Mexican Revolution Trilogy at NYFF
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 20 September 2010 10:59
- Written by Jack Angstreich
A welcome discovery through this year's NYFF's Masterworks retrospectives is the Mexican Revolution trilogy directed by Fernando De Fuentes Carrau, one of the eminent directors in the Mexican film industry of the 1930s and once the subject of a MoMA retrospective in the late 1970s curated by Adrienne Mancia.
Considered a pioneer in the film industry, this Mexican film director was born in Veracruz; Mexico on December 13 1894, son of Fernando De Fuentes and Emelina Carrau de De Fuentes. He studied Philosophy at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Described as "the Mexican John Ford" by the New York Times, de Fuentes was by far the most talented filmmaker of early Mexican sound cinema. This tragic trilogy set during the Mexican Revolution was possibly his greatest achievement.
Three features comprise the trilogy -- Prisoner 13, El Compadre Mendoza and Let's Go with Pancho Villa -- displaying an admirable professionalism and profitable acquaintance with the variety of graphic possibilities forged in the international cinema of the preceding decade.
The trilogy does not have overlapping characters or stories, but is characterized as a whole by many elegant, poetic visual touches even as one struggles to discern a unified point of view or even a sophisticated engagement with the political complexities of the films' ostensible subjects.
Whether this is really personal filmmaking or not is difficult to judge on the basis of such a small sample, but it amounts to a tantalizing foretaste of what one hopes are future retrospectives to come. The prints are all recent or newly struck, though not without limitations regarding the preservation of the original elements; the contrast and clarity of what must have been the original black-and-white photography are often attenuated.
Prisoner 13 screens Wednesday, September 29th at 6pm, followed by El Compadre Mendoza at 7:35 on the same evening. The triptych concludes with Let's Go with Pancho Villa at 6:15 pm the next day, after which a panel of experts will discuss the Mexican Revolution in the cinema.
Prisoner 13 screens Wednesday, September 29th at 6pm, followed by El Compadre Mendoza at 7:35 on the same evening. The triptych concludes with Let's Go with Pancho Villa at 6:15 pm the next day, after which a panel of experts will discuss the Mexican Revolution in the cinema.
Masterworks
the Mexican Revolution trilogy
Walter Reade Theater
Lincoln Center