Burn! (Italian title: Queimada) is a 1969 film starring Marlon Brando and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The plot is loosely based on events in the history of Haiti. The main character is named after William Walker, the famous American filibuster. While based on issues that Walker symbolically represented, the film is not based on the life of Walker.

Plot

A British agent, Sir William Walker (Marlon Brando), is an agent provocateur sent to the island of Queimada (a fictional Portuguese colony in the Caribbean) in order to organize an uprising of black slaves to overthrow the Portuguese regime. Great Britain wants to get economic control of the island because it is an important sugar cane producer.

The plan is to replace the Portuguese administration by a formally souvereign state controlled by white latifundists loyal to Great Britain. In order to realize this project, William Walker convinces the black slaves to fight for their liberation from slavery and for freedom.

José Dolores (Evaristo Márquez) becomes the leader of the rebellion. After the overthrow of the Portuguese regime, British interests establish a corrupt puppet government while Dolores is margainalized. While slavery had been formally ended and the former slaves in theory had rights, a legal and property system was established where they were forced to continue to work in the sugar cane plantations in even worse conditions than before.

William Walker leaves the island after the revolution. He comes back to Queimada many years later, this time in order to destroy the black political movement he helped spawn. José Dolores has taken Walker's ideas to heart and is now leading a rebel army against the British puppet regime in Queimada. Walker is no longer working for the British government but for the "Royal Sugar Company," which organizes its own army and manipulates Queimada politics directly, including ordering the execution of one of its puppet presidents.

Eventually, the rebel army is defeated and Jose Dolores is executed, but this does not end the rebellion. The movie ends when Walker is killed by a rebel, and, as a result, Dolores' death is avenged.

Theme

The film is a reworking of the events of the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint L'Ouverture. It was also meant to reflect upon the situation in the Vietnam War, which was going on at the time.

Brando had the opportunity to have a role on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but chose instead to work on this film. He also had to turn down a major role in Ryan's Daughter because of this film's production problems.

External links

• Burn! at the Internet Movie Database
• Detailed review at Film Comment
• The Ecology of Destruction by John Bellamy Foster

Burning is the process of combustion, an exothermic reaction between a substance (the fuel) and a gas (the oxidizer).

Burn, burning or burned may also refer to:

• Burn (injury), injury to the skin caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, or radiation
• Burn (insult), a special type of insult typically used by teenagers.
• Burn (stream), in Scotland and north-eastern England, a type of stream which is smaller than a river
• Burn, North Yorkshire, a village in North Yorkshire, England
• Burn and Burn Sugar Free, energy drinks by Coca-Cola
• Burn in, to exercise components (such as electronics) before putting them into service
• Burning, a self sustaining thermonuclear (nuclear fusion) reaction
• Burning, the recording process for various technologies based on compact discs or DVDs
• Burning-in, a manipulation during photographic enlargement to darken selected areas of the final print
• Burned (image), an image with highlights or shadows considerably outside the medium's gamut
• Execution by burning, an execution by fire, usually by being burnt to death on a pyre
• Indian burn, common school prank also called a Chinese burn

In music

Bands:

• Burn (band), a heavy metal band
• Burning (band), a Spanish rock band

Albums:

• Burn, a 1995 album by Sister Machine Gun
• Burn (album), a 1974 album by Deep Purple
• Burn (Messina album), a 2000 album by Jo Dee Messina
• "Burn" (Elemeno P), a 2005 single from New Zealand rock band Elemeno P
• Burning (album), a 1999 EP by house DJ/producer Pépé Bradock
• Burned, a 1995 album by Electrafixion

Songs:

• "Burn" (Usher song), a song from Usher's 2004 album Confessions
• "Burn" (Nine Inch Nails song), a song by Nine Inch Nails found on the Natural Born Killers Soundtrack
• "Burn", a song by Rancid on the album: Let's Go
• "Burn", a song The Cure featured on the The Crow Soundtrack
• "Burn", a song by Shannon Noll on his 2004 album That's What I'm Talking About
• "Burn", a song by Alkaline Trio on their 2005 album Crimson (album)
• "Burn", a song by Collective Soul found on their album Home
• "Burn", a song by Three Days Grace on their album Three Days Grace
• "Burn", a song by Year Of The Rabbit on their EP Hunted
• "Burn", a song by Against Me! which first appeared on their 2001 EP Crime As Forgiven By
• "Burn", a song by King Diamond on the 1990 album The Eye
• "Burnnn!", a song by Pantera on their 1988 album Power Metal
• "The Burn", a song by Matchbox Twenty on their 2000 album Mad Season
• "The Learning (Burn)", a 2001 single by Mobb Deep

In books and film

• Burn!, a 1969 film
• Burn (film), a 1998 film
• Burn (novel), a 2005 novel by James Patrick Kelly
• Burning Chrome, a 1986 cyberpunk-themed collection of short stories by William Gibson

See also

• Burns (disambiguation)
• Burner
• Immolation