Introduction Summary and Analysis

Rebel Without a Crew tells the story of how Robert Rodriguez wrote and directed the movie El Mariachi, which is now considered a Hollywood classic, when he was only 23 years old and had a limited budget of $7,000. This is an excerpt from the filmmaker's diary, so the story is told in the first person and gives a detailed and almost daily account of what Rodriguez has to go through to achieve his dream of making a feature film.

The book opens with Rodriguez's childhood memories as he recollects with nostalgia the times when his mother would take him and his siblings to the movies. The classic Hollywood movies that the author saw every week left a lasting impression on the young child; this is how his passion for images was born. In 5th grade, he started to draw and create animated...