Edited by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Taylor Hackford, and Merrick Morton
Oscar winner Taylor Hackford’s film, released as Bound by Honor in 1993, tells the story of three members of the fictional East L.A. gang Vatos Locos over 10 years during the 70s and into the 80s. Then up-and-coming Latino actors Jesse Borrego, Benjamin Bratt, and Damian Chapa play the leading roles, their characters inevitably forming a tight bond, yet ultimately embarking on starkly different paths. Borrego’s Cruz is a painter who develops a tragic drug addiction, Bratt’s Paco, a boxer turned police officer, gets viewed as a traitor, and Chapa’s Miklo, an Anglo kid with some Mexican ancestry desperate to fit in, ends up in prison where he becomes an important member of a dangerous Chicano prison gang.
The film’s wide-ranging portrayal of East Los Angeles Chicano sensibilities and powerful identity struggles have earned it a place in classic L.A. cinema. This limited-edition book is a 30th anniversary tribute to the cult classic film, and features production materials with hundreds of unseen behind-the-scenes photographs and film stills shot by photographer Merrick Morton, paintings by the late San Antonio artist Adan Hernández, whose mural “Carnalismo” is shown in the film’s final scene, and original poems by screenwriter Jimmy Santiago Baca. Blood In Blood Out is a book companion to the film but also a love letter to Los Angeles and the cast and crew of this seminal motion picture classic.
- Hat & Beard Press, 2024
- Hardcover, 312 pages
- 9 x 12 inches
