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Alfonso Arau

 
Director: Alfonso Arau
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Jan 11, 1932 in Mexico City, Mexico
  • Occupation: Director, Actor, Writer
  • Active: '70s-'80s, 2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Drama
  • Career Highlights: Like Water for Chocolate, Romancing the Stone, El Topo
  • First Major Screen Credit: El Topo (1971)

Biography

Mexican actor and director Alfonso Arau's first American film role was as bloodthirsty bandit Herrera in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), a role he would later parody (albeit with a straight face) in the 1986 comedy Three Amigos! U.S. filmgoers were by and large unaware that Arau had long been a popular vaudeville, theater, and TV performer, and had built his Mexican film reputation as an independent producer/director, beginning with 1969's The Barefoot Eagle. Arau reached the plateau of art-house idolatry when he decided to adapt a novel about the mystical aspects of gourmet cooking, written by his wife Laura Esquivel. The subsequent film, Like Water for Chocolate (1993), ended up as one of the most profitable foreign movies ever exhibited in America and won a number of international awards as well as multiple Silver Ariels, Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar. Arau followed Like Water for Chocolate with A Walk in the Clouds two years later. Arau's first American film as a director, it starred Keanu Reeves as a WWII veteran who poses as the husband of a pregnant young woman in order to help her preserve her standing within her family. Despite great anticipation surrounding its release, the film proved to be a critical and commercial disappointment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: Alfonso Arau
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Alfonso Arau
Born January 11, 1932 (1932-01-11)
Mexico City, Mexico

Alfonso Arau (born January 11, 1932) is a Mexican actor and director.[1]

Arau was born in Mexico City, the son of a doctor.[2] He directed the films Zapata: The Dream of a Hero, Like Water for Chocolate (adapted from the novel written by his ex-wife Laura Esquivel), A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production A Painted House, adapted from the John Grisham novel of the same name. Among others, he played the role of antagonist "El Guapo" in Three Amigos (USA, 1986), a comedy with Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Chevy Chase. He also played Captain Herrera in Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western, The Wild Bunch and Juan the smuggler in Romancing the Stone.

In 1973 Arau acted in and directed Calzónzin Inspector, a movie based on a Mexican comic called Los Supermachos, by the Mexican cartoonist Rius, although Rius disapproved of the movie. The movie is about two indigenous Mexicans who are mistakenly taken for government inspectors from the capital by the corrupt mayor of a small town. It is a humorous political critique, aimed squarely at the then ruling party Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and its caciques, in a time when freedom of speech in regard to political matters was highly restricted. There are at least two versions of the movie, the shorter one having some scenes deleted, the most notable one shows the killing of a renegade farmer by a police officer shooting him in the back.

A notable movie Arau appeared in was El rincón de las vírgenes (Mexico, 1972), "The Virgins' Corner" where he plays the assistant to a fake mystical doctor traveling from town to town, reminiscing about their travels when a group of women decide to propose the doctor for sainthood. The movie is set in the 1920s in rural Mexico.

In December 2004 the Santa Fe Film Festival bestowed its Luminaria Award for lifetime achievement in cinema to Arau. Jon Bowman, executive director of the Festival said, "Arau is truly a renaissance artist, with a deep and innate understanding of all phases of the cinematic medium."

Notes

  1. ^ Alfonso Arau at the Internet Movie Database.
  2. ^ Alfonso Arau. Film Reference, Biography, 2007. Last accessed: April 11, 2008.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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