Border Witness — Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Part One: Origins

1. BORDER WITNESS: FROM PACIFIC OCEAN TO GULF OF MEXICO

2. BISECTED BODIES: EARLY SILENT FILMS

What makes a ‘border film’?
Irresistible stereotypes
Miscegenation
Mexico’s missing films
The Pilgrim 1923, Shorty’s Trip to Mexico 1914, The Bridge 2013

3. MAKING FILMSCAPES

Place and in-between spaces
Production in place 1: Hollywood
Production in place 2: Churubusco, Mexico City
Production of place: creating border filmscapes and audiences

 4. USING FILM AS EVIDENCE

Did Hollywood (and Churubusco) get it right?
Creating meaning from film
The Florentine Method

 5. REVOLUTION AND MODERNIZATION

The Mexican Revolution
Modernizing Mexico
In search of General Villa
Manufacturing myth
The Wild Bunch 1969, And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself 2004, ¡Vamonos con Pancho Villa! 1936, Viva Zapata! 1952

 6. THE GREAT MIGRATIONS

Coming to America
Departure
Crossing the line
Cruzando la línea
Purgatorio  2008, Border Incident 1949, Espaldas mojadas 1955

 7. BORDER FILM NOIR

Border film noir
Bordertown trap
Mexican noir? Elena goes clubbing
The emergence of Border Film
Bordertown 1935, Touch of Evil 1958, Aventurera 1952

 Part Two: Fusions

 8. BORDERLANDS BEFORE BORDERS                           

Borderland empires: Mesoamerican, Spanish, and Comanche
Remembering the cruel legacies of Spain
The unavoidable reciprocity of fusion
Compulsory Christianity
Cultural collisions: What kinds of fusion?
La otra conquista 1998, Cabeza de Vaca 1991, Yo la peor de todas 2003

 9. FROM FINAL GIRL TO WARRIOR WOMAN                                                   

Femicides and maquiladoras in Chihuahua
Last woman standing
Generations
Difficult women
Woman warriors
Miss Bala 2011, Miss Bala  2019(remake), Como agua para chocolate 1992, From Dusk til Dawn 1996, How the García girls spent their summer 2005, La misma luna 2007, Bordertown 2006, Sin Nombre 2009, Julia 2008, Savages 2012, Go for Sisters 2013  

 10. NARCO-NATIONS: MEN AT WAR                                               

The new narco film
Metastasis
Domesticating violence
‘In this war, there are no borders’
Traffic 2000, No Country for Old Men 2007, The Last Stand 2013, 600 Millas 2015, Sicario 2015, Pájaros de verano 2019

11.  LIVES OF THE UNDOCUMENTED

Immigration reform up to 9/11
Forced departure
On the other side
Going back
Chicano cinema
Through a Mexican lens
Those who remain
Mi Familia 1995, Ya no estoy aquí 2020, El Norte 1983, Alambrista! 1977 and 2004, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez 1982, Babel 2006, 7 Soles 2008, Desierto 2016, Ixcanul 2015

 12. MORAL TALES: BORDER LAW

Honor
Remembering
Border Patrol
Valdez is Coming 1970, All the Pretty Horses 2000, Lone Star 1995, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada 2005, The Border 1982, Transpecos 2016 

 13. BORDER WALLS: SCREEN FOLLIES & SCIENCE-FICTION

Absent fences
Electrifying fences
Walls
Virtual walls
Up in Smoke 1978, Born in East LA 1987, A Day without a Mexican 2004, The Day After Tomorrow 2004, Machete 2010, Sleep Dealer 2008

 14. THE MEXICAN DREAM / EL SUEÑO MEXICANO

Mexican Dream / American Dream
First cut
Private dreaming / El sueño privado
Portable dream / El sueño portatil
Deep dreaming / El sueño profundo
Excavating the core Mexican Dream
The Mexican Dream 2003, Mi querido Tom Mix 1991, El Jardín del Edén 1994, Bajo California 1998

 Part Three: Witness

 15. A GOLDEN AGE FOR BORDER FILM

Border Film genre
New themes in a Golden Age
Worlds of border film
Structures of storytelling in border film
Sin señas particulares/Identifying features 2021, Noche de fuego/Prayers for the Stolen 2021, Vuelven/Tigers are not afraid 2019, 499 2021, No Man’s Land 2021

 16. WAYS OF SEEING THE BORDER (BEYOND FILM)

Voices from the in-between
Is there a borderland ‘Third Nation’?
How the border third nation became a war zone
A borderlands democracy project

 17. BORDER WITNESS OF THE FUTURE

Acknowledgements

Appendix 1: CHRONOLOGICAL FILMOGRAPHY

Appendix 2: ALPHABETIC FILMOGRAPHY

Appendix 3: MAP OF THE US-MEXICO BORDERLANDS

Notes

References

Index