Salvador - Gonzo Journalism in the Killing Fields

Mar

31

Salvador - Gonzo Journalism in the Killing Fields

≡ Category: Drama, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Drama
Director: Oliver Stone
Year: 1986

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

I recall Oliver Stone being quoted as saying something to the effect that he was going to try to fit everything but the kitchen sink into his film Salvador because his was likely the only film that was ever going to be made about the subject. He was very close to being right. There was an Oscar Romero biopic starring Raul Julia and that’s about it, I think. There might have been a TV movie or two.

True to Stone’s word, Salvador is seriously overstuffed: the rape and murder of the Maryknoll nuns, the assassination of Oscar Romero, it’s all there.

But in the middle of all this madness, Oliver Stone made the canny and unbelievably ballsy decision to use the character of a complete reprobate as the audience’s surrogate. Sure, choosing a white American as a fictional guide to a country of brown people is a time-honored Hollywood strategy, but not Richard Boyle, a gonzo journalist who gets evicted from his rundown apartment, is abandoned by his wife and children, and reacts by deciding to go for a jaunt down to El Salvador, asking his friend Dr. Rock the rhetorical question “Where else can you get a virgin to sit on your face for seven bucks?”

James Wood’s Boyle and Jim Belushi’s Doctor Rock are appallingly ugly Americans. Much of the tension of the movie comes from the danger these characters put Salvadorans in by their clueless shenanigans.

But there’s a method to Stone’s madness. The American bumblers allow Stone to take his audience everywhere he wants to take them. Less reckless protagonists would require more of a setup to get the action rolling and Stone is in one hell of a hurry, since he has so much information to pack into his movie.

The inclusion of these protagonists is also the reason Salvador is a Trash Cinema Essential. Without them, Salvador would be a grim slog through Central American politics and atrocities. As it is, Salvador has a crude, vital energy. We veer back and forth from National Lampoon style comedy to political satire to outright horror to suspense, hitting every stop in between.

I won’t spoil the movie for you by describing what happens. Just see it. If it’s your first time, I envy you.

Amusing trivia:

Oliver Stone made Salvador for only $2 million bucks. He got the high budget look of the film by conning the Salvadorean military into letting him use their planes, helicopters and military equipment by showing them a phony screenplay that glorified the military regime, when in fact Salvador condemns the regime for its human rights atrocities.

Update 4/7/08: I just checked out more extras on the DVD. It turns out that Stone lucked into the use of Boyle as a protagonist. He happened to see Richard Boyle’s manuscript lying around, which had stories about El Salvador in it. Stone and Boyle wrote the script, which was basically Boyle talking and Stone writing. No less than the ambassador to El Salvador at the time the film depicts says that Stone’s depiction of El Salvador was basically accurate.