Buñuel and Mexico: the Crisis of National Cinema

Home , El Bruto, Gran Casino, Libertad Lamarque, Mexican Bus Ride, National cinema, Silvia Pinal

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Buñuel and Mexico The Crisis of National Cinema

Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz

University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London UC_Acevedo-Muæoz (D).qxd 8/25/2003 1:12 PM Page iv

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2003 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Acevedo-Muñoz, Ernesto R., 1968–. Buñuel and Mexico : the crisis of national cinema / by Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–520-23952-0 (alk. paper) 1. Buñuel, Luis, 1900– .—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Motion pictures—Mexico. I. Title. PN1998.3.B86A64 2003 791.43'0233'092—dc21 2003044766 Manufactured in the United States of America 1211 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10987654321 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine- free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48– 1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). 8 UC_Acevedo-Muæoz (D).qxd 8/25/2003 1:12 PM Page v

A Mamá, Papá, y Carlos R. Por quererme y apoyarme sin pedir nada a cambio, y por siempre ir conmigo al cine

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Contents

List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Mexican Cinema in the Time of Luis Buñuel 15 2. Buñuel and Mexico 32 3. Los Olvidados and the Crisis of Mexican Cinema 57 4. Genre, Women, Narrative 80 5. On the Road: Subida al Cielo and La Ilusión Viaja en Tranvía 111 6. Masculinity and Class Conflict: Buñuel’s Macho-Dramas 124 Conclusion. From Buñuel to “Nuevo Cine” 143

Filmography of Luis Buñuel 153 Notes 159 Bibliography 177 Index 187 This page intentionally left blank UC_Acevedo-Muæoz (D).qxd 8/25/2003 1:12 PM Page ix

Figures

1. Luis Buñuel playing around with Fernando Soler and Fernando Soto “Mantequilla” on the set of The Daughter of Deceit (1951). 9 2. Libertad Lamarque and Jorge Negrete almost kissing in Gran Casino (1947). 47 3. Rosario Granados and Fernando Soler perfectly happy in The Great Madcap (1949). 53 4. Roberto Cobo, Alfonso Mejía, and Javier Amezcua posing for Los olvidados (1950) in “the very real slums of Mexico City.” 66 5. Pedro’s mother and Jaibo consummate the Oedipal narrative in Los olvidados. 75 6. Pedro is inevitably lost in the labyrinth of violence and solitude in Los olvidados. 78 7. Don Guadalupe and Susana dramatize the nature of their initial relationship in Buñuel’s Susana (1950). 87 8. Nacho Contla and Fernando Soto “Mantequilla” pose with Buñuel’s counterfeit cabareteras in The Daughter of Deceit (1951). 97 9. Rosario Granados in Buñuel’s “classic” maternal melodrama, A Woman Without Love (1951). 103 10. Every Sunday brings a killing and all men have guns in Buñuel’s Death and the River (1954). 109 11. In Mexican Bus Ride (1951) the locals put up a “traditional” fiesta to amuse foreign tourists. 118

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12. The narrative detours in Illusion Travels by Streetcar (1954) stress the many financial difficulties that came with development and modernization under President Alemán. 121 13. Class conflict and masculinity are fatally linked in El Bruto (1950). 127 14. Patriarchy, masculinity, and insanity are the same thing in Buñuel’s Él (1952). 135 15. Ernesto Alonso as the troubled title character in The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955). 141 16. Buñuel directing Nazarín (ca. 1958), one of his independent films produced by Manuel Barbachano Ponce. 145 17. Silvia Pinal in The Exterminating Angel (1962). 146 18. Gabriel Figueroa and Buñuel on the set of Nazarín. 151 UC_Acevedo-Muæoz (D).qxd 8/25/2003 1:12 PM Page xi

Acknowledgments

Many institutions and individuals have helped me in the long process that has led to this book. At the University of Iowa, where this work began as a dissertation, Lauren Rabinovitz was a generous advisor, mentor, and sup- porter. Kathleen Newman provided much guidance, and Rick Altman, Dudley Andrew, Corey Creekmur, and Joy Hayes were wise critics of the first version. The Graduate College and the University of Iowa Foundation, the University of Colorado’s College of Arts and Sciences, and its Graduate Committee on the Arts and Humanities all gave me fellowships, grants, or time off that took me to Mexico City, Guadalajara, New York, and London for research. In Mexico City, I thank the personnel of the Library of the Cineteca Nacional, the Lerdo de Tejada library, and the Library at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Lourdes Zamudio at the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE) gave me copies of documents, books, and other sources. The people at the Cinema Research and Teaching Center (Centro de Investigación y Enseñanza Cinematográfica) of the University of Guadalajara deserve special thanks. Emilio García Riera was kind enough to honor my requests for an interview. Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro put all the resources of the CIEC at my disposal, and their research staff—Ulises Íñiguez Mendoza, Carlos Torrico, and Ana María Armengol—opened their files and their minds to my curiosity. Mary Corliss at the New York Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive was of great help, and Saman- tha Grabowski gave me valuable research assistance. My students in Buñuel courses at the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa provided many thought-provoking comments when I tested these ideas with them. Melinda Barlow, Stan Brakhage, José Manuel Del Pino, Suranjan Ganguly, Bruce Kawin, Marian Keane, Kathleen Man, Jim Palmer, Eric Smoodin, and Phil Solomon have been generous in many

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ways. Some brief but meaningful conversations with Carlos Monsiváis in Iowa City, Matilde Landeta in Mexico City, Marvin D’Lugo, Ángela Molina, Víctor Fuentes, and Juan Luis Buñuel in London helped me, however vicar- iously, to think about Luis Buñuel as “a friend.” Carl J. Mora and Claire F. Fox read earlier versions of the manuscript and gave me intelligent and generous criticism and many wise suggestions. They contributed significantly to making this a better book. All remaining errors and omissions are my sole responsibility. I am grateful to Mary Francis, Kate Warne, and Colette DeDonato at the University of California Press, who were very kind and patient guides through the editing process. My deepest thanks go to Anne and Aaron Han-Joon Magnan-Park and Carol Schrage for their support, friendship, and advice. And to Ella Chiches- ter—friend, colleague, and partner—for the ideas, the laughs, the cups of coffee, and so much more. UC_Acevedo-Muæoz (D).qxd 8/25/2003 1:12 PM Page 1

Introduction

Many of [Buñuel’s] films made in Mexico are inconsequential. Only five of the nineteen films of this period can be considered memorable. —Virginia Higginbotham, Luis Buñuel

In this book I analyze in context the relationship between Luis Buñuel’s career as a filmmaker in Mexico, Mexican politics, and the Mexican film industry. Buñuel’s Mexican films need to be understood, both in relationship to questions of national cinema and the nationalist orientation of classical Mexican cinema, and within the structure of the Mexican film industry in which Buñuel worked from 1946 to 1965. My purpose is to place Buñuel’s Mexican films, from Gran Casino (1946) to Ensayo de un crimen (1955), within the historical, political, and industrial contexts in which they were made. My purpose is to “nationalize” Buñuel’s “lesser” Mexican films and to reposition in their national context the Mexican movies that are usu- ally associated with his “better” French and Spanish films. Some of Buñuel’s Mexican films are popular in psychoanalytic and auteurist criticism, particularly Los olvidados, Él, and Ensayo de un crimen, but they are rarely seen as “Mexican” movies. Without abducting them from their rightful place within international film criticism, I place these films in a prominent space vis-à-vis Mexican cinema, showing how Buñuel specifically questioned and addressed the ideology and imagery of classical Mexican cinema and found ways of referring to Mexican national issues. This study departs from the usual perspectives that ground Buñuel’s work solely in surrealism. Buñuel’s surrealist formation certainly justifies his creative and ideological independence from any concept of “national cinema,” especially the melodramatic/folkloric style of Mexican cinema. Yet, by rethinking auteurist and psychoanalytic approaches to Buñuel’s work as critical standards of evaluation for such a transnational, highly individual- istic director, I will show how functions of genre and “national cinema,” state politics, and national identity contribute to a deeper, richer under- standing of his work. Furthermore, Buñuel’s incorporation into the genre

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system of Mexican cinema was particularly successful, insofar as the director was able to consolidate surrealist aesthetics and ethnographic interests within popular formats that resulted in what we may call a “popular surrealism.” Buñuel’s Mexican films thus raise questions about the definition of national cinema as it was exemplified by the nationalist project of the Mexican Revolution through its most celebrated (and diffused) products, such as the films of Emilio Fernández and other directors.

Buñuel and Film Studies

Most Buñuel scholarship centers primarily on two peaks in the director’s career: his “surrealist trilogy” (Un chien andalou, 1928; L’Age d’Or, 1930; and Las Hurdes, 1932) made in France and Spain, and the French and Spanish films made from 1961 (Viridiana) to 1977 (Cet obscur objet du désir). Traditionally, Buñuel scholarship tends to pursue two main lines of discourse and critical methodology: psychoanalysis and, most often, auteur criticism. In her book Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film, for example, Linda Williams concentrates on Un chien andalou, L’Age d’Or, Le fantôme de la liberté, and Cet obscur objet du désir. The book offers a much-needed (if narrowly focused) theory of surrealist film that is mostly based on the films’ dream-structures and their relation to the unconscious according to Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. According to Williams, the Mexican films provide only “an occasional bizarre juxtaposition or incongruous desire that intrudes upon the smooth surface of social rela- tions,” characteristics that Williams finds only in “surrealism proper.”1 Williams states that precisely because the Mexican movies were made under the constraints of a well-organized commercial genre system (from Gran Casino in 1946 to Nazarín in 1958), they bear little interest for an analysis of Buñuel’s work and her theory of surrealist film. Figures of Desire, as much as it sheds welcome light on the director’s most difficult works, is a clear instance of the scholarly neglect of most of Buñuel’s Mexican films because they do not conform to the accustomed critical and theoretical approaches. The exclusion of Buñuel’s Mexican period from scholarship is rather the norm, not the exception. Paul Sandro, in his book Diversions of Pleasure: Luis Buñuel and the Crises of Desire, concentrates on the films made “early and late” in Buñuel’s career and their perversion of classical narrative structure. Sandro’s analysis of Buñuel’s work addresses how Buñuel’s films vio- late the conventions of spectatorship and “wish fulfillment” in classical narrative. Both in their diegeses (the protagonists’ angst in not possessing their