I know who he is and what he has directed. I enjoy a couple of his movies (Desperado especially, Once Upon a Time in Mexico as well, I liked The Faculty a little more after finding out her directed, and of course Sin City rocked). But I recently bought the collector’s edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and on the back of the case they had a quote from Robert Rodriguez saying it is “Pure Cinema.” Now, I have no problem with him, I read his book and, in fact, I like him just fine. I even like his taste in music.
But, as a director, who is he? Did he bring in a new style or bring in anything new? Is he especially good at something?
He seems like a cool guy, but other then that, is there anything special about him?
I think he’s seen as a maverick who generally works outside of the Hollywood system, but is still very successful and well-respected. IIRC he often uses a minimal crew and does many things himself–including the camerawork, lighting, musical score, etc. Sin City was filmed entirely in his studio in Austin, Texas, and it is seen as pushing the boundaries in the extent of its use of green-screen technology. Rodriguez is also one of the major proponents (along with George Lucas) of using digital cameras, rather than film. Also, he makes his movies for relatively low budgets, which is of course attractive to producers and studios.
In short:
he has a flair for directing action movies, an appealing use of stylized visuals
well, I imagine that one reason to quote him is to aim for the Hispanic audience, since he and Selma Hayek are sort of icons for “Mexicans who did well in the US against everything the gringos threw at them”. Including things like claims of having a Hispanic accent (no kiddin’, Sherlock).
RR’s first movie was El Mariachi. Desperado is Mariachi II, Once Upon a Time is Mariachi III. El Mariachi broke audience records worldwide, quite unusual for a mexican movie. Men liked things going BOOM, women giggled every time the beautiful female lead came on - moustache and all. Hey, she was a busy gal, didn’t have time to go to the gym and waxing and whatnot.
El Mariachi led to RR working in From Dusk Till Dawn with Quentin Tarantino. Other RR movies that you don’t mention include a series co-written with his son: Spy Kids. I’m not likely to watch the Spy Kids series any time soon but one thing that holds true through all his movies is that he’s a guy who uses every resource he has but whose main goal is, quite evidently, to have FUN - a widdle thing that many moviemakers seem to have forgotten about. Getting paid is a plus.
He’s influenced other moviemakers, for example QT. He’s also opened wider some doors that people like the Coen brothers had been propping open with their feet stuffed in the crack. For example, the biggest income by a Spanish movie is Torrente III, whose writer, director and main actor (Santiago Segura) has been doing cameos in so many American movies it’s become kind of a game with audiences: you’re watching an action movie, there’s some fat, balding, bearded guy… is he Santiago Segura? Wait until the final credits… read the names… yes! “Guy with pizza — Santiago Segura”. Torrente is a spoof on cop movies; Segura didn’t have any help with financing from the success of El mariachi but the work of RR, QT, the Coens… had helped prepare audiences for its kind of humor. Now if he ever says he’s doing Torrente IV he’ll have problems keeping financers off his doorstep
RR is also indebted to Spanish absurdist humor (“astracán”) - he’s sort of taken astracán and given it a twist of violence which the original didn’t have. Belle Epoque is an example of astracán that you can find easily. Lots of the jokes can’t be understood by foreigners since you guys are missing context, but I once rented it with an american boyfriend and we had to stop it several times because he was laughing so hard (he finally decided to stay on the floor after falling from the armchair for the third time or so).
Robert Rodriguez used to draw a cartoon for the Daily Texan when I was in college at the University of Texas. He would hang out on the West Mall with the other cartoonists, and I actually hung out with him a few times (his cartoon was hilarious - it was about a little girl named Marisol. There was one called “The Dog With The Big Cacotas” - this little dog would shit a mountain in every frame. I guess you had to see it to appreciate it).
He seemed genuinely touched that some punk-assed freshman dug his comic (it was sport to trash the Texan comics back then) and at least recognized me when I’d hang out. Then he graduated…
> well, I imagine that one reason to quote him is to aim for the Hispanic audience,
> since he and Selma Hayek are sort of icons for “Mexicans who did well in the US
> against everything the gringos threw at them”.
Please note that while Salma Hayek is indeed a born-and-bred Mexican (who is, interestingly, of half-Lebanese ancestry), Rodriguez is an American of Mexican ancestry. Rodriguez was originally famous for making an acceptable film for probably the lowest (adjusted for inflation) budget in history. (In other words, while there have no doubt been cheaper films, they were garbage that never got distributed.) He claims that it only cost him $7,000 to make El Mariachi, although it only cost that little because he got the free use of some stuff (a camera, an editing machine, and some free film, I think). He only intended to use El Mariachi as a “calling card” movie (i.e., an amateur-produced film that isn’t even distributed but exists only to interest producers in making future films with the filmmaker). A producer saw it and decided to clean it up technically and distribute it.
The director’s commentary for the film is probably his rough draft for the book - listening to it is like getting a fast-moving class in filming on the cheap.
OK, let’s see if I can rep-explain this in a way that Mr Wagner may find acceptable…
RR and SH are both viewed by a lot of people as “mexicans who made it good in the US”; their perception doesn’t have to be true but it’s good for sales.
Cocacola isn’t necessarily better than Kas Manzana. So long as it’s viewed by many people as more desirable, it will sell better.
And I refrained from saying this before, but where the hell did you get the notion that being half-lebanese makes Selma Hayek (her preferred spelling since she moved to the US, because Americans are more likely to pronounce it right) less mexican? I’m 50% Basque, somewhat Italian, a bit French, a bit German, a chunk Catalan, somewhat Celtic, whatever’s left Iberian and there may be a drop or two of Jew just for seasoning… yet I’m also 100% Navarrese and 100% from Spain.
I think Rodriguez is the heir apparent to the George Lucas school of filmmaking:[ul]
[li]Both stay as geographically removed from Hollywood as possible, making their residences (No.CA, Austin) the homebase of their production facilities, too[/li][li]Both stay as financially independent of Hollywood as possible. Though RR can’t completely finance his films the way GL does, he prides himself on refusing larger budgets, keeping costs minimal to prevent extensive suit interference[]Both are the biggest proponents of digital filmmaking in the industry, preferring filmmaking situations that are often completely digital creations[]Related to this, both are notorious micro-managers (both on-set and in post production). RR in particular gets editing & scoring credits on his films (in addition to writing/directing/producing)[]Both are collaboraters with very good friends who not only have greater critical street cred, but are Oscar-winners to boot (Spielberg, QT)[]Both have helped launch two trilogies that are essentially sentimental genre fixations, owing huge debts to films they loved growing up[/ul]The two big differences are:[/li]
(1) RR enjoys making R-rated films that are more explicit (both in sex and violence) than anything that’s come from GL’s body of work, but also films that are genuine “family films” made directly for kids, and
(2) RR has a more established stable of actors that have recurring roles across multiple franchises and films. Aside from Harrison Ford, there’s very little cross-over in GL’s films, but RR has used Antonio Banderas, George Clooney, Steve Buscemi, Carla Gugino, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Mickey Rourke, and Josh Hartnett multiple times.
Needless to say, RR’s Mexican ancestry (which is apparent in many of his films, though never in an “issue-oriented” sense) also makes him particularly distinctive in the American filmmaking community.
> And I refrained from saying this before, but where the hell did you get the
> notion that being half-lebanese makes Selma Hayek (her preferred spelling
> since she moved to the US, because Americans are more likely to pronounce it
> right) less mexican?
I didn’t say that it made her less Mexican. I said that I found it interesting that she was half-Lebanese in ancestry. I said that she was born and grew up in Mexico. I also just happen to find it fascinating that she is also of Lebanese ancestry. Don’t you find that fascinating?
I was working at U.T. when Rodriguez was a student there. I read the strip often, and thought it was hilarious.
The title of the strip, by the way, was “Los Hooligans.” And that’s the name Rodriguez gave to his production company. Most of his films open with “A Los Hooligans Production.”
I’m also a huge fan of Rodriguez’s “Ten Minute Film School” and “Ten Minute Cooking School” featurettes on his DVDs, where he walks you through not only aspects of the film production, but also some of his favorite recipes that go along with the themes of his various movies. I have quoted him often, where he says “Guys, not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to fuck.”
ah, good looking out astorian. The other guy that was great at the time was King… Walt or Tom? He had a great strip. One of my good buddies was a Texan cartoonist… I even I had a brief career as a cartoon character in his strip.
back OT, there is this movie being advertised called “Zoom,” I think… has that same low-budget cheesy effects look to it that the Shark Boy movie that Rodriguez did a few years ago. I don’t think he’s affiliated with it though.
