On Wednesday (December 14), the Library of Congress announced the latest batch of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films” added to the National Film Registry. This year, two Latine films, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez starring Edward James Olmos and Cyrano de Bergerac, made the list of 25 inductees.
From the National Film Registry’s press release, 1982’s Gregorio Cortez is a Western that is “acknowledged as one of the key features from the burgeoning 1980s Chicano film movement.”
Based on a true story and set at the turn of the 20th century, the film follows a poor Tejano farmer (Olmos) who becomes a folk hero when he evades a posse of 600 Texas Rangers for 11 days after he is accused of killing a sheriff in south Texas. Gregorio Cortez was adapted from the book With His Pistol in His Hand by Mexican American author Américo Paredes. The folk song, “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” was inspired by Cortez’s story.
The 1950 adventure comedy Cyrano de Bergerac is the first U.S. film version of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 French play of the same name. It follows a 17th-century poet and swordsman who attempts to help a handsome guardsman woo a young woman with romantic love letters. Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer played the title character and won an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Last year, the biopic Selena and the short film Chicana were added to the National Film Registry after the Congressional Hispanic Caucus campaigned for more Latine representation.
There are now 24 Latine films included in the National Film Registry. That is less than three percent of all the 850 movies that have been preserved since 1989. Gregorio Cortez is the fourth film in the registry that stars Olmos. Along with Gregorio Cortez and Selena, Olmos starred in 1981’s Zoot Suit and 1988’s Stand and Deliver.