With a long and fruitful career
spanning more than 60 years, Alfonso Arau has become one of the more noticeable
filmmakers of the Latino community in Hollywood. Whether as an actor, producer
or director, he has shown an innate ability to be an extraordinary entertainer
and storyteller.
Arau was born on January 11th,
1932 in Mexico City, Mexico. His father was a dentist, which allowed him to
have a privileged upbringing. However, Alfonso attended the city’s public
schools due to his father’s desire for him to have compassion for his
countrymen (Grimm). He became attracted
to the performing arts at a young age, excelling at ballet and tap dancing,
singing, and comedic acting. Upon enrolling at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, Arau initially planned to study medicine, until a meeting with a
ballerina helped him to fall in love again with dance (Dent).
After attempting to be a professional
dancer, Arau noticed his skills as a comedic actor were in demand in Mexico’s
film industry. In 1954, he secured his first role in the Mexican comedy “El
Casto Susano”. That role led to other comedic roles in 1957 and 1960. He
migrated to Cuba in 1958 to host his own variety show. Later, he made his way
to East Germany to star in “…und Deine Liebe auch”, which premiered in 1962. He
returned home in 1964 to star along side legendary Mexican filmmaker, Luis
Buñuel, in “There Are No Thieves in This Village” (Grimm).
After studying in Europe, Arau
returned to North America and attended the prestigious film school at UCLA. By
the late 1960’s, and early 1970’s, he took on roles with directors who would
become well known: Sam Peckinpah and Alejandro Jodorowsky. In these films, The Wild Bunch and El Topo, he played stereotypical bandito Mexican characters, which
were described as “wild, dirty, and savage-like” (Dent). He eventually gained
more recognition with his films in the 70’s, including Calzonzín Inspector, which won two Ariel Awards. The Ariel Awards
were the equivalent of the Academy Award in the United States (Dent). While
teaching a screenwriting class, he began a relationship with another instructor
and aspiring writer, Laura Esquivel. They married in 1975 and worked on several
films together until they divorced in 1993 (Grimm).
The 1980’s brought Arau some of his
more memorable supporting roles in American films. In 1980, he starred
alongside Kurt Russell in Robert Zemeckis’ comedy Used Cars, where he played a very dedicated tow truck driver. 1984
and 1986 saw him slip back into his stereotypical bandito roles with supporting
nods in Romancing The Stone and The Three Amigos. Additional roles in
the late 80’s led up to what many considered to be his best and most well known
film, except this would take him behind the camera again as the director of Like Water For Chocolate (Grimm).
Adapted from his wife’s successful
book of the same title, Arau produced and directed Like Water For Chocolate. It was made with a small budget of $2
million dollars, but was able to gross $22 million in revenues in the US alone
(Grimm). Although it failed to gather any Academy Award nominations, it did
sweep the Ariel Awards by winning all 11 categories the film was nominated in.
Despite the overwhelming success of the film, the creative process put a strain
on the relationship between Arau and Esquivel, which led to their divorce and a
lawsuit in which Esquivel was seeking $19 million of the film’s profits (Grimm).
Arau directed seven more films after Like Water For Chocolate with varying
degrees of success. A Walk In The Clouds,
starring Keanu Reeves, was a “darkhorse chick-flick hit” (Grimm) and
brought in $50 million in the US. He also was involved in making a couple of
movies for television. Most notable of these was The Magnificent Ambersons, in 2002, which was the film Orson Welles
made, in 1942, but never saw his original, uncut version, released (IMDB).
Although his career has slowed down, Alfonso Arau continues to be an
influential figure in Hollywood for the Latin Community.
Works Cited:
1.
Dent, David W. "Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia of Modern Mexico. 376th
ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002. 6. Print.
3.
"Alfonso Arau." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 20 May 2014 <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000778/>.
