John Sayles, writer and director
We decided to make a film about the Texas border after going there in 1978 to shoot a cameo in the Joe Dante film Piranha, which I wrote. On my day off, I visited the Alamo in San Antonio. What I knew about the battle was mostly the Walt Disney version – Davy Crockett and all that. But the day I was there, Chicano-Americans were protesting, saying: “Tell the whole story.” I got interested in its racial complexity, the fact there were Mexicans fighting for the US, too, and that the “freedom” the Texans were fighting for was the freedom to own slaves. That’s a major part that gets left out.
