Viva Zapata!

On Friday night we watched Viva Zapata, Elia Kazan’s 1953 biopic, starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. It is well thought of (IMDB 7.6), but I found it an uneven collection of performances that were within themselves jewels. Once such scene takes place when Zapata is speaking with Mexico’s new president Francisco I. Madero. Zapata was one of several military leaders who joined in a revolution in 1910 that driove long-time dictator Porfirio Díaz from power and ushered in Madero. Zapata was moved to join this movement and mobilize a large peasant army because of the lack of access these peasants had to land for farming under Diaz’s regime. Now, the revolution being over, Madero suggests that Zapata and his peasant army lay down their arms and wait for the new government to execute land reforms that will give all a plot of land.Zapata (Brando) tells Madero they will not do this, and Madero, incredulous, asks why. This is where we walk into the theatre …

Zapata: Give me your watch.

Madero: What?

Zapata: – Give me your watch.

(pointing his rifle at Madero) Give it to me!

(Madero hands him the watch; Zapata examines it)

Zapata: It’s a beautiful watch. Expensive.

Now take my rifle.

Madero – No.

(Zapata thrusts his rifle into Madero’s arms, so that it is pointing back to
Zapata)

Zapata: Now you can have your watch back …

(hands him back his watch and points to the rifle in Madero’s hands)

… but without this, never!

Pretty powerful message. Historical note: The peasants disarmed; Madero’s government was taken over by hangers on from Diaz, and there was no land reform. However, the peasants rearmed and the revolution, in one from or another, went on until 1917.

The Wikipedia article on the films states that Viva Zapata is the favorite movie of G.H.W Bush and John McCain, but from this exchange in the film, I think you can see why a number of extreme revolutionaries on the far left embrace the second amendment as strongly as those on the right.