The Baffler Presents: Global Texas

In conjunction with The Baffler‘s new issue “Global Texas,” BAM presents a quartet of films interrogating the forbidding terrain and complex history of America’s biggest (and perhaps most American) state. The series kicks off with a rare 35mm presentation of Saba, Texas-born Tommy Lee Jones’ directorial debut The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006), an unsparing interrogation of border violence and 21st century Manifest Destiny. Martin Ritt’s elegiac masterpiece Hud (1963) starring Paul Newman digs into changing generational attitudes towards agriculture, the ranching industry, and how to conduct business. John Sayles’ indie hit Lone Star (1996) invites viewers to “forget the Alamo” in a sordid tale of corruption and historical amnesia. And the late leftist maverick Robert M. Young’s turn-of-the-century thriller The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982) expands an old folk song (or corrido) about the struggle of a Mexican-American farmer (Edward James Olmos) to clear his name after he’s wrongfully accused of the death of a sheriff's brother.