Alfonso Arau
Encyclopedia
Biography
Arau was born in Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, the son of a doctor. He directed the films Zapata: The Dream of a Hero, Like Water for Chocolate
Like Water for Chocolate (film)
Like Water for Chocolate is a 1992 film based on the popular novel, published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel. It earned all 11 Ariel awards of the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, including the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and became the highest grossing Spanish-language...
(adapted from the novel
Like Water for Chocolate
Like Water for Chocolate is a popular novel published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel.The novel follows the story of a young girl named Tita who longs her entire life to marry her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother's upholding of the family tradition...
written by his ex-wife Laura Esquivel
Laura Esquivel
Laura Esquivel is a Mexican author making a noted contribution to Latin-American literature. She was born the third of four children of Julio César Esquivel, a telegraph operator, and Josefa Valdés.-Literary career:...
), A Walk in the Clouds
A Walk in the Clouds
A Walk in the Clouds is a 1995 American romantic drama film directed by Alfonso Arau. The screenplay by Robert Mark Kamen, Mark Miller, and Harvey Weitzman is based on the 1942 Italian film Four Steps in the Clouds by Piero Tellini, Cesare Zavattini, and Vittorio de Benedetti.-Plot:Shortly after...
with Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
and Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...
, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
production A Painted House
A Painted House
A Painted House is a February 2001 novel by American author John Grisham.Inspired by his childhood in Arkansas, it is Grisham's first major work outside the legal thriller genre in which he established himself...
, adapted from the John Grisham
John Grisham
John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...
novel of the same name. Among many roles in his career, Arau has played "Captain Herrera", a lieutenant of Federale general "Mapache", in Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
's 1969 western, The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
, chief bandit "El Guapo" in Three Amigos (USA, 1986), a comedy with Martin Short
Martin Short
Martin Hayter Short, CM is a Canadian actor, comedian, writer, singer and producer. He is best-known for his comedy work, particularly on the TV programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live...
, Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
, and Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
, and the smuggler "Juan" in Romancing the Stone
Romancing the Stone
Romancing the Stone is a 1984 American action-adventure romantic comedy. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The film was followed by a 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile....
which starred Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; first as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the...
and Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, The War of the Roses, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Prizzi's Honor...
. Arau appeared in the 1972 Mexican film El rincón de las vírgenes ("The Virgins' Corner"), where he played the assistant of a fake mystical doctor traveling from town to town, who reminisce about their travels, when a group of women decide to propose the doctor for sainthood. The movie was set in 1920s rural Mexico.
Arau has made many appearances as a character actor in American and TV series and plays. In the 1972 episode of Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
titled "Hidalgo", Arau portrayed the bandit "Mando" who shoots and wounds marshal
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
"Matt Dillon
Marshal Matt Dillon
Marshal Matt Dillon is a fictional character featured on both the radio and television versions of Gunsmoke. He serves as the U.S. Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas who works to preserve law and order in the western frontier of the 1870s. The character was created by writer John Meston, who...
".
In 1973
1973 in film
The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
, Arau acted in and directed Calzónzin Inspector ("Cazonci" or "Caltzontzin" was the term used in the Purépecha culture, to name their emperors.), a movie based on a character from the Mexican comic Los Supermachos of Mexican cartoonist Rius
Rius
Eduardo del Río is a famous Mexican intellectual, political cartoonist and writer born in Zamora, Michoacán....
, who co-wrote the screenplay. The movie, which is influenced by Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
's The Government Inspector, centers around two Mexicans who are mistaken for government inspectors from Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
by the corrupt mayor of a small town. It is a humorous political critique, aimed squarely at the then ruling party Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and its paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
cacique
Cacique Nutibara Bloc
The Cacique Nutivara Bloc was a Colombian paramilitary bloc founded by Diego Murillo Bejarano, affiliated with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary umbrella group....
s, at a time when freedom of speech in politics was highly restricted. There are at least two versions of the movie, with one having some scenes deleted by State censors, the most notable of which depicts the killing of a renegade farmer by a police officer, who shoots the farmer in the back.
In December 2004, the Santa Fe Film Festival
Santa Fe Film Festival
The Santa Fe Film Festival is a Non-Profit Organization which presents important world cinema in a non-commercial context that represents aesthetic, critical and entertainment standards highlighting New Mexican film, new American and foreign film including revivals, retrospectives, independent...
honored Alfonso Arau for his work in cinema.
In 2010 he directed the Italian-language film, The Trick in the Sheet
The Trick in the Sheet
The Trick in the Sheet is a 2010 Italian romantic comedy film directed by Alfonso Arau. It stars Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Geraldine Chaplin, Anne Parillaud and Primo Reggiani. It was released in Italy on 18 June 2010.-Plot:In a small town in southern Italy in 1905, theatrical performances are...
.
In January 2011, he starred in Chad, Matt & Rob
Chad, Matt & Rob
Chad, Matt & Rob is a group of filmmakers based in Los Angeles. The group has created numerous shorts that often blend comedy with horror, adventure and fantasy. They coined the term "Interactive Adventure" to describe their 2008 film The Time Machine: An Interactive Adventure; the project was...
's "The Treasure Hunt: An Interactive Adventure."