In early 1982 a fire destroyed Mexico’s
National Film Archives (Cineteca Nacional). The flames consumed
the history of a vibrant film industry that had once rivaled
that of the United States in production output. Gone were more
than six thousand films, scripts and photographs. To meet the
research needs of Professors Jorge Ruffinelli and Claire Fox,
Stanford has amassed an impressive Mexican film collection that
documents a large portion of this lost history.
The first major acquisition was a
collection of approximately three hundred movies from Mexico’s
Golden Age of Film (mid 1930s through the mid 1950s). These
movies, all in video format, were supplemented by a collection
of 454 original movie posters, half of which focus on this Golden
period. The remaining portion documents film activity up to
the 1970s. The most recent addition to this growing cinematic
archive has been a collection of 2,048 lobby cards and 7,585
photo stills. These two collections cover the years from the
early 1930s to the mid 1970s.
Movies in Mexico date back to the early days of cinema.
In 1896, movies were first shown in Mexico City, barely eight
months after first appearing in Paris; by 1900 there were already
more than twenty film theaters in the city. (1)
The line between fiction and reality was blurry from the
beginning of Mexican movie-making. In 1927 the posters for the
movie Conspiración noted “…there is a conspiracy in Mexico. A conspiracy
has been discovered.”(2)
This was certainly a comment on the reality of a country that
was just starting to recover from almost two decades of political
and social upheaval, which had seen the rise and fall of revolutionary
leaders like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
Cinematic production in Mexico experienced rapid growth
in a short amount of time: from six films in 1932 to forty-nine
in 1942. The all-time production peak came in 1958 with 138
films. This prolific period is known as the Golden Age of Mexican
Cinema, a time when stars like Dolores del Río (1904-1983);
Pedro Armendáriz (1912-1963); María Felix (1914-); and Pedro
Infante (1917-1957) spread tales of glamour, gallivanting charros and a bucolic countryside.
It was in this flourishing cinematic climate in 1943
that Dolores del Río returned to Mexico from Hollywood after
a fifteen-year absence to star in María
Candelaria, directed by Emilio Fernández (1904-1986),
and was joined by leading man Pedro Armendáriz. It was one of
Fernández’s twenty-four collaborative projects with the great
cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (1907-). Together they glorified
“Mexico’s landscapes, dramatic, cloud-laced skies, and more
importantly, its stoic Indian faces.” (3)
The film won a prize at the Cannes International Film Festival.
International recognition came again in 1949 when another joint
production, Pueblerina,
won a Cannes award.
By the 1950s popular taste had shifted away from simple
and innocent plots as more sophisticated films from Europe and
the United States started coming into Mexico. In 1950, Luis
Bunuel’s Los Olvidados (The Young and the
Damned) became the last Mexican film to receive international
recognition, earning yet another Cannes award. It was not repeated
until 1975 when Actas de Marusia (Letters From Marusia)
received favorable attention from European critics and came
close to winning at Cannes. That film became Mexico’s first-ever
entry for best foreign film in Hollywood’s Academy Awards.
This important period of film history is documented
at the Stanford Libraries with the visual images of original
movie posters, lobby cards and photo stills. Unlike Hollywood
film posters, which were lithographed on high quality paper
and produced in large quantities, Mexican film posters were
printed on cheap paper and produced in limited runs. The standard
Golden Age poster dimensions were slightly wider but shorter
than the typical Hollywood one-sheet. “More often than not,
it was understood that the main selling point was the star.”
(4) Specifically
created to attract the masses and promote movies, the Mexican
film poster was not considered a form of fine art. Hence, little
is known about the actual artists, who might have seen their
work as a purely commercial illustration. Very little evidence
of the production output of cinema posters has survived. It
is perhaps more useful to approximate an estimate based on the
growth of movie theaters in Mexico: from 282 in 1934, reaching
up to 2,449 in 1952. (5)
|
|
"La Malquerida" featuring Dolores
del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. Directed by Emilio Fernández,
with Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography. Fernández and
Figueroa collaborated on twenty-four films and are credited
with internationalizing Mexican cinema |
The collection of lobby cards and photo stills provide
another glimpse of Mexico’s film history. The cards (11x 14
inches) were loaned to movie houses as part of the film’s promotion
and were designed literally to be displayed in the theater’s
lobby. The photo stills are even more significant in that they
capture an image at the beginning of every scene, a scene that
might have been completely eliminated in the final film editing.
|
|
"Ahí Está el Detalle,"
this 1940 film with Mario Moreno "Cantinflas" was an international
success and created a following for the comedian all over
the Spanish-speaking world. So much so that his constant
talking in double
entendre coined the verb "cantinflear,"
talking incessantly without really saying anything.
|
After the fire that destroyed Mexico’s National Film
Library in 1982, Stanford’s collection has become particularly
significant since it is now the largest archive of original
cinematic material available to researchers at an academic institution.
This collection of original movie posters, videos, lobby cards
and photo stills is supplemented by a growing addition of film
videos from other parts of Latin America. All of which makes
Stanford an important repository of film history.
(1) Felix Romandia, Cristina and Larson Guerra,
Jorge. El cartel cinematográfico
mexicano. Mexico : Cineteca Nacional, 1987, 11.
(2) Ibid, 14
(3) Mora, Carl J. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of Society 1896-1988. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, 58.
(4) Agrasánchez, Rogelio
and Ramírez Berg, Charles.
Carteles de la época de oro del cine mexicano = Poster Art From
the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Guadalajara: Universidad
de Guadalajara; Mexico: Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía,
1997, 10
(5) Ibid, 8
