THE BRAVE BULLS
US, 1951, 106 minutes, Black and white.
Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quinn, Miroslava Stern.
Directed by Robert Rossen.
The Brave Bulls is set in Mexico and brings to life the ethos of bullfighting and its popularity from Spain to the New World and countries like Mexico.
The film was made in black and white, using Floyd Crosby, a documentary film-maker, as photographer to give the film a realistic look. It was directed by Robert Rossen, director of the powerful boxing film Body and Soul, who won an Oscar two years earlier for directing Robert Penn Warren’s novel about Huey Long, All the King’s Men.
Mel Ferrer was emerging as a star at the beginning of the 50s. However, he was an actor of limited range and found his place in ensemble casts at MGM in such films as Scaramouche and later in War and Peace with his then wife Audrey Hepburn. Anthony Quinn was soon to emerge as a significant actor, the following year, with his Oscar for Viva Zapata.
The film focuses on the reality of bullfighting, the popularity, the skills of the matador himself, the repercussions for his professional life as well as his personal life. Budd Boetticher was to make a bullfighting film at this time, The Magnificent Matador. Bullfighting appears in the films of Hemingway’s novels like The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Sun Also Rises.
1. Audience response to the theme of bullfighting? The impact of this film? For and against bullfighting? An enjoyable and interesting study of people involved in this sport?
2. How much was the style of the film fiction and narrative, how much documentary? Were they well blended?
3. The Mexican atmosphere, the location photography? The importance of understanding Mexico, the people, their attitude towards bullfighting, rearing of bulls, training of matadors etc.? Sport, business, racial pride in achievement?
4. The film's focus on Luis? The picturing of his success and reputation, the jarring of this with the initial injury? The presentation of the mixture of success and failure? How realistic was this, for the audience to respond accurately to this man? His response to the strain of his profession, his tiredness and retirement? The background of the celebrity? The film's analysis of the driving forces that kept him in the arena? The crises in his life, professional and emotional?
5. How important was Luis' dependence on Raoul? Raoul's personality, his way of living, his deals and smooth talking, his bolstering of Luis? How well delineated was his character? The managing type and a successful agent?
6. The portrayal of Luis in action? His skills, his attitudes to the killing of bulls?
7. The film's filling in the background of other bullfighters, the life of the arena, the people who watched the matches, the fickleness of the crowd etc.?
8. How did the film contrast the breeding of bulls and the detail of the ranches? Bullfighting as a way of life wider than the events in the arena?
9. The Spanish heritage in Mexico? The countryside lending itself to a Spanish way of life?
10. The importance of Linda in the plot? As a character, her interest in bullfighters, her influence on Luis? His response to her and Its changing his life? The irony of Raoul's flirting with her and the effect on Luis?
11. The growing momentum of fear In the film? Luis and the various confrontations with people? His confrontations in the arena and his failures? The importance of the loss of Raoul and Linda and his awareness of this? His dependence on them? The discussions with the other bullfighters, their careers gaining as his declined?
12. The significance of the final sequences in the arena? The continual possibility of failing, the experts and the crowd's heroes being gored? The importance of the interior monologues about success, failure, the reason for being in the arena, the challenge of the bull, killing the bull?
13. What was the achievement of Luis by the end of the film? His understanding of himself, his professional status and skill, fear?
14. The insight into the sport of bullfighting, its skills and its art? The film as a study of human nature?
