Argentine Cinema and National Identity (1966–1976) Liverpool Latin American Studies Series Editor: Matthew Brown, University of Bristol Emeritus Series Editor: Professor John Fisher 1 Business History in Latin 9 British Trade with Spanish America: The Experience of America, 1763‒1808 Seven Countries Adrian J. Pearce Carlos Dávila and Rory Miller (eds) 10 Colonial Tropes and Postcolonial 2 Habsburg Peru: Images, Tricks: Rewriting the Tropics in Imagination and Memory the novela de la selva Peter T. 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Williams Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz 6 Shining Path: Guerilla War in 14 Andean Truths: Transitional Peru’s Northern Highlands, Justice, Ethnicity, and 1980‒1997 Cultural Production in L ewis Taylor Post-Shining Path Peru Anne Lambright 7 South American Independence: Gender, Politics, Text 15 Positivism, Science, and ‘The Catherine Davies, Claire Brewster Scientists’ in Porfirian Mexico: and Hilary Owen A Reappraisal Natalia Priego 8 Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries and the Birth of New Nations Matthew Brown Liverpool Latin American Studies, New Series 16 Argentine Cinema and National Identity (1966–1976) Carolina Rocha Argentine Cinema and National Identity LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2017 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2017 Carolina Rocha The right of Carolina Rocha to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN: 978-1-78694-054-4 epdf ISBN: 978-1-78694-826-7 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster In memory of Paulina Piselli (1937–2017) Contents Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Section I: Argentine History and Cinema, 1955–1976 15 1 Political and Social Tensions in Post-1955 Argentina 16 2 Argentine Cinema in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s 27 3 Argentine Cinema, 1966–1973 41 4 Argentine Cinema, 1973–1976 61 Section II: The Cinematic Gauchesque 73 5 Martín Fierro 83 6 Don Segundo Sombra 95 7 Santos Vega 106 8 Juan Moreira 111 9 Los gauchos judíos 122 Section III: Representing Founding Fathers 131 10 Looking for a National Hero 134 11 Güemes, la tierra en armas 159 12 Bajo el signo de la patria 180 13 Juan Manuel de Rosas 198 Conclusion 216 Bibliography 221 Index 243 Acknowledgments Acknowledgements The writing of this book has taken me several years. I gathered materials during three research trips. The first one was taken in June 2011, when I visited the Biblioteca Nacional in Buenos Aires and the library of the Argentine Institute of Film (ENERC), made possible by a research grant from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Diana Paladino, Ana Laura Lusnich, Adrián Perez Mahi, and Adrián Muoyo and his staff were extremely supportive, helping me locate materials and films. I am grateful to Octavio Aita for his research assistance. In August 2011, I also collected news clips from La prensa published in 1966–1976 at the University of Florida, Gainesville thanks to a travel grant from the Center of Latin American Studies. Richard Phillips welcomed me to the Latin American Studies library. A third trip to Argentina was made possible thanks to partial funding from the Center of Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago and through a Title VI grant from the Upper Midwest Latin American Initiative with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Because this is a project that has a strong historical component, I consulted with several historians. My appreciation goes to David Sheinin, Jessica Stites Mor, Jonathan Ablard, and Nils Jacobsen. Cacilda Rêgo listened patiently to me while I distracted her from appreciating Salzburg and supported this project in many ways. Melissa Fitch, Laura Podalsky, and Lisa Shaw also believed in this study. My thanks to Beatriz Urraca, Marcos Campillo Fenoll, and Georgia Seminet, who read early versions of the manuscript. My sincere gratitude to Carolyn Hutchinson for her amazing editorial work. I am also grateful to the two anonymous readers of Liverpool University Press. A Fulbright Fellowship allowed me to write part of this manuscript in Liverpool; what better place to revisit the 1960s? My heartfelt thanks to Penny Egan, Ana Pereira, and Jeana Evans of the US-UK Educational Commission. My Fulbright mentor in Great Britain, Eva Wisemark, was a true source of inspiration and support. From the University of Liverpool, I would like to thank Chris Harris, Niamh Thornton, Julie Hudson, and Laura Barlow, who helped me navigate the university as well as the city. There were also many Liverpudlians—from the gas inspector to those working at the council—who x argentine cinema and national identity contributed to giving me the peace of mind necessary to devote my attention to the first part of this manuscript. To all of them, my appreciation. My time in Liverpool was inspirational and productive. Many thanks also to Alison Welsby, editorial director of Liverpool University Press, for her patience and professionalism. I am extremely grateful to my daughters, Camila and Clara, who gave up some of their free time to help me xerox, photograph, and label materials in 2011. Their presence encouraged me to persist when there was little hope of having access to precious resources. Special thanks to Clara for agreeing to come with me to Liverpool and sharing with me the discovery of a fascinating city. As usual, Armando has been my most steadfast cheerleader in this process. My gratitude also goes to Dario and Myriam Rocha for hosting me in 2015 and sharing their memories of Juan Moreira’s release. I would like to thank Stacy Schlaub and Rebecca Frazier-Smith from the University of Texas Press for granting permission to reprint the article ‘El santo de la espada: Building Nationhood from Film,’ previously published in Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 33, 55–74 © 2015 by the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved. When I was writing this manuscript, my mother passed away. She was a relentless supporter of my studies and research and was very proud of my Fulbright in Liverpool. This book is dedicated to her memory. Introduction Introduction In March 1966, an article about the Argentine School for Cinema in the daily newspaper El mundo urged Argentina to usher in a new era of filmmaking, one that would reflect its country’s greatest hopes, fears, and ideas: Desde fines del año 1957 recién ahora podemos ponerla en marcha después de tantas esperanzas acumuladas […] Los países más adelantados, Francia, Italia, Rusia, Estados Unidos y Japón y otros envían sus ideas, muestran su país al exterior a través de ese vehículo que es la cinematografía […] El cine argentino debe y puede manifestarse, convirtiéndose adentro del país en instrumento de opinión de todos los argentinos, puede y debe ser fuera de nuestro país el mejor embajador de nuestra industria. [Since the end of 1957, it is only now that we can implement it after so much hoping […] The most advanced nations, France, Italy, Russia, the United States, Japan, and others, send their ideas, showing their country abroad through the means of cinema […] Argentine cinema can and must manifest itself, becoming a means of expressing the opinions of all Argentines within the country; outside of our country, it can and must be the best ambassador of our industry] (‘Escuela,’ 1966, 16) Making Argentine cinema a distinctive brand and establishing a school for cinema in which directors, scriptwriters, and technicians could be trained meant greater professionalization for those involved in film production in Argentina.1 It also constituted a precondition for representing Argentine-ness (argentinidad) on local and foreign screens.2 Just as Andrew Higson explains that tracing the development of British nationhood corresponds to analyzing filmic production of the past (2000a, 35), so presenting the definition of Argentine-ness and its cinematic depiction in the decade 1966–1976 consti- tutes a central endeavor of Argentine Cinema and National Identity. This study aims to situate Argentine film during those years in its historical context, taking into account the overall landscape of filmmaking in Argentina. Similar to other media in the artistic domain—the visual arts and music— Argentine film was seen as a medium that would allow a dialogue with the 2 argentine cinema and national identity cinematographic productions of more technologically advanced countries (Giunta, 2008, 23).3 In 1966, Argentine cinema was therefore encouraged to create and circulate images about the nation, providing continuity with the blossoming film production of the late 1940s and early 1950s.4