Director · Cinematographer · Screenwriter · Producer · 1924–2024

Robert Milton Young

3: briefs
13:00: average
39 min: in total

On film.briefs3

Alambrista!

Robert Milton Young · 1977

Alambrista! (1977), written and directed by Robert Milton Young, follows Roberto, a Mexican farmer who crosses into the US to find work. Shot on location with non-professional actors, it observes his journey with minimal dialogue, no exposition, and sustained attention to physical detail. The film avoids drama, psychology and commentary, instead building meaning through repetition, duration and quiet encounters. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2023, it remains a rigorous, unsentimental portrait of endurance.

13:00

Nothing but a Man

Michael Roemer · 1964

Nothing but a Man (1964), directed by Michael Roemer, follows Duff Anderson, a Black railroad worker in Alabama, as he marries a preacher’s daughter and confronts systemic racism, economic precarity, and fractured fatherhood. Made independently on a $300,000 budget, it uses Motown’s early 1960s hits as diegetic sound and relies on understated performances—especially Ivan Dixon’s and Abbey Lincoln’s—to trace dignity as quiet persistence. Though initially overlooked, it entered the National Film Registry in 1993 and now stands as a landmark of American neorealism.

13:00

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Robert Milton Young · 1982

Robert Milton Young’s 1982 biographical Western follows Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican-American farmer wrongly accused after a fatal misunderstanding in 1901 Texas. Starring Edward James Olmos and shot on authentic locations—including the real Gonzales courthouse—the film unfolds with documentary restraint, charting twelve years of trials and imprisonment. Its strength lies in structural clarity and historical fidelity; its limitation, in emotional distance. Preserved by the Library of Congress in 2022, it is a rigorous, unsentimental account of jurisdictional violence on the US-Mexico border.