When asked by politico.com reporter Mike Allen to name his favorite movie, presidential candidate John McCain said Viva Zapata!
This 1952 Darryl Zanuck production directed by Elia Kazan and awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor to Anthony Quinn, stars Marlon Brando as Mexican peasant-turned-revoltutionary Emiliano Zapata set in the years leading up to World War I.
I’m a film buff and I never heard of it until I heard McCain speak.
“I still think it’s the great classic,” he said in this little-known video shot in the days leading up to Super Tuesday.
I found a VHS copy through my library and watched it today.
Written by John Steinbeck with his only original screenplay, the script contains memorable passages on democracy, human conscience, violence, and peace. The language flows evenly.
Toward the end of the film, Brando as Zapata speaks some powerful words.
This land is yours. You must protect it. It won’t be yours long if you don’t protect it. If necessary, with your lives and your children with their lives.
Don’t discount your enemies. They will be back.
If your house is burned, build it again. If your corn is destroyed, replant. If your children die, bear more. If they drive you out of the valley, live on the mountain but live.
You always look for leaders: strong men without faults. There aren’t any. There are only men like yourselves.
They change.
They desert.
They die.
There are no leaders but yourselves.
The strong people is the only lasting strength.
Can you feel the passion?
I’m curious how this film’s message and some of its quotes stack up to McCain’s platform on foreign policy, militarism, and land conservation.
[Video source: The Huffington Post via Mother Jones]
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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This is really interesting. I know nothing about the film but the words you shared are quite powerful.
Indeed, Mary. I’ll be returning the video to the library tomorrow (it came from Burlington, and there may be other copies for all I know) if you want to check it out.
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