July 30, 2007

'La Bamba' is film trailblazer

20-year-old movie maintains marketing, inspirational power

By Melissa Renteria Conexion

Filmmakers will tell you nothing gets made in Hollywood without proof it will sell.

La Bamba, the 1987 movie about a pioneering Mexican-American rock 'n' roll star, provided proof that stories about Latinos could have crossover appeal; proof that Latino actors could draw mainstream audiences interested in seeing multilayered characters reflective of Latino culture.

''La Bamba showed it was possible to have a Latino hero based in a contemporary setting appeal to everyone,'' said Nancy De Los Santos, director of the 2002 documentary The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of Latinos in Hollywood and associate producer of the 1997 movie Selena.

La Bamba tells the story of Ritchie Valens born Richard Steve Valenzuela in 1941 who rose to stardom in 1958 and died in a 1959 plane crash along with two other young rockers, Buddy Holly and J.P. Richardson, known as the Big Bopper. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the film's release.

Its commercial and critical success became the benchmark for other Latino movies, a sign of what filmmakers could achieve and what audiences wanted.

''Everything in Hollywood gets pitched as a derivative of something else.

''We used La Bamba when we pitched Selena. That movie would not have gotten made without the success of La Bamba,'' De Los Santos said of the biopic about the Tejano singer that starred Jennifer Lopez.

Films such as 1993's Bound by Honor, 1992's American Me, and 1995's My Family owe their success to La Bamba, De Los Santos said.

Esai Morales, who portrayed Valens' brother Bob Morales in the movie, said filmmakers ''put their heart and soul'' into making La Bamba, hoping it would put an end to limited roles for Latinos.

''It's the best role I've done. They just don't write them like that anymore. To this day, the script is genius,'' Esai Morales said in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Today, the success of La Bamba seems unquestionable. But in the mid-1980s, filmmakers weren't sure if mainstream audiences would be interested.

Valens' career was brief, limiting his music catalog and fan base. He had been dead for almost 30 years and was probably most remembered for the plane crash, which was immortalized in the 1971 Don McLean song American Pie.

Valens was a Mexican-American kid from the barrio told by record producers to change his name so he wouldn't be labeled a Latino musician.

Two decades later, filmmakers wanted to use that label to draw audiences.

''A lot of people thought it would be this little summer movie few people would go see. They thought it would appeal to Latino audiences and fans of Ritchie's music,'' said Connie Lemos, Valens' younger sister, in a phone interview from her home in Hollister, Calif.

Filmmakers said the crossover appeal of Valens' music helped make the movie a hit.

''People knew his music. They knew his name,'' De Los Santos said in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Luis Valdez, who directed and wrote La Bamba, credits the movie's popularity to classic themes of pursuing the American dream, the dynamics of family relationships and the complexities of first love.

''I find people accept this movie because they relate to it, Latino or not. It was marketable worldwide,'' Valdez said by phone.

For many, La Bamba is more than a movie about a Chicano rock 'n' roll star. It depicts life for many Mexican-Americans in the 1950s.

''You see a lot of history in the movie, with the family working as migrant farm workers and dealing with racism of that time. Other people experienced stuff like that, too,'' said Carlos Acosta, a Mexican-American studies professor at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio.

As groundbreaking as La Bamba was, Esai Morales wishes the movie had inspired more, and better, roles for Latinos in Hollywood.

''Some of the roles are dreadful. We're either hostile, hormonal, hysterical or humble,'' he said. ''It's a sad state of affairs.''

De Los Santos, who teaches film classes at Cal State Fullerton, said many of her students say La Bamba inspired them to get into filmmaking.

Valens' family sees a more important legacy, one that will keep his life, his story and his music from being forgotten.

''Other generations will see this movie and know who he is, and then they will pass it on to other generations,'' Lemos said. ''Ritchie's story transcends race and ethnicity. He was such a great role model, and we need that.''