Cinema in Latin America
WFH III
General features
• Domestic production has emerged very slowly
• Hollywood and eventually television have been
formidable competitors
• European art house cinema has severd both as a model
and as a threat – middle class bourgeois cinema
• Politically radical new cinemas emerge in the 1960s
• Having to function under a variety of dictatorships
• Catastrophic economic conditions
• Treating the traumatic past
• Recognizing and respecting ethnic diversity
New Latin American cinema
• Political-ideological background: post colonialism,
neo colonialism, exploitation, military
dictatorships
• The ideal of ”third cinema” independent both of
Hollywood and European art cinema
• The ideals of the Cuban revolution
• Aiming to ”emphasize the interaction between
the film and the audience in essay-like
documentaries which will spur people into
political activity”
• The ideal of ”dual commitment”: social change
and artistic innovation
• Separate tendencies such Imperfect cinema,
Cinema of hunger,
• The notion of Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano was
launced at a conference held in Chile in 1967
• Thinking about the role of Latin American cinema
as a whole – the dream of a collective movement
spanning the entire continent
• Ideas were spread through film clubs, magazines
and festivals
• Duet to various military coups these developed
into diasporic activities
Mexico
• After a slow beginning emerged as the leading Latin
American film industry
• Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández: La isla de la pasión (1942)
is praised also abroad
• Luis Buñuel direct some 20 films from1946 to 1960
• García Ascot’s En el balcón vacío (1961) wins a price as
Locarno Festival
• In the 1960s ever more melodrama and exploitation
• Films and literature are censored as political opposition
is being suppressed
• In the 1970s infrastructure is stregthened and
Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica film
school as well as Cineteca National are founded
• Alejandro Galindo’s El juicio de Martín Cortés
(1973) as a sharp analysis of racism
• During the economic recession of the 1980s
mainly exploitation with a number of notable
exceptions
• A promising new start in the 1990s – there is
even talk about renaissance of art cinema
• BUÑUEL, Luis: El (1952)
• BUÑUEL, El: ángel exterminado (1962)
• LEDUC, Paul: Frida (1986)
• IÑÁRRITU, Alejandro González: Amores perros
(2000)
• CUARÓN, ALFONSO: Y tu mama tambien
(2001)
Cuba
• Film culture remains for long rependent on
imports mainly from the USA
• Exotic location shooting of foreign films
• “Tropical” musicals, comedies, melodramas and
detective stories the 1950s
• After the revolution cinema in under the
protection and surveillance of the state
• Instituto Cubano del arte y Industria
Cinematográficos (ICAIC) defines as its aim to use
cinema as a way of increasing peoples awareness
as opposed to serving as a means of hypnosis –
“demystifying cinema”
• “Imperfect cinema”: overcoming the limitations
of resources by creative solutions
• ICAIC becomes more active in the 1970s
• Modernism is to a significant degree abandoned
in favour of more classical narration
• TOMÁS GUITIÉRREZ ALEA: El Megano (1955),
Memorias del susbdesarollo (1968), Muerte de un
burocrate (1966), La última cena (1976)
• SOTTO, Arturo: Amor Vertical (Hissillä hekumaan
1997)
Brazil
• Early attempts at creating sound cinema – singers
and speakers behind the screen
• At first cheapies are produced in Rio for an
audience which prefers them to foreign imports
• Hollywood nevertheless gradually conquers the
markets and becomes almost synonymous with
cinema
• The introduction of sound gives domestic cinema
a temporary advantage, but the industry can
hardly manage the necessary investments
• Vera Cruz Films (1949), led by Alberto Cavalcanti,
seeks to produce quality films
• Instituto Nacional de Cinema (INC) is founded in 1966
to distribute quality subsidies and publish film
literature
• Cinema Novo movement seeks transform cinema into a
weapon in the struggle against neo colonialism and
poverty – ”camera in hand, idea in the head”
• 1964 military coupe leads to confiscating and banning
films which are thought to promote left wing ideas
• Social criticism is given allegorical forms: aesthetics of
hunger and violence, “cannibalism”
• Economic difficulties after the restoration of civilian
government
• LIMA BARRETTO: O Cangaceiro (1953)
• NELSON PEREIRA DOS SANTOS: Vidas secas (1963),
Como era gostoso meu frances (1971) O amuleto de
Ogum (1974)
• CARLOS DIEGUES: Ganga Zumba (1963)
• GLAUBER ROCHA: Terra em transe (1967), Antonio das
Mortes (1969)
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CAMUS, Marcel: Orfeu Negro (1959)
BABENCO, Hector: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
BARRETO, Bruno: O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (1997)
NEIRELLES, Fernando: City of God (2002)
Agentina
• Film industry gets really started in 1915
• Introduction of sound helped in finding markest in
other Latin American countries particularly in the form
of comedies and musicals → the biggest film industry
of the continent.
• Artistically ambitious socio-folkloristic experiments
• After the military coup of 1939 production diminishes
and during the Second World War Mexico surpasses as
the dominant Spanish language cinema
• Inspired by Neorealism Fernando Birri calls for a
cinema that would be neither insignificant main stream
nor self-sufficient elitism
• Cine-clubistas generation wanted to make not only
socially critical but also idiosyncratic experimental films
• Cine Liberación movement emphasized the special
quality of Third World cinema in respect of other main
lines
• During the military rule stern and random censorship
made investing in cinema very risky
• ´The idea of continuous revolution – in practice, most
film makers made quite commercial films and
supported Juan Peron’s return to power in 1973
• After the restoration of democracy film industry was
resuscitated, but the working class audience was lost
• SOFFICI, Mario: Prisoneros de la tierra (1939)
• SOLANAS, Fernando: La hora de los hornos (1968),
Memoria del saqueo (2004)
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SANTIAGO, Alvarez: 79 Primaveras (1969)
PEREIRA, Miguel: deuda interna, La (1977)
BECHIS, Marco: Garage Olimpo - kidutuskammio (1999)
CHAVARRI, Jaime: Sus ojos se cerraron y el mundo
sigue andando (1997)
• CHARLONE, César & FERNÁNDEZ, Enrique: El baño del
Papa (2007)
• SAURA, Carlos: Tango (1998)