Activist filmmaker
– who began career with El Teatro – receives Maverick Spirit
Award
From a small theater company started in the fields of
California, Edward James Olmos has made it to the silver screen and
the television screen. The actor and filmmaker, who was presented
with an award at the San Jose Film Festival, hasn’t lost his
activist roots.
Olmos, who grew up in East Los Angeles, got his start with El
Teatro Campesino, the activist theater group founded during the
struggle for farm workers’ rights. The theater company is still
active and based in San Juan Bautista.
Activist filmmaker – who began career with El Teatro – receives Maverick Spirit Award
From a small theater company started in the fields of California, Edward James Olmos has made it to the silver screen and the television screen. The actor and filmmaker, who was presented with an award at the San Jose Film Festival, hasn’t lost his activist roots.
Olmos, who grew up in East Los Angeles, got his start with El Teatro Campesino, the activist theater group founded during the struggle for farm workers’ rights. The theater company is still active and based in San Juan Bautista.
Luis Valdez cast Olmos as El Pachuco in a stage version of “Zoot Suits.” His character served as the narrator for the tale of a 1942 murder trial where Latino men were wrongly convicted. Olmos won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, a Theatre World Award and a Tony nomination for his role.
Olmos revived the role in 1982 for the film version of the movie. The Olmos family has remained active in El Teatro Campesino. His son, Bodie James Olmos, starred as Tommy Roberts in the revival of “Zoot Suits” in the late 1990s.
Local film fans were treated to a sneak preview of his latest film at Cinequest March 12, where he received the Maverick Spirit Award. The award is given to an actor or filmmaker each year who has broken film boundaries through technology, innovation or the stories they choose to tell. Past recipients include Sir Ben Kingsley, William. H. Macy, Sir Ian McKellan and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
“Walkout” is Olmos’ latest film and is an excellent example of why he was chosen by Cinequest as a Maverick this year. The film, which premieres on HBO March 18, tells the little-known story of a Chicano student uprising in 1968.
“We’ve been trying for six years to make it,” Olmos said. “HBO is the only [studio] who has any idea what they are doing with the art form of film.”
Olmos directed the film and played a small role in the film, which is based on historical footage and oral histories taken from people involved in the student rights protest.
The film stars Alexa Vega (from the “Spy Kids” trilogy) as Paula Crisostomo, an honor student at an East Los Angeles high school in 1967. Despite her excellent grades, the Filipina girl remained unsure if she would attend college and started out her senior year focused on the prom committee. When history teacher Sal Castro, played by Michael Pena (from “Crash”), encouraged her to attend a Chicano student leadership conference, it changed the future for Crisostomo and other East Los Angeles students.
Crisostomo started questioning the way she and her fellow students were treated. The students were not allowed to use restrooms during the lunch period. They were hit with paddles for speaking Spanish in class. Counselors encouraged few students to apply for college, even community colleges, and the drop-out rate was high.
With the encouragement of Moctesuma Esparza and Vickie Castro, college students whom Crisostomo met at the conference, Crisostomo rallied the students to fight for their rights. The young activists surveyed the student body and presented the information to principals and school board members. After school officials ignored the requests presented, five East Los Angeles schools staged a walkout in protest.
The most powerful moment in the movie is the walkout scene, when students banded together to defy teachers and administrators and faced-off against police carrying bully clubs. As the walkout scene starts, the audience knows that the beating of students is inevitable. In this instance, the beatings were not added for drama, but were based on historical footage shot at the time of the walkout.
“We found the footage of the beating of the kids in 1995 and no one had seen it before,” Olmos said. “They were taken in 1968. They decided it was better not to further inflame a difficult time.”
Los Angeles had just come out of the Watt’s riot, Olmos said.
“When we looked at the stock footage, there is a scene where a police officer gives one student a blow to the back of the neck,” he said. “It wasn’t a blow meant to stop someone or slow them down. And when we saw that recreated scene in the film, I could hear the audience gasp.”
While the walkout improved conditions at East Los Angeles high schools as well as prompted walkouts at schools across the nation, it had a personal effect on the lives of many Chicano students. The number of Chicano students enrolled at University of California, Los Angeles went from 40 to 1,200 in 1969, the year after the protests.
“We could have made this film ten years ago and it would have been powerful,” Olmos said. “But I think it’s better now because it speaks clearer today. We still have the same problems, but they don’t hit you in the face.”
Olmos, who said he would be bringing the film to theaters after it plays on HBO, sees the film as a chance to empower the youth of today.
“If they take it to heart, they can learn how to walk out,” Olmos said. “They will understand the basic empowerment they have. Adults should have tremendous fear.”
Moctesuma Esparza, who is the executive producer of the film, invited Olmos onboard for the project.
“He asked me to join up because they needed star power,” he said. “Not that I am a star, but I have a following culturally and for my humanitarian work.”
Olmos found himself drawn to the film for its story of activism and the importance it places on education.
“The film has a high message of education,” Olmos said. “It’s key to all of us to educate your mind. That’s the only thing they can’t take away from you.”
Olmos himself has six honorary doctorates and has placed on emphasis on education for his sons who all have master’s degrees, including Bodie who stars as Esparza in “Walkout.”
While Olmos has found strong Latino film roles for himself, he said economics keeps more movies about Latinos from being made.
“It’s pretty simple,” he said. “We have never made a film that has busted through or made millions at the box office.”
Still Olmos has made a stir in past roles, such as his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Jaime Escalante in “Stand and Deliver.” He directed and starred in the anti-gang story, “American Me,” and as a second-generation Mexican-American in “Mi familia, My family.”
“You get four, five, six great films if you are lucky in your lifetime,” he said. “I’d rather make one film of substance every ten or 15 years.”
