Introduction
Behind the scenes, featuring director Taylor Hackford and writer Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Content
On a hillside overlooking East Los Angeles in the heart of the Barrio, something unusual is about to happen.
A Hollywood film crew has arrived to shoot a new motion picture.
The movie is titled Blood In Blood Out, it's produced and directed by Taylor hackford, who produced La, Bamba and directed An Officer and a Gentleman.
This has been the most passionate film project of my life.
Forget the dolly.
Let's do it.
I was putting myself on the line and taking a lot of chances and uh because of that I felt alive and more committed than I ever have before and action.
This film is about family.
It's about these three young men, two half brothers and a cousin.
This film explores the pain and the intensity of the Latino life in East, Los Angeles Working, Class People, who are struggling to assimilate into America.
It's about young men having a dream.
Every film that I make I try to make something that um.
You know strikes me to the core, and in this film I had a huge responsibility.
I'm, an Anglo making a film about a Latino culture, I needed a collaborator who could really speak to these issues and talk about these characters and know them intimately plus I needed a terrific writer.
What I wanted was a true Chicano voice for this project.
I call Jimmy Santiago Baca, he said well, I'm, not a screenwriter.
I said yes, but you've got the voice that I'm looking for you've got the experience.
I read your poetry, I happen to be home, I happen to be in a good mood.
I talk to him and I was listening very deeply to what kind of person he was and it was when I said.
Yes, I think I can do it.
Let's go to work.
You know.
I'm principio, Leo and I grew up in California.
I grew up with a lot of Chicano friends.
I spent time in their households, I felt an immediate affinity and love for Chicano culture.
It's probably the passion.
It's the humor East Los Angeles is the biggest vadio in the United States.
It's a fantastic, Community, fascinating and beautiful.
It was important to shoot there and it was important for us to be part of that community back in here and says his line.
This is a piece that comes with a lot of sincerity and a great deal of commitment on the part of the filmmakers and, at the same time, from Jimmy's pen.
He's writing about true events.
True situations, real life, Jimmy Baca, lived all the experiences in this film I'm.
All three of these characters.
Foreign Paco is me when I was growing up, he's the guy who says no one messes with me: he's the power broker.
He changes because he realizes that whatever it is, that he's doing, if it begins to kill the children, it's got to stop the painter.
He interprets the mythology of the Barrio through his murals in his painting, he's the one that gives meaning to our path in this life.
He's The Interpreter of Dreams Michael is the person who always wants to be accepted and wants to be in.
He has a white father and a Mexican mother.
Since he's been ostracized, he creates his own family and he finds that he's got to create that family in the worst of places in prison, but Jimmy Baca, embodied in this script, are characters that we can get to know.
We can understand their motivations and their pain and their frustrations and, at the same time, their passions forever yeah.
These three kids lives when they wake up in the morning, Anything could happen and death is around every corner.
You see, existence in their life is not broad.
It doesn't take on tomorrow.
Only thing that counts is today the violence comes out, but these are children doing it.
You've got to understand these are kids, they don't know what the consequences are.
They don't know that the boundaries are going to burst.
It's an eye for an eye biblical avenging, The Three Brothers in this film go through drastic changes in their lives.
The greatest passions can exist within a family.
The greatest loves the greatest hatreds, but you're, always Bound by that Bond of blood over the course of time.
They move in different directions, and you see brother coming up against brother Paco is a policeman.
He comes to a robbery.
Miklo is one of the masked robbers.
It's at that point in time that Paco is making the most crucial decision in his life either to betray his own people or stay true to himself and to his own belief system.
I was one of those kids, that's what's so painful.
I was the kid on the corner.
I'm the guy in prison, who went through the gangs I'm, the guy, who witnessed the injustices.
I was a guy who raged and hated I was so horrified.
What was going on that I repeated over and over and over again, that I will tell the world what's happening in here.
I will say it in my writing and my poetry.
I will tell somebody someone's got to know about it.
That's why your parole is so important.
You've got to prove there's another way.
There was a philosophy about this film.
You know it is a fictional film, it isn't a documentary, but I wanted a level of reality that was beyond reproach.
It became crucial to me to use a real prison Port an element.
There is not just the physical architecture, it's the human architecture.
The men who are there have a certain look and I wanted, specifically to be in California and even more specific than that into San Quentin.
The warden of San Quentin is Chicano, his name is Danielle Vasquez and when I went there and asked permission, he said, let me read, the script gave him a script and he looked at it and he came back and said who wrote this? This is real I, don't know where you got this information, but this is real and because of that, he let us in when I put the actors in with you guys, you walk through the gates and they make you sign something that says we do not have a hostage policy here.
That means you go in at your own risk.
It's a sobering responsibility.
I know the danger of it and I.
Didn't soft pedal that to the crew.
We never had an incident, we shot there for five and a half weeks, and it was an incredible experience and I know.
The reality is on the screen when you're inside those Prison Walls- and you see those men's faces, there's only eight actors, all the rest are real inmates.
I.
Don't think that this film has followed the footsteps of any film before it I, don't think it has predecessors I think that what Taylor hackford did as a director was leap into this Arena of fire.
It could have been easy to follow some sort of recipe, but we didn't.
We were truly following the heartbeat of East L.A.
The film is about Revelation and forgiveness.
It's someone forgiving another person for hurting them, and it's someone else revealing to that person.
Their weakness at the very end, we're looking at a man.
Weeping who hasn't wept, we're looking at a man talking who hasn't talked we're looking at two brothers embracing who haven't embraced.
What's important at the end of this film is that you see characters that have gone through and survived.
They've come out on the other end and the healing can begin.
We are in this boat together, we must discover each other's cultures in this country, as we always have in order to survive.
This film can be a step in that direction.
Come on.
