The Milagro Beanfield War
Encyclopedia
The Milagro Beanfield War is a 1988 American drama film
based on the John Nichols
novel
of the same name, the first book in a trilogy. It was directed by Robert Redford
and the screenplay was written by Nichols and David S. Ward
. The ensemble cast includes Ruben Blades
, Sônia Braga
, Julie Carmen
, Melanie Griffith
, John Heard, Daniel Stern
, Chick Vennera, and Christopher Walken
.
Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico
, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population.
The film tells of one man's quixotic
struggle as he defends his small beanfield and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
State politics and big business interests have agreed in a backroom deal to usurp the lifeblood of the town (water for crops) in order to pave the way for a land buy-out that threatens the way of life of the residents who live in Milagro, and whose families established the town over 300 years ago. Due to the new laws that divert water for use by big businesses only, Joe Mondragon is unable to make a living farming. In a reflection of actual western United States water laws, Mondragon is not allowed to divert water from an irrigation ditch that runs past his property as that water is for property owners with priority.
Frustrated, and unable to find work, Joe visits his father's field. He happens upon a tag that reads "prohibited" covering a valve that diverts water from his fields. He kicks the valve, unknowingly breaking it and letting water flood his fields. He decides to "sleep on it" before repairing the valve.
The rest of the story is an escalation of events between power interests on all sides. It is a story of the struggle between different perspectives, most have their own idea of what is best for Milagro, and all consist of various levels of selfishness.
At the heart, this is a war of competing values and competing definitions of what makes a community rich.
interests to a small community. The central character, Joe Mondragon, is tempted with offers of good paying work if he plows under his beanfield.
Activist Ruby Archuletta (Sônia Braga
) lays out the calculus of big business takeovers: if we sell out jobs and development happens, land values will rise, but so will taxes, and soon the older community will dry up because the residents will be unable to pay the higher taxes, and as a consequence have to splinter off.
Another theme running throughout the story is sacrifice. The community, caught in the logic of business, has all but given up; many have sold their land already by the start of the story, except one holdout—Joe Mondragon. As the escalation of events brings Joe Mondragon and Amarante Cordova, the oldest member of Milagro, to a precarious gun battle, Amarante is shot and the outsider interests seize the moment to arrest Joe on attempted murder charges.
The movie highlights the theme of the diminishing ideal of community in a world where simple communities are rendered nonviable by the expansion of business interests.
According to an article by Patricia Rodriguez in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Robert Redford was interested in filming part of the Milagro Beanfield War in the Plaza del Cerro of Chimayo, New Mexico, which is argued to be the last surviving fortified Spanish plaza in North America. Some locals responded favorably but many objected to the idea of big business changing the small community which forced Redford to film the movie in Truchas, New Mexico
.
Writer John Nichols
in his essay, Night of the Living Beanfield: How an Unsuccessful Cult Novel Became an Unsuccessful Cult Film in Only Fourteen Years, Eleven Nervous Breakdowns, and $20 Million, gives a blow-by-blow account of the film project as he saw it.
, film critic for The New York Times
, believes the film missed its mark, and wrote, "The screenplay, by David Ward and John Nichols, based on Mr. Nichols's novel, is jammed with underdeveloped, would-be colorful characters, including a philosophical Chicano angel, who face a succession of fearful confrontations with the law that come to nothing. The narrative is a veritable fiesta of anticlimaxes, from the time the sun sets at the beginning of the film until it sets, yet again, behind the closing credits."
Roger Ebert
also gave the film a mixed review and had problems with the film's context, writing, "The result is a wonderful fable, but the problem is, some of the people in the story know it's a fable and others do not. This causes an uncertainty that runs all through the film, making it hard to weigh some scenes against others. There are characters who seem to belong in an angry documentary - like Devine, who wants to turn Milagro into a plush New Mexico resort town. And then there are characters who seem to come from a more fanciful time, like Mondragon, whose original rebellion is more impulsive than studied."
Yet, critic Richard Scheib liked the film's direction and the characters portrayed. He wrote. "Redford arrays a colorfully earthy ensemble of characters. The plot falls into place with lazy, deceptive ease. Redford places it up against a gently barbed level of social commentary, although this is something that comes surprisingly light-heartedly. There’s an enchantment to the film – at times it is a more successful version of the folklore fable that Francis Ford Coppola
's Finian's Rainbow
(1968) tried to be but failed."
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
reported that 59% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on twenty-seven reviews.
The film was screened out of competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival
.
Nominations
contributed the film's original music. A formal soundtrack album has never been released, although tracks from the score were included as a bonus suite on Grusin's 1989 album, "Migration."
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
based on the John Nichols
John Nichols (American writer)
John Treadwell Nichols is an American novelist.-Biography:Nichols is the author of the "New Mexico trilogy", a series about the complex relationship between history, race and ethnicity, and land and water rights in the fictional Chamisaville County, New Mexico...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
of the same name, the first book in a trilogy. It was directed by Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
and the screenplay was written by Nichols and David S. Ward
David S. Ward
David Schad Ward is an American film director and screen writer.-Life and career:Ward was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Miriam and Robert McCollum Ward. Ward has degrees from Pomona College , as well as both USC and the UCLA Film School...
. The ensemble cast includes Ruben Blades
Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
, Sônia Braga
Sônia Braga
Sônia Maria Campos Braga is a Brazilian actress. She has been nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.-Early life:...
, Julie Carmen
Julie Carmen
Julie Carmen is an American actress, dancer and a licensed psychotherapist.She came to prominence onscreen in the 1980s, winning the Venice Film Festival Best Supporting Actress Award for her role in John Cassavetes' film, Gloria. Her acting training was with Sanford Meisner at Neighborhood...
, Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, John Heard, Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern may refer to:*Daniel Stern , American actor*The pen name of Marie d'Agoult*Daniel Stern , psychoanalytic theorist and author*Daniel Stern , Jewish American novelist and professor of English...
, Chick Vennera, and Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
.
Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico
Truchas, New Mexico
Truchas is an unincorporated community in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States. Located on the scenic High Road to Taos, it is halfway between Santa Fe in the south, and Taos to the north.Truchas has the ZIP code 87578...
, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population.
The film tells of one man's quixotic
Quixotism
Quixotism is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality...
struggle as he defends his small beanfield and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
Plot
Nearly 500 residents of an agricultural community in the mountains of northern New Mexico face a crisis almost without a stir, until a young, unemployed handy man with a family of four begins to irrigate his father's parched bean field.State politics and big business interests have agreed in a backroom deal to usurp the lifeblood of the town (water for crops) in order to pave the way for a land buy-out that threatens the way of life of the residents who live in Milagro, and whose families established the town over 300 years ago. Due to the new laws that divert water for use by big businesses only, Joe Mondragon is unable to make a living farming. In a reflection of actual western United States water laws, Mondragon is not allowed to divert water from an irrigation ditch that runs past his property as that water is for property owners with priority.
Frustrated, and unable to find work, Joe visits his father's field. He happens upon a tag that reads "prohibited" covering a valve that diverts water from his fields. He kicks the valve, unknowingly breaking it and letting water flood his fields. He decides to "sleep on it" before repairing the valve.
The rest of the story is an escalation of events between power interests on all sides. It is a story of the struggle between different perspectives, most have their own idea of what is best for Milagro, and all consist of various levels of selfishness.
At the heart, this is a war of competing values and competing definitions of what makes a community rich.
Cast
- Chick Vennera as Joe Mondragon
- Sônia BragaSônia BragaSônia Maria Campos Braga is a Brazilian actress. She has been nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.-Early life:...
as Ruby Archuleta - Daniel SternDaniel Stern (actor)Daniel Jacob Stern is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles in the Hollywood films C.H.U.D., Diner, City Slickers and the first two Home Alone films, and as the narrator for the television series The Wonder Years.-Early life:Stern was born in Bethesda, Maryland to a...
as Herbie Platt, sociology student - John Heard as Charlie Bloom, newspaper publisher and lawyer
- Julie CarmenJulie CarmenJulie Carmen is an American actress, dancer and a licensed psychotherapist.She came to prominence onscreen in the 1980s, winning the Venice Film Festival Best Supporting Actress Award for her role in John Cassavetes' film, Gloria. Her acting training was with Sanford Meisner at Neighborhood...
as Nancy Mondragon - James GammonJames GammonJames Richard Gammon was an American actor, known for playing grizzled "good ol' boy" types in numerous films and television series.-Early life:...
as Shorty - Rubén BladesRubén BladesRubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
as SheriffSheriffA sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
Bernie Montoya - Christopher WalkenChristopher WalkenChristopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
as federal agentSpecial agentSpecial agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
Kyril Montana - Carlos RiquelmeCarlos RiquelmeCarlos Riquelme was a Mexican film actor. He appeared in 160 films between 1939 and 1989.-Selected filmography:* The Absentee * Rosanna * The Boy and the Fog * Under the Volcano...
as Amarante Cordova - Freddy FenderFreddy FenderFreddy Fender , born Baldemar Garza Huerta in San Benito, Texas, United States, was a Mexican-American Tejano, country and rock and roll musician, known for his work as a solo artist and in the groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados...
as Sammy Cantú, mayor - Melanie GriffithMelanie GriffithMelanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
as Flossie Devine - Richard BradfordRichard Bradford (actor)Richard Bradford is an American actor, known for his lead role as former CIA agent turned private eye McGill in the British TV adventure series Man in a Suitcase, made by ITC in 1967....
as Ladd Devine - Jerry HardinJerry HardinJerry Hardin is an American actor who has made many television and film appearances. He played illegitimate heir, Wild Bill Westchester, in the failed 1982 television series Filthy Rich. One of his most recognizable roles was that of the character Deep Throat in the series The X-Files...
as Emerson Capps
Themes
The major theme of the story is the threat of big businessBig Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...
interests to a small community. The central character, Joe Mondragon, is tempted with offers of good paying work if he plows under his beanfield.
Activist Ruby Archuletta (Sônia Braga
Sônia Braga
Sônia Maria Campos Braga is a Brazilian actress. She has been nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.-Early life:...
) lays out the calculus of big business takeovers: if we sell out jobs and development happens, land values will rise, but so will taxes, and soon the older community will dry up because the residents will be unable to pay the higher taxes, and as a consequence have to splinter off.
Another theme running throughout the story is sacrifice. The community, caught in the logic of business, has all but given up; many have sold their land already by the start of the story, except one holdout—Joe Mondragon. As the escalation of events brings Joe Mondragon and Amarante Cordova, the oldest member of Milagro, to a precarious gun battle, Amarante is shot and the outsider interests seize the moment to arrest Joe on attempted murder charges.
The movie highlights the theme of the diminishing ideal of community in a world where simple communities are rendered nonviable by the expansion of business interests.
According to an article by Patricia Rodriguez in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Robert Redford was interested in filming part of the Milagro Beanfield War in the Plaza del Cerro of Chimayo, New Mexico, which is argued to be the last surviving fortified Spanish plaza in North America. Some locals responded favorably but many objected to the idea of big business changing the small community which forced Redford to film the movie in Truchas, New Mexico
Truchas, New Mexico
Truchas is an unincorporated community in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States. Located on the scenic High Road to Taos, it is halfway between Santa Fe in the south, and Taos to the north.Truchas has the ZIP code 87578...
.
Writer John Nichols
John Nichols (American writer)
John Treadwell Nichols is an American novelist.-Biography:Nichols is the author of the "New Mexico trilogy", a series about the complex relationship between history, race and ethnicity, and land and water rights in the fictional Chamisaville County, New Mexico...
in his essay, Night of the Living Beanfield: How an Unsuccessful Cult Novel Became an Unsuccessful Cult Film in Only Fourteen Years, Eleven Nervous Breakdowns, and $20 Million, gives a blow-by-blow account of the film project as he saw it.
Magical realism
In addition, film critic Richard Scheib believes The Milagro Beanfield War is "one of the first American films to fall into the Latin American tradition of magical realism. This is a genre that usually involves an earthily naturalistic, often highly romanticized, blend of the supernatural and whimsical." The magic mainly revolves around the character of Amarante Cordova who talks to his dead friend and asks the spirit world for help.Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics. Vincent CanbyVincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, film critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, believes the film missed its mark, and wrote, "The screenplay, by David Ward and John Nichols, based on Mr. Nichols's novel, is jammed with underdeveloped, would-be colorful characters, including a philosophical Chicano angel, who face a succession of fearful confrontations with the law that come to nothing. The narrative is a veritable fiesta of anticlimaxes, from the time the sun sets at the beginning of the film until it sets, yet again, behind the closing credits."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
also gave the film a mixed review and had problems with the film's context, writing, "The result is a wonderful fable, but the problem is, some of the people in the story know it's a fable and others do not. This causes an uncertainty that runs all through the film, making it hard to weigh some scenes against others. There are characters who seem to belong in an angry documentary - like Devine, who wants to turn Milagro into a plush New Mexico resort town. And then there are characters who seem to come from a more fanciful time, like Mondragon, whose original rebellion is more impulsive than studied."
Yet, critic Richard Scheib liked the film's direction and the characters portrayed. He wrote. "Redford arrays a colorfully earthy ensemble of characters. The plot falls into place with lazy, deceptive ease. Redford places it up against a gently barbed level of social commentary, although this is something that comes surprisingly light-heartedly. There’s an enchantment to the film – at times it is a more successful version of the folklore fable that Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow (film)
Finian's Rainbow is a 1968 American musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola that stars Fred Astaire and Petula Clark. The screenplay by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy is based on their 1947 stage musical of the same name.-Plot:...
(1968) tried to be but failed."
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 59% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on twenty-seven reviews.
The film was screened out of competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival
1988 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Ettore Scola*Claude Berri*David Robinson*Yelena Safonova*George Miller*Hector Olivera*Nastassja Kinski*Philippe Sarde*Robby Muller*William Goldman-Feature film competition:* A World Apart by Chris Menges...
.
Awards
Wins- Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
: Oscar; Best Music, Original Score, Dave Grusin; 1989. - Political Film SocietyPolitical Film SocietyThe Political Film Society is a nonprofit corporation that exists to recognize Hollywood films' ability to raise awareness in political matters in the world. Film makers are the ones who are awarded by this organization...
: PFS Award; Democracy; 1989.
Nominations
- Golden Globes: Golden Globe; Best Original Score - Motion Picture, Dave Grusin; 1989.
- Political Film Society: PFS Award; Exposé; 1989.
Soundtrack
Veteran jazz pianist and composer Dave GrusinDave Grusin
David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...
contributed the film's original music. A formal soundtrack album has never been released, although tracks from the score were included as a bonus suite on Grusin's 1989 album, "Migration."
External links
- The Milagro Beanfield War film clip at You Tube