May I ask you, sir...
did you murder William Benton?
I don't believe you did.
But a hell of a lot of your enemies...
are trying to convince a hell of a lot of other folks that you did.
If you can believe Jack Reed...
there are plans in the works in Washington right now.
Plans to invade Mexico and make Chihuahua our 49th state.
Plans to finish you off, knock you off, any way they can.
You have to understand...
that this is the kind of story the public expects, that they demand.
When they go to the movies, you give them what they want.
They give you what you want.
And what you want is something you have never needed more in your life.
Their approval.
I think every time you see me...
you grow one more huevo, Francisco.
And dismount, Raoul.
Everyone dismount.
And run to greet them.
Welcome your hubbies home.
Ladies, come on.
Let's go, ladies!
Come on.
Mr. Cabanne.
Can I get some hugs and kisses here?
Ladies, come on.
Sweet Jesus! Cut!
That's a cut, everybody.
It's just not in their nature. These women are shy.
Shy? They are as wooden as fucking Indians.
Most of them are fucking Indians.
Give me five minutes.
Come on, let's go.
And dismount, Raoul.
- And cue the ladies. - Ladies.
He has his own train.
It's just one more thing he's liberated from the government.
Fitted out a few hospital cars to take care of the wounded, made one for the press.
Like a city on wheels.
I walked it the other day. It's almost 2 miles long.
- Hiya, fellows. - Hey, Frank.
Hello there.
These are the Sanchez brothers. Abraham, Anastasio.
Ever paralyze anybody in Spanish before?
So this will be the lab. We'll be able to develop our own film.
This is the editing room.
We can watch our own dailies...
which I think will make a real difference in our work.
Going on and on, aren't I?
- You've changed down here. - Have I?
When I first met you, it was hard to know you were even around.
I never once had that problem with you.
I gathered.
Guess I was fairly obvious.
Girls don't mind that one bit.
- What have we got here, boss? - New wardrobe.
Civil War surplus?
Yeah, Aitken got a good deal on it.
You don't think these guys are gonna mind?
- Dressing up like the losing side. - I think we'll keep that our little secret.
Pretty impressive.
French, 75 mm. Perfect for the job.
Really! Mary Pickford doesn't take this long in makeup.
Mary Pickford isn't running a revolution on the side.
Don't think she couldn't.
Here we go.
How do I look?
You're weary, General.
Trappings of power mean nothing to you.
Your every goal has been achieved.
You've avenged your family.
You've righted the wrongs against your people.
Many lives have been sacrificed...
but in the end, you have saved the life of your beloved Mexico.
But the work of a president is never done.
Lawrence.
And return to your desk, General.
Pick up the pen...
and sign the document.
Good.
Lawrence, take the paper and leave. Bow and go.
And now the weariness returns.
Can you give me a sigh, General?
Beautiful.
And now your speech.
Into the camera...
into the lens that is the eye that sees for all the world.
Chapeau to you, sir. One take.
Is there anything the man cannot do?
It is easy to be president in a movie.
In a movie, Pancho Villa could be the Pope.
In the end, there will be other better men who will sit in Mexico City.
And you'll do what? Surely not retire?
I think the government would open a factory to make good saddles at Frago.
Pancho Villa, his hands filled with leather.
Pancho Villa's hands are leather.
And you would settle for just doing that?
That and watch that Mexico does not become...
another star on the flag of your country.
And what about you?
What Pancho Villa wants...
for himself?
A parade when he dies.
A parade, many tears, and many flowers.
For the children to miss his candy.
A funeral...
with many poets and singing.
And at the end, a tomb.
A big tomb...
where they can come...
where people can come, and see Pancho Villa...
will be always there for them.
Always.
You know, I wrote this scene in my head...
the very first time I laid eyes on you.
Was I okay?
You want to try one more take?
Is it too soon?
I don't know. Maybe not.
I'm sure not.
"Onward and upward" is the ticket. That's what Mom always taught me.
Tomorrow we leave...
to begin the last chapter of the Revolución.
Bravo, General.
You have much to film in the battle, my friend.
- The battle, sir? - The battle of Torreón.
I won't be going with you.
No, I finished my part in this film.
I'm going to New Jersey.
To start a new one.
Really. You can call my agent.
Excuse me, Gen. Villa.
Me, I don't go, sir.
You, too? You're not going?
No, sir, my work's through here.
Only the camera operators are going.
- What's happening? - I'm not sure.
Oh, my God!
Calling for a firing squad.
Here, Pancho Villa is the director.
Here Pancho Villa says who is finished and who is not finished.
Now you know what you will miss at Torreón.
Will you take this?
Too bad them actresses don't do no jazzing.
The hell they are!
Put the gun away.
General, these boys have been such a help to the movie...
and now you're turning them into soldiers?
You can't.
Is this what you want for the children of Mexico?
Schools for only some, Harvard just for yours, death for the rest?
One boy for you, one boy for Villa.
How can anyone possibly make that choice?
That one for you. I'll take the winner.
Now we find the end of the shots.
Close your stinking mouth.
- You remember our agreement. - Pancho Villa forgets nothing.
All right, got your cameras?
Ready?
Everyone ready?
Start cranking!
And action!
Keep firing.
Come here.
In the center in the valley of Torreón...
is the armory of Huerta.
Enough guns for Pancho Villa to make a hundred revolutions.
At Torreón...
Pancho Villa will give his General Ángeles and your Señor Aitken...
the mucho boom-boom.
Excuse me, sir.
You're attacking from here. This is the east?
You're firing at the Federales from the east?
Is there any special reason for that plan, sir?
Sí. Because it's mine.
What?
Your camera's going to shoot into the sun, huh?
Your lenses are not strong enough.
Nowhere near enough, no, sir.
Maybe you can move the cameras to the side.
This way the sun can come across.
Or...
Or what?
Could you change your attack so that you fire from the west...
instead of the east?
That would give us so much better a picture.
We kill them all your way.
Action, Señor Griffith.
Action.
The thing is, it's always easier for an army to defend a position...
than it is for one to take it.
I suppose you're right. Took the Turks 500 years to capture Constantinople.
What's this?
If we fight the Federales for 1,000 years we cannot beat them...
unless we fight them this way.
By day we can win the battle, by night we will win the war.
But you always must've known that.
In the dark I can smell the Federales'fear.
With fear comes defeat.
You never really intended to honor our contract, did you?
My only contract is honored with Mexico.
There's no choice.
It's better for me to lose the movie than the Revolution.
What the hell was in there?
The Federales hide their ammunition in the church.
This way they go to heaven faster.
Plenty of light now, Francisco.
- Hello, sonny boy. - Hi.
Take some of this.
Thanks.
Frigging rainwater.
That's all there is.
If you ask me, cows have been pissing in it.
Hell of a show the boss put on last night.
I didn't get one foot of it.
There are those days, kid. There are those days.
- Sorry, Sam. - Don't worry about it.
You can take a Jew apart, you can never kill him altogether.
Used to aggravate the hell out of my mother.
There's a law, you know.
Anybody with a tattoo, no Jewish cemetery will let you get buried there.
As if it's gonna bother somebody in the next grave, right?
I can't tell you how happy this is going to make my mother.
Charlie, set up fast.
This is the scene we missed at Ojinaga.
My God.
How could you?
Don't speak to me of God.
God has never been to Mexico!
If he has been, he has a heart of stone!
Go home, Frank.
All of you!
Go where to be born is to be equal.
The children of Mexico are not yet so lucky.
Mr. Walsh.
One more!
Very still, now. Very still.
As far as I'm concerned, two-reel films are a thing of the past.
I can imagine the time...
when a 5-reel picture was...
It's not gonna be an easy thing to see for us, because we...
Good evening.
Nice to see you again.
Good evening.
Onward and upward. That's the ticket.
Jack.
I want you to know I fought against editing that shot that way.
It means a lot to me for you to understand that.
I understand the difficulty in selling tickets to see a hero...
who mows down widows in cold blood.
I even understand the commercial need to transform an outlaw into an aristocrat.
Or passing off whores as loving wives.
Barefoot peasants who are entitled to freedom...
only after they've been properly dressed for the occasion.
It's a process of evolution.
It's the movie's turn to make truth the first casualty of war.
- Is there a second? - Well, if that's the first, who cares?
Why did he kill her, Jack?
So coldly, so brutally.
It's as though he killed the whole Revolution.
You know what it is to say to a whole country:
"Let me make everything that's wrong right for you.
"Let me carry you all on my shoulders"?
Eventually you begin to resent the weight.
You'd never know that from the movie I let it become.
Well, you'll find a way to live with yourself.
You'll find a way to live with Pancho, too.
You used each other, Frank. Mutual and Villa.
Together you proved that the lens...
is a hell of a lot mightier than the sword.
Hey, sonny boy!
Sam Drebben.
My God.
Sit 'im here. Park it.
Yeah, careful, sweetheart.
She's got a bladder like a faucet.
Watch what you say. She thinks I'm a paint salesman.
Yeah, right, Ma.
- Ice cream. - Okay, Ma.
Shades of Pancho Villa.
She's tougher, believe me.
Got too good a look at a Federale bayonet.
- You don't still work for him, do you? - No, not since after the Revolution.
Funny guy, Pancho. He gave me a letter of reference.
He said Moses should have used me for a machine gun.
Wrote it with your pen, too.
He was pretty browned off with you guys. He never did get to see that movie.
Jack Reed said that we made him look so good...
that Washington held off the idea of invading Mexico.
Be that as it may, you welshed on him. I was there...
when you promised him a print for the widows, remember?
- And the orphans, remember? - Aitken was mad he broke the contract.
Like Aitken needed an excuse to be full of shit.
Some revolution.
The new fuckers are the same as the old fuckers.
Big guys up here still control everything that's going on down there.
Both sides of the border still scared shitless Pancho will start shooting again...
because the Revolution's turned sour.
You want my two cents, for what they're worth?
Mexico would be a hell of a lot better off...
if God had taken his goddamn oil and shoved it under Brooklyn.
I wish very much that you had been in Baralf...
for the christening of my first-born:
Anastasio Francisco. Named for my brother and for you.
I hope he will be proud to say one day...
that he is the godson of Pancho Villa.
At the christening party...
the General was very much as the General always was.
Though some said later he was more quiet, more thoughtful.
They say he had a premonition.
After giving my son his medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe...
which many times over he would say really belonged to you...
he started to drive back to his hacienda grande...
with his secretary and two guards.
And then, in the center of Parral...
Some say the government killed Pancho Villa.
Some say it was the gringos. Some say it was both.
The General was dragged away like an animal.
Even in death they are afraid of him.
He is without a grave. He has no tomb.
How will they remember him, Señor Frank?
How will the sons of Mexico remember our Pancho Villa?
Following his assassination, the name of Pancho Villa...
was stricken from official records, statues, monuments, even children's books.
When the government decided it was safe to disinter his body...
it was discovered that someone had stolen his head.
In 1976, after half a century, the remains of his remains...
were laid to rest in Mexico City, alongside other heroes of the Revolution.
Finally he'd been given the funeral he'd always dreamed of.
As in the case of his head, the film The Life Of General Villa...
has been lost to posterity.
If anything at all, Frank Thayer remains just a footnote in history.
No complaints, it's not too bad being a footnote to a legend.
Ripped by: SkyFury