus states: "Made on a shoestring budget, El Mariachi's story is not new. However, the movie has so much energy that it's thoroughly enjoyable."[17] Metacritic reports a 73 out of 100 rating based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[18]
Awards and honors
El Mariachi won multiple international awards, including the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature (beating out MTV Movie Award for Best Movie winner Menace II Society). Writer/producer/director Rodriguez went on to gain international fame; he was interviewed on such shows as Sábado Gigante and proceeded thereafter to secure Hollywood-backing for films such as The Faculty and Sin City. In December 2011, El Mariachi was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[19] Citing it as the film that "helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s", the Registry gave special mention to director Robert Rodriguez and his ability to merge two separate genres of films—"the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns"—successfully "despite the constraints of a shoestring budget."[20]
References
- ^ a b "El Mariachi". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on August 1, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2012.
- ^ "EL MARIACHI (15)". British Board of Film Classification. July 1, 1993. Archived from the original on March 11, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ El Mariachi at Box Office Mojo
- ^ Shone, Tom (November 25, 2009). "Paranormal Activity and the myth of the shoestring shocker". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on October 22, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
- ^ Laws, Zach; Beachum, Chris (August 5, 2023). "Antonio Banderas movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst to best". Gold Derby. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
- ^ Haage, Anthony (March 7, 2024). "5 Best Mexican-Themed Casino Games You Can Play Online". The Yucatan Times. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
- ^ "2011 National Film Registry More Than a Box of Chocolates". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on November 14, 2017. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
- ^ "Oscars 2015: The Guinness World Records alternative Academy Awards". Guinness World Records. February 20, 2015. Archived from the original on December 25, 2020. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
- ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
- ^ a b "Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi - Filmmaker Magazine - Winter 1993". www.filmmakermagazine.com. Archived from the original on December 25, 2020. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i El Mariachi DVD commentary
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j El Mariachi DVD extras
- ^ "El Mariachi | AXN Latinoamérica". Archived from the original on March 8, 2014. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (August 5, 2014). "Hulu Launches 'El Mariachi' Series, 6 Other MundoFox Shows". Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
- ISBN 0-313-33211-8.
- ^ "El Mariachi (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
- CBS Interactive. Archivedfrom the original on December 25, 2020. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ King, Susan (December 27, 2011). "'Gump', 'Bambi' among 2011 National Film Registry selections". The Envelope – Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Archived from the original on December 25, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
- ^ "2011 National Film Registry More Than a Box of Chocolates". Library of Congress. December 28, 2011. Archived from the original on July 4, 2014. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
Further reading
- Rodriguez, Robert (1996). Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player. Dutton Signet. ISBN 0-452-27187-8.
External links
- El Mariachi at IMDb
- El Mariachi at Box Office Mojo
- El Mariachi at Rotten Tomatoes
- El Mariachi at Metacritic