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Robert Rodriguez’s Cinema of Possibility
Danielle Orozco
From surly narcotraficantes to stripper vampires and family fun fooglies to military zombie officers, Robert Rodriguez has had a prolific career of creating an entourage of entertaining and successful films. Frederick Luis Aldama’s The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez attests to the ingenuity of this U.S. Latino filmmaker, and provides readers with an extensive index of Rodriguez’s cinematic career. By utilizing comic book sensibilities and Tex-Avery cartoon styles, Rodriguez creates films that cross-pollinate genres and speak to a variety of audiences. While his films seek primarily to entertain viewers, they also reflect the sociopolitical concerns of U.S. Latinos in an urbanizing world. In this first book length scholarly study of Rodriguez’s cinematic oeuvre, Aldama offers readers an extensive and rare look into the director’s technique and style—including biographical information on the director and detailed commentary on each of Rodriguez’s major films. In addition, Cinema also features an interview between Aldama and the director himself—an insightful exchange that provocatively concludes this book-length study.
In short, the work of Rodriguez has received little scholarly attention. Prior to Cinema, only two book-length studies existed: Barbara J. Marvis’s Robert Rodriguez and Fabio Migneco’s Il Cinema di Robert Rodriguez. However, these studies were either outdated or inaccessible due to issues with publishing or translation barriers. Marvis’s biography focused primarily on Rodriguez’s initial films including El Mariachi, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn. Meanwhile, Migneco’s book has not yet been translated, leaving it limited to European publishers. On the contrary, there have been small pockets of scholarly essays on Rodriguez’s films throughout the years. Recognizing and yet radically expanding on these works, Aldama has also published a collection entitled Critical Approaches to the Films of Robert Rodriguez (2015). This collection of essays adds a variety of approaches (critical race theory, cultural studies, and cognitive approaches, for instance) to Rodriguez scholarship. Unlike Critical Approach’s myriad of perspectives, Aldama’s single-authored Cinema primarily focuses on how Rodriguez uses a comic book, anything-goes sensibility as an envelope for creating films with complexly layered content. Cinema’s singular focus gives Rodriguez the academic spotlight that his work has so long necessitated.
Fusing his perspectives as a film critic, ethnic studies scholar, and comic’s specialist, Aldama has a multifaceted approach to Rodriguez’s films as he considers the aesthetics of cinema, Rodriguez’s status as a U.S. Latino, and the influence of comics on the director’s career. Moreover, Aldama also engages with
The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez
Frederick Luis Aldama
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-292-76124-7 $24.95
Critical Approaches to the Films of Robert Rodriguez
Frederick Luis Aldama, ed.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015 ISBN: 978-1-4773-0240-8 $24.95
IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE Vol. 18, No.1 (2017) 130 Western philosophy and cognitive science as a way to understand Rodriguez’s DIY filmmaking processes and audience consumption mechanisms. Working with limited budget and technology constraints, Rodriguez learned at an early age how to create films that would “make new” audience perception, thought, and feeling about the world. As Aldama explains, after Rodriguez mastered the clunky VHS technology to make his early films as a teenager and young adult, he moved on to master Super 8, 35mm, Steadicam, HD, CGI, and 3-D filmmaking technologies. After mastering each—and even innovating within some areas such as 3-D and green screen—Rodriguez exercised absolute control over his product, opening up new cinematic possibilities.
In order to address how Rodriguez is playing with genre, Aldama organizes Cinema by theme. The first chapter, “Good, Bad, Ugly…Beautiful,” centers around Rodriguez’s narcotraficante films such as El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995), and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). While these films may seem repetitive or “choppy,” Aldama points out that perhaps this style is purposeful. Aldama identifies Rodriguez’s Tex Avery comic book sensibility to analyze how—and why—audiences suspend their disbelief and enjoy what might appear to be a series of unnatural social and physical actions. In the next chapter “Regenerative Aesthetics of Degenerate Genres,” Aldama analyzes From Dusk till Dawn (1996) and The Faculty (1998) and considers how the grotesque aesthetic aligns with comic book sensibilities whereby one can juxtapose extreme opposites such as beauty and repulsion in ways that audiences process both simultaneously. Aldama’s following chapter, “Familia Redefined, Chocolate Rivers, Rainbow Rocks, Dreamscapes, and S’mores,” is impressive in its analytic scope of the Spy Kids franchise. Besides paying attention to an area of Rodriguez’s work that is often overlooked, this chapter reveals that Rodriguez is a dedicated family man. Seeking a place where work and family could co-exist, Rodriguez ultimately formed Troublemaker Studios as a way to resist some of the anti-family policies of major Hollywood companies; he deliberately cut with Hollywood, creating his own production company and studio close to home and family; literally, his “Los Cryptos” editing studio adjoins his twelve-room, castle-like house. This is just one reason why Rodriguez has often been cited as a guerilla filmmaker. In other words, he plays by his own rules.
In the final chapters of Cinema, Aldama looks at Rodriguez’s film noir and borderland cinema. Although brief, Aldama’s “Tour de Noir Comic-Book Film” chapter on Sin City (2005) provides a detailed analysis of Rodriguez’s graphic comic book style. Emphasizing Rodriguez’s versatility, Aldama expounds upon the creative relationship between Frank Miller and the Latino director and how the duo was able to bring Miller’s graphic novel to the silver screen as an adapted yet faithful product. Rodriguez’s choice of technology and A-list actors also boosted the success of the film, making it accessible to a diverse audience. Lastly, Aldama’s final chapter “Otherworldly Mutants, Bandidas, Borderland Vigilantes…Fight Back,” considers the sociopolitical implications of Planet Terror (2007) and the Machete films. While at first glance these films might seem to push at the limits of the absurd, with Aldama’s closer investigation they not only entertain viewers but allow audiences to (re) consider stereotypical representations of Latino/a identity in media.
All in all, Aldama’s The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez is a breathtaking survey of Rodriguez’s feature films and his shorts made in college and high school. By citing Rodriguez as one of the most significant U.S. Latino filmmakers of the twenty-first century, Aldama credits Rodriguez’s heritage and his sense of familia within his work. His interview with Rodriguez provides additional insight and dimension to the director, and adds a personal touch to the otherwise academic labor of Cinema. Most importantly, Aldama’s framing of Rodriguez’s
IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE Vol. 18, No.1 (2017) 131 cinema through comic book sensibility offers readers a complex understanding of how Rodriguez’s DIY filmmaking can open our eyes to new ways of seeing, feeling, and thinking about the world we inhabit. The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez is an absolute must read for die-hard fans of Rodriguez’s filmic career as well as those interested in the craft and science of filmmaking. As a director as well as artist and cartoonist himself, Rodriguez is living proof that creativity and innovation are as necessary as the food that nourishes and the roofs that shelter us. In this carefully honed, reader-friendly, and concise scholarly study, Aldama wondrously captures the spirit of this extraordinary Latino filmmaker’s creations—in all their grotesque and beautiful glory.
Danielle Orozco received her BA in English from California State University, Northridge. As a graduate
student at OSU-Colubmus, her research interests include 20th century American literature with an emphasis in Chicana/o, Native American, and African American studies
