During a time frame that spanned almost 20 years, countless lives were lost during the chaos that was the Mexican Revolution. Ousted from power early on in the revolution, Porfirio Diaz, was replaced with other political leaders that weren't much better for Mexico. Famous personalities emerged: Francisco Madero became a tragic national figure, and another man, Pancho Villa, became known as a charming bandit; it was a time ripe with heroes and villains, to be sure.
Films and miniseries have been made depicting some of the events of the Revolution, and it's no wonder as it was an interesting time of uprisings, betrayals, military truces, and political assassinations.. Biopics are enjoyed for good reason: when the viewer knows that events re-enacted are as they happened, the stakes are higher. It's a way to re-live history in a safe space and when life imitates art as sensationally as the Mexican Revolution did, it's tough to resist the urge to put some of those stories onscreen.
The first of these, and one of the most interesting, is a 1914 silent action movie called 'The Life of General Villa', which was produced by legendary director D. W. Griffith. It's incredible in that it starred the Northern Army general acting his own part, and was filmed during the actual revolutionary conflicts on location. Pancho signed on to the role in order to fund his rebel army's activities; his contract, which is now on display at the Mexico City federal archives, stipulated a $25,000 advance and a promise of half the movie's profits in exchange for allowing the cameramen to shoot actual battles.
The film footage can no longer be located and appears to be lost; fragments exist only and a few stills remain. However, quite a bit is known about the shoot; director Raoul Walsh, who played the young version of Villa, wrote about his experiences in his autobiography, describing the re-enactments of certain battles which hadn't been witnessed by the camera crew firsthand and noting the horrors of the reality of the revolution.
'The Life of' was released in May of 1914, and caused an immediate stir when there were reports that projectionists were becoming ill due to the documentary footage of war atrocities. Unfortunately, early silent films degraded over time, and many were destroyed once their venues at the theaters were completed, however it's uncertain how the full film was lost. By no means the last film to be made about Mexican revolutionaries, it was in fact, the first filmed. In recent years (2003), Antonio Banderas played the famous general in a TV movie 'And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself', where the events surrounding the original production were dramatized.
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