Milagro Beanfield War Essay Example

an Anglo-backed enterprise consisting of golf courses, ski slopes, and condominiums for the wealthy to enjoy in their leisure time.

The people of Milagro are Hispanic; previously farmed the land, but they lost their irrigation rights through political finagling. When the land dried up, the majority of the farmers sold out to the developers, who now own the water rights. The so-called war begins when the one farmer who has not sold out, Joe Mondragon, in frustration over being turned down for a job on the crew of developer Ladd Devine; kicks open a sluice, thereby diverting the recreation area's water into his parched bean field.

Thus, Joe becomes an accidental revolutionary. His action is at first opposed by many of Milagro's residents, who believe that the development holds the promise of lucrative jobs. This opposition was seen through their continued use of affect displays which reflected to the audience the town’s people’s displeasure or support for Joe at various stages in the movie This demonstrates several themes on life ranging from the interactions of the rich and the poor, to the hot arid farming climate in New Mexico.

All of which have noteworthy importance in the film. Perhaps the most important theme represented is the idea that people should do what is right no matter the consequences. People are constantly faced with the choice of right and wrong. What they choose not only affects them, but everyone else involved. That is why being true to yourself is being true to everyone "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Yet if I am for myself only, what am

I? " (Esparza, 1988).

Joe’s choice reveals much about the town's built-up tensions and the potentially incendiary nature due to a seemingly trivial action. By using the company’s water, Joe divides the town into supporters and cynics. Among the supporters are: Ruby (Sonia Braga), a local garage owner, Charlie Bloom (John Heard), a former attorney who now serves as the town’s newspaper editor, Herbie Platt (Daniel Stern), a NYU sociology student who is conducting research on the locals, and Amarante Cordova (Carlos Riquelme), the town’s oldest citizen who talks to angels and his pig.

Meanwhile, as the town sheriff (Ruben Blades) attempts to mediate the far-from-gun-shy townspeople, a hired gun, named Montana (Christopher Walken), is out to stop Joe from irrigating his land and end the community’s quarrel with modernity Joe receives opposition from Milagros sheriff, Bernabe Montoya, (Ruben Blades) who thinks Joe simply has “a king-size chip on his shoulder" (Esparza, 1988). The owner of the Frontier Bar, Tranquilino Jeantete, thinks Joe wants to make a defiant gesture towards the Devine Company, which runs the small, half-deserted town.

The town's storekeeper, Nick Rael, thinks Joe hopes to make trouble and "drive up ammo sales at the same time he put Nick out of business," thereby wriggling out of the $90 debt he owes to the store for items bought on credit. The Devine Company's owner, Ladd Devine the Third, thinks Joe intends "a personal assault on his empire," and the old-timer Amarante Cordova thinks "Joe did it because God had ordered him to start the Revolution without any further delay"(Esparza, 1988). However, it is difficult to distinguish exactly what Redford wants

to stress.

Is he pushing the preservation of land, the rise of the working-class, or the influence of the Anglo/Spanish/Indian culture? All of these themes, while intriguing in their own rite appear to lose each other in the mix. Once such confusion is with Ruby, (Sonia Braga) her character degenerates into the stereotype of the Latin woman. In the film she is effectively de-sexed, held aloof from any male interest. In addition, from her first portrayal as one of the agents of action, an active subject of empowerment, her role shifts her into one of the basic stereotypes of women within the Patriarchal imaginary: women as land.

From the point at which Ruby goes to see the beanfield being irrigated by Joe, she and the field are linked as images. They are both brought from dormancy to fertility by the actions of others, and in the end they both are communal property, not to be had by any man in particular. This decision to make Ruby politically correct in her sexual habits, traditionally Hispanic in her passivity, and patriarchal archetypal in her symbolic Earth-Motherness, severely limited her character.

In addition to stereotyping, morphology was also used in the film, they are defined respectively as a selection process that is “used to organize and simplify perceptions of others. Stereotypes are a form of generalization about some group of people,” whereas morphemes “are the smallest units of meaning in a language” (Koester, Lustig, 2010). For instance, when a local referred to the “Smokey the Bear Santo riot,” another local would usually exclaim: “Ai Chihuahua! ” (Esparza, 1988) but an outsider would have no clue

what they were talking about.

Milagro's Spanish is based on the immigration patterns to the tiny town of Milagro. Expressions such as “El Brazo de Onofre” or “Pacheco’s Pig” (Esparza, 1988) must have worked their way into the local dialect and is a reminder how much language is a shared experience. Spanish is the predominant language spoken in Milagro, and was used throughout the film. The use of nonverbal throughout the film at times helps the audience to connect with the story line, yet at other times it confuses.

For instance, the incorporation of numerous construction scenes, that are egregiously louder than any of the dialogue, is especially distracting. In addition, scenes like the playful dancing of the angel at the beginning of the film followed by the argumentative town meeting further allow the film’s focus to become muddled. The Milagro Beanfield War central message is the two clashing cultures, along with their opposing cultural values. In the American culture our leading value is individualism, which puts the focus on the self and the individual, whose economic side is free enterprise capitalism, as epresented in the film by the aptly named Devine Company.

In Hispanic culture, by contrast, a chief value is collectivism, which is shifts focus to the group and what’s right for the people as a whole, represented by the character Joe Mondragon's determination to endorse a traditionally shared communal right-and the collective support he receives in doing so. Joe's elderly uncle, Juan Mondragon, reflects this collective spirit when he argues in favor of opposing the company, he says, “In the old days people were more together,” (Esparza, 1988).