Friday, November 19th 12:00-2:00pm CMU 202 Simpson Center
Fernando Fabio Sanchez (Portland State University)
“In War and Peace, from Documentary to Artistic Cinema: The Mexican Revolution on Film (1911-1935)”
Co-Sponsored by: Dept. of Comp Lit, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, Dept of Spanish and Portuguese and Simpson Center for Humanities.
“In War and Peace, from Documentary to Artistic Cinema: The Mexican Revolution on Film (1911-1935)”, presented by Professor Fernando Fabio Sanchez from Portland State University, will provide a general but detailed overview of the origins of the “Cinema of the Mexican Revolution” and the process by which the Mexican Revolution became an aesthetic object of representation in cinema in the 1930s. Echoing the principles espoused by the muralist movement and the Novel of the Revolution with regard to the core of Mexican identity in the 1920s, cinema was one of the most effective instruments in representing the narrative of post-revolutionary Mexico and, consequently, in constructing a cohesive vision of Modern Mexico. The first section of Professor Sanchez’s presentation will analyze the documentary films made during the 1910s, underscoring both their epistemological connection to Comtean positivism from the 19th century and the revolutionary use of these films by the military caudillos and other cinematographers such as the Alva brothers. The second section will focus on the controversy surrounding the creation of the modern Mexican cinematic tradition, one of whose paradigms was Sergei Eisenstein’s incomplete film ¡Que viva México! (1930-1932). Professor Sanchez will show clips of documentary and fiction films produced in the 1910s and after 1930, respectively.