Burn!

Infobox Film | name =Burn!


image_size =200px
caption =
director = Gillo Pontecorvo
producer =Alberto Grimaldi
writer = Franco Solinas
Giorgio Arlorio
starring = Marlon Brando
Evaristo Márquez
music = Ennio Morricone
cinematography = Marcello Gatti
editing =
distributor = United Artists
released = 1969
runtime = 112 min (U.S.)
language =
budget =
imdb_id = 0064866

"Burn!" (Italian title: "Queimada") is a 1969 film starring Marlon Brando and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The plot is loosely based on events in the history of Haiti. The main character is named after William Walker, the famous American filibuster. While based on issues that Walker symbolically represented, the film is not based on the life of Walker.

Plot

A British agent, Sir William Walker (Marlon Brando), is an agent provocateur sent to the island of Queimada (a fictional Portuguese colony in the Caribbean) in order to organize an uprising of black slaves to overthrow the Portuguese regime. Great Britain wants to get economic control of the island because it is an important sugar cane producer.

The plan is to replace the Portuguese administration by a formally sovereign state controlled by white latifundists loyal to Great Britain. In order to realize this project, William Walker convinces the black slaves to fight for their liberation from slavery and for freedom.

José Dolores (Evaristo Márquez) becomes the leader of the rebellion, while white political leaders assassinate the governor and establish a provisional government. After the overthrow of the Portuguese regime, British interests establish a corrupt puppet government while Dolores is marginalized. While slavery had been formally ended and the former slaves in theory had rights, a legal and property system was established where they were forced to continue to work in the sugar cane plantations in even worse conditions than before.

William Walker leaves the island after the revolution. He comes back to Queimada many years later, this time in order to destroy the black political movement he helped spawn. José Dolores has taken Walker's ideas to heart and is now leading a rebel army against the British puppet regime in Queimada. Walker is no longer working for the British government but for the "Royal Sugar Company"," which organizes its own army and manipulates Queimada politics directly, including ordering the execution of one of its puppet presidents. After this, British troops land on the island, contributing artillery and crack infantry for fighting the rebels. Their main strategy is setting fire to the forests and sugar-cane fields to draw out the rebels - a strategy which is extremely successful, but also destroys the reason for Britain's interest in the island.

Eventually, the rebel army is defeated and Jose Dolores is captured. Dolores is offered his freedom in return for renouncing the rebellion. However, Dolores turns down this offer and is executed, willingly sacrificing himself as a martyr. The movie ends when Walker is killed by a man in the street, seemingly as revenge for Dolores's death.

Theme

The film is a reworking of the events of the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint L'Ouverture. It was also meant to reflect upon the situation in the Vietnam War, which was going on at the time. One of the more explicit references is the character of Sanchez, who becomes the leader of Queimada, only to be overthrown and executed by Walker and the military for not being vicious enough in fighting the rebels - a reference to South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was overthrown by the CIA and Vietnamese military in 1963 for the same reason.

William Walker was the name of a famous American filibuster who led a privately-backed invasion of Nicaragua in the 1850's. He was overthrown when his government threatened the interests of rail road magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. The chief protagonists name and personality is a homage to this, althrough they are of different nationalities.

Brando had the opportunity to have a role on "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" but chose instead to work on this film. He also had to turn down a major role in "Ryan's Daughter" because of this film's production problems.

Criticism

The original script referred to a Spanish colony. The Spanish government of Francisco Franco successfully pressured the producers to alter the script, so that the setting was changed to a colony of Portugal. Names in the film, however, remained Spanish. This is sometimes used as a criticism of the film, because it can be seen as an example of ethnic and language stereotypes in which the Portuguese language and culture are regarded as being relatively the same as those of the Spanish. In real life the British and Portuguese are long-standing allies, and it is extremely unlikely that the British would have attempted to overthrow a Portuguese colony.

Trivia

Evaristo Márquez, Brando's co-star, was a non-actor and a real-life sugarcane plantation worker. His role was originally to be played by Sidney Poitier, but Pontecorvo insisted on a non-professional actor.

In an interview with Larry King, Brando claimed that Burn! was his personal favorite film to have worked on. In his autobiography he claims, "I did some of my bes acting in Burn!"

External links

*
* [http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/artandindustry/burn.htm Detailed review at Film Comment]
* [http://www.monthlyreview.org/0207jbf.htm The Ecology of Destruction] by John Bellamy Foster