And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003)

In the heart of the tumultuous year of 1914, the charismatic yet ruthless Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, portrayed with fiery intensity by Antonio Banderas, grapples with a daunting challenge. His war against the iron-fisted, military-led government is strained due to a glaring lack of funds. Simultaneously, he fights a battle of perception under the relentless onslaught of the Hearst media empire's press campaign. In a daring move, Villa extends an unlikely invitation to Hollywood, proposing that movie producers pay to capture his real-life battlefields on film to finance his crusade. Intrigued by the audacious proposal, renowned producer D.W. Griffith, played by Colm Feore, dispatches filmmaker Frank Thayer, embodied by Eion Bailey, to negotiate the hazardous contract with Villa himself. Thayer, thrown into the heart of the revolution, becomes both horrified and captivated by the paradoxical nature of Villa, a man who oscillates between charming charisma and ghoulish brutality. The ensuing journey results in "The Life of General Villa," the first feature-length movie, a film that broke the mold of the usual two-reel standard, stretching to an unprecedented five reels. Thayer's groundbreaking film unveils a new, raw perspective of Pancho Villa, and introduces a previously sheltered American audience to the stark horrors of war, unseen in their personal lives. Despite initial studio reservations about the film's unconventional length, Thayer convinces them of its potential, suggesting a doubled ticket price, ultimately altering the landscape of cinema forever. This riveting tale is as much about the birth of modern filmmaking as it is about the enigmatic personality of Pancho Villa himself, making "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself" a captivating journey into history and the human psyche.

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself is a drama movie featuring Antonio Banderas.

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