"My understanding was that someone was wronged, sought vengeance, and his head was put in a jar (for display,)" said Haack. "It turned out to be much more."
Now an El Granada resident, a filmmaker with documentaries to his name and an employee of the San Francisco State University cinema department, Haack revisited those childhood stories in his own way - through a film that probes cultural stereotyping.
 Warren Haack brings a documentarian's skill and a folklorist's soul to his film "Dead in the Sierra," to be shown this weekend. |
Joaquin Murieta emerged from the Gold Rush to become a legend in his own time. He and wife Carmela came to California and he established a mine on the Stanislaus River. But when his wife was raped and killed, he swore vengeance and adopted the name "Charlie Ross" to slip into Anglo society to find the killers.
Joaquin Valenzuela was a gentleman who dreamed of establishing a republic based on justice and equality, until he saw his way of life in Northern Mexico dissipate in a torrent of Gold Rush greed. He turned to violence to drive out the gold-lusting yankees. His acts were attributed to Murieta.
In 1852, authorities hired a Texas Ranger to capture Joaquin for a $5,000 reward. The following year a man was found and killed, and his head was pickled in spirits in a large glass jar as proof.
But many doubted that the Ranger had found Valenzuela, insisting that the head really belonged to "Three-Fingered Jack," Valenzuela's lieutenant. The whispers remained: In 1966, Pablo Neruda, poet laureate of Chile, immortalized the story: "The specter of Joaquin Murieta still rides the California countryside."
So did Haack, shooting a film in two segments. He first filmed in the California Mother Lode in 1974 to 1977, with local actors, but was not happy with the result, thinking it focused too much on story at the cost of context. One day in 2001, sitting around a campfire with the same actors, he realized the potential of re-shooting footage with those same actors and telling the story in flashbacks. The film was born, and finished this fall.
He calls Valenzuela a "social bandit" who felt wronged by the sordid end of his way of life, and Murieta a "folk icon ... the first person to stand up for his rights and fight back." Aware of the controversy around the story, he insists "this is only my version."
A San Francisco State graduate with both bachelor's and master's degrees in film, Haack filmed this one in old-school ways, with 16-mm film. "It forces you to think carefully before you shoot, as opposed to video where you shoot it all and decide later how to edit," he said. "When I shoot, I'm already editing in my mind."
The film grew out of interviews with area old-timers in and around former gold mines on the Tuolumne River. It suggests that Murieta was never captured, and points out that there were several Joaquins committing atrocities at that time and place.
Haack will be present at the screening, which begins at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Community United Methodist Church at 777 Miramontes St. Admission is $6.
The feature film is the 81-minutre "El Mariachi," an action thriller about a folk singer who is mistaken for an assassin.
For information, see hmbfilm.org.
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AT A GLANCE
What: "Dead in the Sierra"
Where: Community United Methodist Church sanctuary, 777 Miramontes St., Half Moon Bay
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26
Cost: $6
Information: hmbfilm.org
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