Iniguez, 1 Noe Iniguez Jr Chicano Cinema April 9, 2012 Nick Garcia Stand and Deliver Passion and Desire,

a theme many of us connect to throughout our life times. The passion to find love, the desire to be better and to prove people wrong. Many of us have experienced these feelings several times and have truly believed in them. The movie, Stand and Deliver, demonstrates the power these feelings have. The movie demonstrates passion and desire through each character, each musical score, and the main theme of the movie itself. The film, Stand and Deliver, demonstrates how the feelings of passion and desire can still shine through even today through its theme, characters, music, and story telling techniques used throughout the film. The films theme is universal and is easily comprehended through students even in this age. The theme is simply, With enough passion and desire, one can perceiver and can overcome even the hardest obstacles. For example, when the teacher, Jaime Escalante, is at the faculty meeting with the rest of the teachers and has just proposed the idea of calculus to the board, he says, All these kids need to pass is ganas, the desire to succeed and all they need is the passion to better themselves. In other words, he knew that the kids only needed to be pushed and to be demonstrated that the desire to pass and the passion to succeed would make their work easier and more bearable. Another example is that each student at one point or another has a breaking point and cannot handle the pressure of a higher level mathematics. With each student, he helps them through those pressure and isnt afraid to instill the desire to want to work harder and better themselves through desire and passion regardless of what life throws at them.

Iniguez, 2 Each character demonstrated a different reason for their desire or passion to pass that math class. Throughout the movie we saw how each character evolved, and how their desire and/or passion pushed them forward and made them pass the class. For example, we see how each student starts off from the beginning, uncaring or with little passion. One is the cholo who is the follower, following what his boss tells him to, but he realizes that his path is leading him to his own destruction, eventually becoming one of the most intelligent of the group. Another is the mechanic, who feels like he is worthless and is unintelligent, and also cared about his image and what kind of woman he dated. Towards the end, he realizes just how intelligent he is and becomes more accepting of the love around him. One other example is the pretty girl, whose mother cares about looks and believes that life is all about getting a man to take care of you. Even after all the stress she goes through, she still proves that you dont need to have beauty to be successful. In a way, each character personified the obstacles or distractions someone would have when they are passionate or had the desire to achieve something. With each character, we see that passion and desire pushed by Escalante, who knows that in order for someone to achieve said goal, they cant lose their ganas their passion or desire to go forward and succeed in life. While character made the integral part of the movie, the films theme wouldnt have had the same impact without a few more key components. Music, in any situation in life, can change the mood and theme of an event. Stand and Deliver had an inspiring music track, switching between what seemed like inspiring tribal and Latino music at moments that demonstrated the passion and desire for the students to succeed, while using popular music of the time to demonstrate the era and lifestyles these students had at that point in time. For example, towards the beginning of the movie where we see the water flowing and the neighborhood where he is to be teaching at, the music is very classical, very tribal

Iniguez, 3 Latino music, setting the mood for the rest of the movie. Likewise, this inspiring music is repeated in several parts of the movie, which include the major tests in the movie or points of great inspiration. Whenever this music is heard, we can tell that the desire and the passion are at an all time high and that they are trying their best. Likewise, when the backgrounds of each character is stated and placed for the audience to see, they play music popular in the 80s for the audience to understand where they are coming from. One example is when Angel, the cholo, goes out riding with his boss and they have rap and very thug-like music playing, while with other characters, they have very rancho style music and music typically associated with Latino and Mexican culture. When this music is played, it is usually meant to show the background of a character. The music played an integral part in the whole movie, demonstrating just how powerful the emotions the inspiring tribal music could produce in us the same desire and passion the students were feeling in the film, but none of these ideas would have worked had it not been for the story telling methods of the film. The first thing you can notice about the film is the importance of each character and how the focus of each character and the evolution of each character, including Escalante, through their passions and desires. The story may be told in third person, but takes a major focus through Escalantes eyes half the time. We see how he sees his life and how his desire and his passion is to push these kids forward and make them succeed at life and to go past the stereotypes they may live up to. As we pass through Escalantes eyes we also get a glimpse into the lives of each character at one point or another and how their lives are affected by Escalante and or the problems they face throughout their school career to succeed at their desires and or passions. The story is told in a very open way, not focusing on when character, yet giving us a chance to look at each character personally through their eyes and the difficulties they must survive through.

Iniguez, 4 Stand and Deliver has a powerful message that even today gets through to student audiences. It demonstrates the power desire and passion have in school and shows just how much those two elements play through a students education. While the theme was just as important as the whole movie, we cannot deny that the character, the music, and the storytelling techniques made the theme much more powerful and made it much more understandable for us.