Salvador (Special Edition)
List Price:
Our Price: $2.96
You Save: $12.02 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.76 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Elpidia Carrillo, James Belushi, James Woods, John Savage, Michael MurphyBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-05
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Salvador (Special Edition)
DVD Review: You Can't call Me an Oliver Stone Junkie ...
Summary: 5 Stars
... or even an occasional fan. I'd never seen any of his many films until I watched his first "Wall Street" just a month ago. Then, through the kindness of amazon, I bought myself a 14-CD box of sorrow and pity. If I were prone to nightmares, I'd have Oliver Stone to blame after watching "Born on the Fourth of July", "Platoon", and now, closest to home, "Salvador".
The film depicts two of the most notorious crimes of the Salvadoran Civil War, both in 1980: the assassination of Bishop Oscar Romero during a Mass and the rape/murder of three American nuns and a lay worker, both factual events, both conducted by rightwing 'Death Squads' with tacit support from the ruling military junta and from the USA. The violence and the rhetoric portrayed in Oliver Stone's film was real. The historical evidence has been compiled and a reasonably balanced account of that civil war from 1979 to 1992 can be read on wikipedia. The death toll was over 70,000, chiefly peasants slaughtered by the rightwing military and paramilitary. The mass graves shown in the film were really there. The massacres occurred. The Death Squads were really there. Roberto D'Abuisson, depicted in the film as 'Major Max', was just as vile a pathological killer as Stone represents him; even the CIA acknowledged as much when it spent two million dollars to support the election of Jose Duarte over D'Abuisson in 1984. The US involvement in the war was real, and all of $7,000,000,000 was lavished on the rightwing junta government by the successive administrations of Carter, Reagan, and Bush 1. Aid to the murderous military reached as high a a million and a half dollars a day at its height under Reagan. America's history of interventions and clandestine operations in Central America is shameful in case after case, in Panama, Guatemala and Nicaragua as much as in El Salvador. I have to give credit to the administrations of Bill Clinton AND George W Bush for NOT adding any major chapters of shame to America's history of despicable support for dictators and oppressors -- for NOT invading Venezuela, NOT intervening in Bolivia, NOT meddling with Brazilian elections -- though of course Bush was too busy making a mess of Iraq to bother with those "formidable" little countries south of Mexico.
The film "Salvador" is undeniably a political denunciation of American misdeeds in Central America. To temper that fact with the notion that it was primarily a "character study" of war correspondent Richard Boyle is simply evasive. Oliver Stone wanted to express his condemnation of the right wing, both in El Salvador and in the USA, and he chose the story of Richard Boyle as a vehicle for portraying the horrors of the civil war, not vice versa. Richard Boyle was a real person; he collaborated with Stone on the script for the film. Yes, I'm sure that for him the film was his story, and if he was half as nasty a customer as he made himself appear in the script, he deserves huge credit for honesty after the fact. Actor James Woods convincingly plays Boyle as a sleaze bag, a drunken washed-up mooch, a disgusting human being whose only redeeming quality is a kind of foolish fearlessness. It's a great piece of acting, powerful enough to carry the film as drama even if the viewer is offended by the political message.
"Salvador" was made in 1986, in the middle of the war. In 1987, another prominent assassination occurred, of the moderate politician Herbert Ernesto Anaya, and in 1989 a Death Squad murdered six Jesuit priests and their housekeepers and children. Both crimes excited international condemnations of the US-backed rightwing government, which was unable to suppress the peasant-based Farabundo Marti Liberation Front despite all that American backing. Keep that in mind as you watch the film. The war finally exhausted the country into a passivity that resembles peace in1992, with some resulting efforts toward economic justice. But El Salvador remains a country of desperate poverty and underdevelopment, with remittances from workers in the USA, many of them undocumented, amounting to more than half of the national income for families.
As I said, I've bought myself a box of sorrow and shame.
Description of Salvador (Special Edition)
A war photojournalist documents the tragedies inflicted on El Salvador by the government during the civil war.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-MAY-2004
Media Type: DVD
Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Dirty PicturesWOODS,JAMES; Release date: 2000-11-28; DVD
Best price: $2.30
Price in other shops:
W. (Widescreen)BROLIN,JOSH; Release date: 2009-02-10; DVD
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
Best SellerWOODS,JAMES; Release date: 2002-06-04; DVD
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
The Battle of Algiers (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2004-10-12; DVD
Best price: $26.87
Price in other shops:
Maria Full of GraceHBO Home Video; Release date: 2004-12-07; Published: 2004-12-01; DVD
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
True BelieverSony; Release date: 2001-04-03; DVD
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
MissingUniversal Studios; Release date: 2004-11-23; DVD
Best price: $4.33
Price in other shops:
Under FireRelease date: 2001-09-04; DVD
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Innocent VoicesWarnervision; Release date: 2008-04-08; DVD
Best price: $2.24
Price in other shops:
RomeroRELIGIOSA; Release date: 2009-01-19; DVD
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: