Speaker 1: To make a film in a prison is to make
Speaker 1: the film real, and what Eddie wanted to do was
Speaker 1: to make that film as real as possible in that
Speaker 1: same realm of scared straight right of like, you know,
Speaker 1: if this doesn't scare you off, if you don't want
Speaker 1: to have to live your life in an environment like this,
Speaker 1: make different choices every chance you can. Welcome to more
Speaker 1: than a movie. American Meat a podcast that digs into
Speaker 1: the history and mystery of American Meat, a film directed
Speaker 1: by and starring Edward James almost that had a huge
Speaker 1: impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm your host, Alex Fumeto,
Speaker 1: and I'll be diving into the behind the scenes controversy
Speaker 1: every episode. I'm gonna try to peel back a layer
Speaker 1: of the story by trying to go deeper into the
Speaker 1: intentions and motives behind the film and the backlash. You
Speaker 1: were just hearing the voice of Antoinette Levine. She was
Speaker 1: an associate producer and supervising location manager on American Met.
Speaker 1: What that means is fulsome prison. Ramona Gardens, any of
Speaker 1: the play, says they managed to shoot this movie, which
Speaker 1: is a big part of what made the film feel
Speaker 1: so real. Antonette was responsible for those. She's retired now.
Speaker 1: In fact, she lives on a remote island, so we
Speaker 1: had to interview her via zoom, which is maybe why
Speaker 1: the audio sounds a little funky. But she worked on
Speaker 1: some location heavy movies, including The Adams Family, The Rookie
Speaker 1: and Under Siege, so needless to say, she knows what
Speaker 1: she's talking about. A location manager, she says, is reached
Speaker 1: out to by a producer or a film company. But
Speaker 1: what you're doing, what your job is, is you first
Speaker 1: are sent a script. Let's just say I've reached that
Speaker 1: level of location management. Let's let's just we American me
Speaker 1: in there for a minute. So I've done a number
Speaker 1: of projects with Clinty Swiss producer David Valdez, and Eddie
Speaker 1: Almost actually reached out to David. I didn't know this
Speaker 1: up front, but Sean Uh I forgot Seawn's last name
Speaker 1: for a minute there. But I got to reach out
Speaker 1: from the American me production to please come have a
Speaker 1: meeting with an Almost because David Valdez had recommended you.
Speaker 1: And so in essence, I was good at reading the
Speaker 1: script and getting a vision already. And once you've done that,
Speaker 1: you're already starting to have you read that script before
Speaker 1: you even go in for your meeting, And for me,
Speaker 1: it became important for me to be interviewing who I
Speaker 1: was sitting across from as much as they were interviewing me.
Speaker 1: Once uh, you're sitting in there and you're pitching your
Speaker 1: thoughts about the film. If you're if you're brought on board,
Speaker 1: you start working with the production designer, the person who
Speaker 1: makes the locations look a certain way, shoulder to shoulder
Speaker 1: with the director in terms of the vision of the film.
Speaker 1: The director, who in this case was Edward James Almos,
Speaker 1: who was very very actively involved in the whole process
Speaker 1: of creation. And now we've all made movies. The only
Speaker 1: difference between this movie and other movies because that we're
Speaker 1: stuck in between a war zone. They were right in
Speaker 1: the Cusp book, like three different groups of kids. And
Speaker 1: what Anna is afraid of, and rightfully so, is that
Speaker 1: there are so many as your kids here because she's
Speaker 1: afraid that it's gonna cause of conflation. So she's dealing
Speaker 1: with the director with a very specific vision for locations
Speaker 1: that have a lot of pretty dangerous complications to them.
Speaker 1: And as a location manager, you're actfully doing a little pitching,
Speaker 1: because you are also responsible for what's going on behind camera.
Speaker 1: Do you have a place to bring a hundred people?
Speaker 1: Is the neighborhood or the vicinity going to let you in?
Speaker 1: Can you get a film permit in this location? And
Speaker 1: it goes on and on and on, um and in
Speaker 1: in that way, Let's use even American me as an
Speaker 1: example of what do you do as location manager. First
Speaker 1: of all, you've got to get the state of California
Speaker 1: to say yes. And secondly, because I became very good
Speaker 1: at I became really good at get people that really
Speaker 1: in the real world should say now like absolutely not
Speaker 1: to say yes, including secret service, you know, including in
Speaker 1: the es in l a which was, as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: a really violent time. When we flash back to the
Speaker 1: time period that the film takes place in right to
Speaker 1: bring it back to American nineties, were well the nineties
Speaker 1: is when you shot right and I was put out
Speaker 1: a time where there were you know, riots in l A. Um,
Speaker 1: we're shooting the riots. Yep, you location managed Falling Down,
Speaker 1: which is to me one of the most underrated films.
Speaker 1: It's a gangland thing, isn't it. We're having a territorial dispute.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've wandered into your pissing ground or whatever
Speaker 1: the damn thing is, and you've taken offense of my presence.
Speaker 1: And I can understand that. I love that movie. I've
Speaker 1: watched it, I don't know how many times, UM, and
Speaker 1: that from what understand were you producing that? Were you
Speaker 1: working on that movie during the riots? Yes, we were
Speaker 1: working during the riots, And that's a perfect I think
Speaker 1: that's a great example. So I was down there looking
Speaker 1: for locations for falling down at the time when I
Speaker 1: got the call and essentially was told, um to really
Speaker 1: just hurry up and kind of get out of there
Speaker 1: if you will. I was essentially for those I think
Speaker 1: it was a five or six day period of the
Speaker 1: riots where everything was shut down, everything was on fire,
Speaker 1: and people were purposefully angry. Um. It really links in
Speaker 1: so much. American Me was shot just one year before
Speaker 1: the l A Riots, and the main characters literally conceived
Speaker 1: through a sexual assault that occurs during a riot y.
Speaker 1: The scene ends with Santana's adopted father played by Sal Lopez,
Speaker 1: screaming out his girlfriend's name, Espenanza Hope coming up. Antoinette
Speaker 1: tells me about getting the Famous Actors Trust and the
Speaker 1: warnings that she and the rest of the crew heard
Speaker 1: before they signed on to the movie. Here's another warning
Speaker 1: for me, though it's commercial time, welcome back. This is
Speaker 1: more than a movie. I'm Alex Fumeto. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: to associate producer Antoinette Levine managed to get fulsome prison
Speaker 1: to say yes when Edward James almost wanted to film
Speaker 1: there first, though she had to get the job. Tell
Speaker 1: us again, how you met Edward James almost? And tell
Speaker 1: us do you remember the first meeting, the first proper
Speaker 1: sit down meeting with with j L. I believe they'd
Speaker 1: give they'd give him it would they've given him an
Speaker 1: office at on the Universal lot. I believe that first meeting.
Speaker 1: I believe it was at the Universe a lot on
Speaker 1: Now I'm kind of a little fuzzy because I'm really
Speaker 1: actually in the four walls of the room with Eddie
Speaker 1: sitting across from me at a desk, and so it likely,
Speaker 1: very likely was it one of the producer's offices up
Speaker 1: on Universal, because the location manager comes on very early,
Speaker 1: long before you get um, you know, some sort of
Speaker 1: warehouse offices out in the world. Um, so in that
Speaker 1: way for me, I was just so taken with his
Speaker 1: past for this project. He he understood enough about filmmaking
Speaker 1: in that way, certainly maybe even coming up he did,
Speaker 1: you know he did stand in the liver standon the
Speaker 1: liver was before that, UM, certainly Miami advice. UM. He'd
Speaker 1: been on the streets in Miami, so he knew enough
Speaker 1: to know that, and he knew enough to reach out
Speaker 1: to David Valdez to look for a location manager who
Speaker 1: had HUTSBA you know who you know, who had gone us,
Speaker 1: who was going to show up and and deliver um.
Speaker 1: But he wanted to let me know. He said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be having this conversation with all my department heads. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the project, the subject of this film is
Speaker 1: very near and dear to my heart. I wanted to
Speaker 1: have this film made so I can take it around
Speaker 1: these United States of America and speak to young people
Speaker 1: so they might become determined to make different choices when
Speaker 1: choices are presented to them and options are available, because
Speaker 1: he knows that there is some space for choices. But
Speaker 1: he said, I'm making this film for that reason, but
Speaker 1: I have to have you know that it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be easy, and it may not always be safe. We
Speaker 1: were at we we could potentially be treading on sensitive toes. Um. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it was all of that. It was it was it
Speaker 1: was that we were gonna want of film in places
Speaker 1: where really you shouldn't bring a hundred people Fulsome State
Speaker 1: prison for instance. Um, we didn't know we would get
Speaker 1: to film there, and that was a I have to, uh,
Speaker 1: if if you're okay with me jumping ahead just to
Speaker 1: say a little bit about Eddie in the atmosphere of
Speaker 1: negotiating Fulsome State prison. Yeah, absolutely, so let's yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk about Fulsome because people need to understand. If you've
Speaker 1: seen this movie, it was shot in an actual active prison,
Speaker 1: which I have a lot of questions about. But I
Speaker 1: just want to hear you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about about that experience. All right. I would just say,
Speaker 1: his passion and his presence. His passion and his presence,
Speaker 1: we're so vital to the meeting that we were to
Speaker 1: have up at Fulsome State prison. Um. I'd helped organize
Speaker 1: and schedule a meeting with the with the warden because
Speaker 1: because the warden is like the mayor or the uh
Speaker 1: president in Ied States is like the warden. It's his prison,
Speaker 1: it's his prison. And even that had you know, the
Speaker 1: California State that's a particular permit process, but that was
Speaker 1: it wasn't even possible without the warden signing off on
Speaker 1: the project. And so I was able to schedule a
Speaker 1: meeting with them and bring in in in my peeps.
Speaker 1: And I remember this meeting because the visual I have
Speaker 1: of it is that we were sitting in a circle.
Speaker 1: I remember that. That's my impression of it. I do
Speaker 1: believe we were sitting. Maybe it could have even been
Speaker 1: folding chairs because it didn't feel like it was really comfortable,
Speaker 1: but we were sitting in a circle. As for this meeting,
Speaker 1: it was it was so amazing because it was almost
Speaker 1: like a tag team between myself and Eddie. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're talking to a warden and maybe his lieutenants are
Speaker 1: you know, he's key people who would want to have
Speaker 1: around him at the same time to have this conversation,
Speaker 1: A no would have been absolutely the right answer. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the you know that that's my background
Speaker 1: is turning nose into yes. Is that was Eddie's presence
Speaker 1: was like critical to this because um, yeah, sure you
Speaker 1: can say we're universal pictures. You can try and you know,
Speaker 1: throw that card out, all of that, But it was
Speaker 1: his his passionate intention for this film to make some
Speaker 1: sort of difference. And if these prison authority figures had
Speaker 1: any sensibility, and this is I believe, prior to all
Speaker 1: this huge privatization of present prisons the prison system in
Speaker 1: the United States, that they were still California employees and
Speaker 1: they still were intent upon their mission of doing some
Speaker 1: sort of good in this incarceration rehabilitation industry. Now, hum,
Speaker 1: some of them had a heart. I think there was.
Speaker 1: There was there was an alignment with a sort of
Speaker 1: synchronistic possibility here. I actually scouted a lot of prisons.
Speaker 1: I went to Solidad, I went to a lot of
Speaker 1: different prisons and and scouted a lot of prisons. It
Speaker 1: was Fulsome that visually really worked for the picture. Um,
Speaker 1: but they were the ones that said yes to this
Speaker 1: meeting as well. But his presence in that meeting is
Speaker 1: what got us to yes. Brian Brotherhood and the Blood
Speaker 1: Gorilla Family shared the rd out, but Fulsome belonged to
Speaker 1: us the oldest clicker the Mexican Mafia. So let's let's
Speaker 1: touch on that for a second, So why a real prison. Oh,
Speaker 1: such a great question. Let's just contrast that with the
Speaker 1: opposite of a real prison, uh set. In the film industry,
Speaker 1: what you do instead of a prison as you do
Speaker 1: a set. And yet there are sets in the l
Speaker 1: A H. Hollywood region whilst where they've built fake prisons
Speaker 1: you just don't have, you don't have the scope. A
Speaker 1: director wants that scope. You want that feeling and that
Speaker 1: sensibility that it's real. But I feel I have a
Speaker 1: sense and of that that Eddie also wanted for his
Speaker 1: actors and for his audience to really get to really
Speaker 1: be in prison with us, to really be in prison.
Speaker 1: My prison experience was I got to feel I got
Speaker 1: to feel them as as an invitee. Um, I got
Speaker 1: to fill the terror of being locked up um in
Speaker 1: that sense because even as a free person, you're coming
Speaker 1: into the prison and you're not free. You're absolutely not free.
Speaker 1: So imagine if you were a prisoner and you're trying
Speaker 1: to live your life out in this place. Um, there's
Speaker 1: just there's there's a sense of endless despair. So to
Speaker 1: make a film in a prison is to make the
Speaker 1: film real. And what Eddie wanted to do was to
Speaker 1: make that film as real as possible in that same
Speaker 1: realm of scared straight right of like, you know, if
Speaker 1: this doesn't scare you off, if you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to live your life in an environment like this,
Speaker 1: make different choices every chance you can. Do you think
Speaker 1: that he fed off of being in this environment? Was
Speaker 1: that part of his way of direct of Was he
Speaker 1: channeling that environment to direct to act? Were you able
Speaker 1: to sort of see that as it was happening, I
Speaker 1: would say yes, um, because he's actually the adamant actor
Speaker 1: when he's in front of camera. But I do believe
Speaker 1: that he was brilliant in his conception of the actual
Speaker 1: infrastructure of the film. The world say make it as
Speaker 1: real as possible, because then i'm I'm, I'm that's my
Speaker 1: I'm directing all my young actors and even the extras
Speaker 1: and whoever whoever. You know, we enrolled I think hundreds
Speaker 1: of extras, you know. So it was like he wanted
Speaker 1: the whole atmosphere the prisoners were in the film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's a piece of that too, like a part
Speaker 1: of our that whole circle meeting with the warden. What
Speaker 1: about the gangs though, because this is another thing that
Speaker 1: you know, like we talked to the Danny's right, We
Speaker 1: talked to Danny round Little Puppet and Puppet, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that they said was, you know, and
Speaker 1: this is without getting in too much into the controversy
Speaker 1: surrounding the film, the that that like, you don't make
Speaker 1: a movie like this in prison unless you have the
Speaker 1: okay of the bosses in the gangs right that they're
Speaker 1: they're just not going to allow. And that was a
Speaker 1: very com helling point that they made. As a location manager,
Speaker 1: were you having to kind of have conversations with the
Speaker 1: guys that ran a certain block or ran a certain area. No,
Speaker 1: I was not. I didn't have to be uh engaged
Speaker 1: with any of I was actually not allowed to be.
Speaker 1: You're you're you. You're never supposed to engage with any
Speaker 1: of the inmates, even when they're extras, even when they're
Speaker 1: extras um and it's like you just you aren't engaging
Speaker 1: with the inmates Like that just seemed to be like
Speaker 1: kind of uh. I don't know how spoken that was,
Speaker 1: but we we did do orientations for all of the
Speaker 1: crew members before they could come in, very very strict orientations.
Speaker 1: I don't have any of those materials with me. So
Speaker 1: I don't remember what we said, but we were telling
Speaker 1: everyone to button it down like they literally you just
Speaker 1: imagine any scene from any movie where the friends or
Speaker 1: family are coming to visit the inmate, just that is
Speaker 1: very is very telling that they're not supposed to touch
Speaker 1: or they're not supposed to give them anything. So it
Speaker 1: was it was we were still separated from the inmates
Speaker 1: right um in that way. So yes, there was no
Speaker 1: for me. I don't know who would have done the
Speaker 1: permission getting of the I don't even know what was
Speaker 1: going on in that element or realm. I I believe
Speaker 1: that even after we got the permission from the warden
Speaker 1: that yes, go ahead, and then it was it was
Speaker 1: step by step by step. It wasn't like, oh, then
Speaker 1: we're just gonna come in next week and film. Then
Speaker 1: it was like where are we going to film? Inside
Speaker 1: balls and State prison? And so I had to walk
Speaker 1: around and do more location scouting within the campus if
Speaker 1: you will, the complex of course as a woman, as
Speaker 1: a female. And but the beautiful thing was happened is
Speaker 1: that here's the thing. There was a captain who was
Speaker 1: the captain of the cell block that we were going
Speaker 1: to use who began to walk with me. And once
Speaker 1: that happened, there were no more cat callings. There was
Speaker 1: no more So I ended up having Um, I got respect.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting respect, and so my fear level
Speaker 1: went down. Like I was never afraid, but it was
Speaker 1: always very uh frazzling, energetically frazzling, tiring, you know, because
Speaker 1: you always you do have a certain sense of red
Speaker 1: alert going into a man's prison. Uh. He was, he
Speaker 1: was in charge. He was the one who was able
Speaker 1: to make all of this yes, no decisions uh as
Speaker 1: we moved forward internally in the prison, and so I
Speaker 1: was shoulders shoulder with him a lot because in filmmaking
Speaker 1: there's this constant, constant asking for, asking for You're always
Speaker 1: asking your your eyes asking for something more, or you're
Speaker 1: asking for something different or can we you know that
Speaker 1: sort of there's always changes and so but I was
Speaker 1: working with a great uh first director who understood, um,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's always assisting Eddie. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why the Associated producer credit for me, because so
Speaker 1: much of my job was really to understand what the
Speaker 1: limitations are. UM. As much as I'm gonna always push
Speaker 1: for what the company needs, and mostly for what a
Speaker 1: director needs on a film, what's their vision for the film.
Speaker 1: If our job as location managers, no matter what the
Speaker 1: film is even a dude, my dude, where's my car?
Speaker 1: Is to understand what the limitations are. It's like, you
Speaker 1: cannot we note, we cannot go back and ask for
Speaker 1: another schedule change. It ain't gonna happen. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: locked out here. And with that in mind, being in
Speaker 1: a prison, were you ever concerned? Were there ever any
Speaker 1: events that you were like, oh, okay, this, I might
Speaker 1: be in danger now? It was eventless because everybody's on
Speaker 1: their best behavior. Um, the inmates are sort of uh
Speaker 1: in a way, almost bragged if you want to be
Speaker 1: on this film, right, Um, so it's a perk for
Speaker 1: some of them. Yeah, it was a perk because it
Speaker 1: was something different, It was something interesting to do, something
Speaker 1: they'd probably never done before in their lives and might
Speaker 1: never do again. The only crew members that left because
Speaker 1: I believe Eddie had given that same cautionary tale speech
Speaker 1: to all of any department had coming in, but certainly
Speaker 1: at our final production meeting, it was just too much
Speaker 1: for them. Um. The cat calling that I received as
Speaker 1: a women and men would receive as well, and they
Speaker 1: didn't have a production of a captain walking around with them.
Speaker 1: And a couple of them left and that was the
Speaker 1: only time anybody left. So that was the only incident,
Speaker 1: if you will, that verged on. You shot in real
Speaker 1: people's lives, yes, right, Like when we talk about shooting
Speaker 1: in an apartment building and Boil Heights, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about a building. We're talking out a home. And it
Speaker 1: was a complex. And the beautiful thing about it, Alex,
Speaker 1: was that it was a complex that um it was
Speaker 1: an interior. It was built in the late twenties, I believe.
Speaker 1: And if you walk through this the stucco gate walls,
Speaker 1: you come into a courtyard and each of the apartments
Speaker 1: had a little stair case coming down to the middle
Speaker 1: of the courtyard. So it isn't like a modern day
Speaker 1: you know, hallway with doors and everybody separated. This was
Speaker 1: an interior courtyard, apartments doors facing each with a stoop,
Speaker 1: sort of East Coast style. Each apartment had a stoop,
Speaker 1: and there was all these different lives going on at
Speaker 1: each of one of those units. That's why it worked
Speaker 1: beautifully for the film. But the people that lived there
Speaker 1: their lives were all going on at the same time.
Speaker 1: We've come into this one location and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: who's there to greet us? Put a little kid three
Speaker 1: years old for whatever reasons, the parents are not around him.
Speaker 1: He's very tough little boy. He has been on the
Speaker 1: street for a long long time. Sleepy, you would have
Speaker 1: been the movie with us. He would have been the
Speaker 1: movie with us. See what they're doing. It makes you
Speaker 1: sensitive towards the fact that environment is everything. You can
Speaker 1: see it. If this child was getting exposed to a person,
Speaker 1: even reading a book, he would accept it. Okay, don't laugh,
Speaker 1: don't laugh, whatever you do you're on cameras, don't laugha
Speaker 1: he is the future gang member because he's out on
Speaker 1: the streets and he sees it going on and he's
Speaker 1: attracted to it. Yeah, he was down during the riots
Speaker 1: and the nine two, like absolutely doubted in the community,
Speaker 1: talking with people, you know, absolutely so being in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: going out on the streets with Eddie, even during the scouting.
Speaker 1: It was just an amazing community engagement experience. Um I
Speaker 1: didn't catch a lot of the flak that some people
Speaker 1: talk about that the film may have been stirring up. UM.
Speaker 1: I I didn't engage with that, maybe from a place
Speaker 1: of there's nothing I can do about how people are
Speaker 1: going to react to this film. I would hope that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a larger UM percentage of the
Speaker 1: global community that is going to look at this film
Speaker 1: for its meaningfulness, UM, you know, for its storytelling, for
Speaker 1: its ability to be a cautionary tale. UM. But absolutely
Speaker 1: going out into the vibrant Latino community on the east
Speaker 1: side of l A during the pre production and the
Speaker 1: filming of the film was maybe almost just a very
Speaker 1: inspirational UM. I keep getting flashbacks from walking through the
Speaker 1: men Gallo. There's UM and I remember Eddie at one
Speaker 1: time saying, oh my god, I could I could be
Speaker 1: I could be south of the border right now. UM,
Speaker 1: for the richness of the culture. But we're walking through
Speaker 1: a mercallo with on a final text out if you will.
Speaker 1: There was a shop that I had been looking for
Speaker 1: and I was showing it to them to for us
Speaker 1: to be able to utilize. And the people were just
Speaker 1: so enamored with Eddie, and he was so graceful and
Speaker 1: would just take time talk and say hello. It was
Speaker 1: never about him. It was always about community UM and
Speaker 1: our purpose for being there coming up. I asked Antoinette
Speaker 1: about her experience with gang consultant and murder victim and
Speaker 1: Alis Atrica, as well as the pressure Edward James almost
Speaker 1: was under making American me. Welcome back to more than
Speaker 1: a movie. I'm Alex form Metal. We're talking to Antonette Levine,
Speaker 1: the movie's location manager. The movie was able to shoot
Speaker 1: and boil Heights thanks to the work of a gang
Speaker 1: interventionist and consultant named Anna Lisa Raga, who was ultimately
Speaker 1: murdered just weeks after the film's release. My experience of
Speaker 1: Anna was that she was a key component to our
Speaker 1: community relations UM in the way that she helped mentor
Speaker 1: our Hollywood union selves, our crew members, and in that
Speaker 1: way of um of proper behavior UM when they're going
Speaker 1: on bringing their cells and their professional livelihoods into two
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that are claimed by gangs. UM that that we're
Speaker 1: really in somebody else's neighborhood and we're the visitors. And
Speaker 1: what's the proper way to show up? UM in mannerisms
Speaker 1: and clothing. You know, you're not wearing red or black
Speaker 1: or or blue or whatever the colors may have been
Speaker 1: um that were prominent colors of the particular gangs. What
Speaker 1: made her an ex How did she know? How did
Speaker 1: you know how to guide you that way? Because she
Speaker 1: worked in youth gang services. She was a community uh
Speaker 1: uh like UM, I didn't know a lot of this
Speaker 1: about her before I worked with her, because she was
Speaker 1: almost like another crew member in or almost consultant. And um,
Speaker 1: I was so deeply engaged with my responsibilities on the project. UM.
Speaker 1: So I learned more of it later, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: reading more about her background. But she was a beloved
Speaker 1: UM in the youth gang services uh offices or in
Speaker 1: an area as a mentor and a guide, sort of
Speaker 1: like an abuela if you will, certainly ada and uh
Speaker 1: she was very important to the community. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all I'm gonna say. I'm not I'm just to
Speaker 1: honor her life with that. Edward James almost must have
Speaker 1: been under an inordinate amount of pressure, whether he would
Speaker 1: ever even admit that or not to be a Chicano
Speaker 1: filmmaker at this time making a movie about essentially his people,
Speaker 1: albeit a sector of his people that he hoped would
Speaker 1: be different. Um with an activist purpose and a studio
Speaker 1: behind him who was sort of behind him but not
Speaker 1: super present, and and at the same time trying to
Speaker 1: commit himself to this incredibly realistic representation of his hood,
Speaker 1: you know, UM and his and his uh you know,
Speaker 1: the heritage of these places that have been marginalized, right
Speaker 1: like the I mean he is juggling chainsaws here, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and Alex this was the nineties, how many years ago?
Speaker 1: With this, UM know? Today it would only be a
Speaker 1: slighted difference. UM it for me the question of how
Speaker 1: much there's still a missing of presents and there's still
Speaker 1: a missing of presence. Um. You the Hollywood wants to Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're four. We represent four acting just acting like
Speaker 1: four almost of the population on TV. So you know,
Speaker 1: before we before we wrap things up, I just I
Speaker 1: really just wanted to ask you of all the scenes
Speaker 1: in the film, which one is your favorite and why
Speaker 1: it might have been. Where Eddie's character Santana was um
Speaker 1: speaking with his I believe it was the little boy.
Speaker 1: He was speaking with the little boy who I think
Speaker 1: was his little brother outside during uh. I think there
Speaker 1: was a party or a wedding. Uh was that it
Speaker 1: was that it was the scene with the adult male
Speaker 1: and the young youthful male um and that it was tender.
Speaker 1: It was a tender moment. Check it out. That is
Speaker 1: your route me. Sometime I was a little while, I
Speaker 1: used to read them to my homeboys. They listened to
Speaker 1: said it was like poetry the way you loved doing
Speaker 1: to me, It's like a metaphor and a symbol of
Speaker 1: the whole film, in the importance of the film. And
Speaker 1: also there was a naivete. It's it felt um on
Speaker 1: on the part of the adult um that is also
Speaker 1: a delicate and tender piece, a certain naivete. On our
Speaker 1: next episode, we speak with Danny Harrow, who fielded phone
Speaker 1: calls from and was even followed by the Mexican Mafia
Speaker 1: for his role as Edward James, almost his right hand
Speaker 1: man on American Me More Than a Movie. American Me
Speaker 1: is a production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with
Speaker 1: I Hearts Podcast Network and Trojan Horse Media. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by me Alex Fumeto at Angry Yuka on
Speaker 1: the Internets, and our senior producer is Nigel Dora. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Rose Red, Nando Vila, and Kareem Tapp.
Speaker 1: Production assistants from Sabine Jansen and Stella Emmett. Mixing and
Speaker 1: sound designed by the waterlo Albornos. Our executive producers at
Speaker 1: I Heart are Gisel Bansas and Arlene Santana. For more podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen to the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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