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Winter 2005

Interpreting Reality: ‘Los olvidados’ and the Documentary Mode

Julie Jones University of New Orleans, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Jones, Julie. “Interpreting Reality: ‘Los olvidados’ and the Documentary Mode.” Journal of Film and Video 57:4 (Winter 2005-06), 18-31

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Foreign Languages Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Interpreting Reality: Los oMdados and the Documentary Mode

JULIE JONES

LUIS BUNUEL NOURISHED AN AFFECTION FOR The following study, dedicated to Los olvida- THE DOCUMENTARY MODE throughout hiS dos, concerns those elements in the film itself career, even claiming at one point that the that align it with documentary practice, but the nonfiction film had become his main concern study gives equal weight to Buriuel's presenta- {"Autobiography" 256). Recently, his most tion ofthe film (mainly through interviews) and clearly documentary film. Las Hurdes [Land to contemporary reviews in the press, both of v^fithout Bread] (1933), has been the object of which stressed the film's serious social pur- much debate regarding his sources, funding, pose and thereby reinforced an interpretation and political agenda, as well as the degree ofthe work as nonfiction. It is important here to which he manipulated his material and the to consider Buriuel's conception of documen- effects the film has had on its subject, the tary, which makes room for parody, social Hurdanos.' Although it is likely that this height- satire, and surrealism. The study is not con- ened interest in the expository dimension of cerned with any final classification ofthe film Buiiuel's work will extend to other films, so far (as we know, the boundary between fiction little has been done in this direction.^ and nonfiction films is blurred), but rather with A number of Bufiuel's other works reveal an examination of those elements within and his interest in a film practice that foregrounds without—or behind—tos olvidados that make issues—Los olvidados [The Young and the a documentary reading fruitful and provide a Damned] (1950), El [This Strange Passion] deeper and more nuanced understanding of (1953). Ens ayo de un crimen [The Criminal Life the work and its context. of Archibaldo de la Cruz] (1953), and La Vole Lactee [The Milky Way] {1969) are a few that Bufiuel and the Documentary spring to mind—but Los olvidados is the only one that Bunuet himself actually presented as a Buriuel's conception ofthe documentary was documentary.' Forthis reason, it is a critical film heavily influenced by his experiences of surre- to consider in a discussion ofthe director's con- alism and of communism. The surrealists' inter- tinued involvement with the expository form. est in documentary was an extension of their belief in the powers of photography. Andre JULIE I ONES is professor of Spanish at the Univer- Bazin, following their line of reasoning, writes sity of New Orleans and has published numerous (naively) that "The photographic image is the articles on narrative and the work of Luis Bufiuel object itself, the object freed from the condi- in Cinema journal, the journal of Film and Video, tions of time and space that govern it" (What and Comparative Literature. She is the author of 1:14). Hence Breton's inclusion of photographs A Common Place: The Representation af Paris in Spanish-American Fiction (Bucknell, 1988) and in Nadja. He treats them as "the object Itself," supplied the running commentary to the Miramax as incontrovertible proof of what he is trying DVD of BuinuersBe//ec/e/awr{i967; 2002). less successfully to express through language,

JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 57.4 / WINTER 2005 ©2005 By THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFTHE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS and he clearly believes that they offer a direct— ist practice; it is as marked by black humor i.e., unmediated—access to the reality that lies and biting satire as \s L'Age d'Or, and nothing beyond appearances. Beyond photography, could be more fantastic than some of its "real- surrealists saw that ethnographic films record- ity" sequences.' But he did see the potential ing the customs of exotic tribes also afforded of documentary as an arm of political (rather an outlook onto a different reality (no matter than cultural) propaganda. He infuriated Dalf how much that "reality" was manipulated) and by producing an edited version of L'Age d'Or thereby gave them the means, once again, to in 1932 that was to serve as a proletarian short contest the assumptions of Western culture.* {Datis les eauxglacees du calcul ego'iste), and Bunuel's first three films, his freest because when he sonarized Las Hurdes three years they were financed privately, give a good indi- after filming it, he dropped its attack on the cation of his preferences. The third {Las Hurdes) bourgeois liberal government in Spain in order is a straight-up documentary (although not to follow the Party's new Popular Front policy particularly "straight," since it also parodies (Fernandez Ibafiez 166). In Paris during the the conventions ofthe form and, incidentally, Spanish Civil War, he was in charge of film pokes fun at the surrealists' enthusiasm for ex- propaganda for the Republic. He supervised otic cultures) and the other two have a marked the editing of fspd/io/eo/en armas (1937) and documentary interest. Dali called Un chien an- facilitated the making of films such as Andre dalou [An Andalusian Dog] (1929) a documen- Malraux's L'Espoir/Sierra de Teruel (1945) and tary ofthe mind (Fernandez Ibanez 163); and loris Ivens's The Spanish Earth (1937).** L'Age d'Or [The Golden Age] (1930}, which kicks During World War II, the Museum of Modern off with footage on the life of scorpions lifted Art in New York hired Bufiuel, who was already from a nonfiction short and includes a pseudo in the US, to edit and dub 16mm nontheatrical newsreel, is basically an indictment of Western films, on topics ranging from defense produc- civilization. (In an edited version, it would be tion to science and health, for distribution in used for Communist propaganda.) Buiiuel's Latin America. Bufiuel worked as the museum's first biographer, Francisco Aranda, argues that chief editor from January 1941 to June 1943, this triptych shows an "evolution toward pure when an outcry about his leftist leanings—by documentary" (116).^ this time he had quietly dropped his member- These films set the tone for the rest of ship in the Communist Party (Gubern and Ham- Bufiuel's cinematic practice. The characteristics mond 63-64)—forced him to resign. He had we see distributed across the three films—the had some hopes of making his own documen- dramatization ofthe unconscious, the stripping taries while at MoMA. The form attracted him in away of convention, the biting social satire, the part because its relatively low cost made exper- black humor and the parody of other forms, imentation possible at a time when indepen- along with the attention to historic, social, and dent features had been priced out of existence economic detail—will be a constant in his films, ("Autobiography" 255-56). Sadly, Buiiuel's whether they are works of fiction or, as he in- work at MoMA was largely bureaucratic, and his sisted about Los olvidados, fact. For him, fol- project for making a film on schizophrenia with lowing the surrealists, elements of mystery or a disciple of Freud's in Chicago came to nothing the fantastic are essential if a film is to convey {Mi ultimo suspiro 277). However, even though a sense of reality ("Cine" 185). he himself was not directing, his work for both Bufiuel joined the Communist Party of Spain MoMA and the Spanish Republic kept him in sometime between May 1931 and ]anuary 1932 touch with documentary filmmakers and aware and, along with a number of other comrades, ofwhat they were producing during a period left the surrealist group in 1932.*' His decision when the form was flourishing. to film a documentary. Las Hurdes, the next Buiiuel's interest in documentary persisted year did not involve a renunciation of surreal- throughout his long career, but it often sur-

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©2005 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITV OF ILLINOIS faced in unexpected ways. La Voie Lactee, fessional actors to take a hard look at how the for example, is an irreverent illustration of working class and peasants were affected by A History of Spanish Heterodoxy, Marcelino Italian war and postwar reality, tt must have Menendez Pelayo's examination of Christian seemed a propitious moment, then, to make a heresies. Virtually all Bufiuel's films, even film like Los olvidados. the most playful, are grounded in a concrete Although Bufiuel took pains to distance economic, social, and historical reality. Aranda himself from the Italians, it is clear that the emphasizes this point in his biography, and he inception of this film owed much to the huge also argues that the frustrated documentary success ofVittorio De Sica's Scu/sc/d [Shoe- on schizophrenia found new forms years later shine](i947), with its depiction of abandoned in El and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la youths in an impoverished society.'" Federico Cruz (116). However, as we have seen, Bunuel Amerigo, the head of production for Los olvi- actually referred only to Las Hurdes and Los dados, says that producers Oscar Dancigers olvidados as documentaries. and]aime Menasce came up with the idea of a tough film about Mexican urchins after seeing The Right Time Shoeshine together: they then decided to offer it to Buiiuel." Not surprisingly, Bufiuel makes Bunuel shot Los olvidados in early 1950, at a no reference to Shoeshine in his version of point when the distinction between documen- the story. Instead, he says, he and Juan Larrea tary and realistic fiction film, never entirely were playing around with the idea of a bur- clear, was more muddled than usual. In the lesque melodrama about a ragamuffin under days before a lightweight synchronous-sound the working title Su huerfanito, jefe; Dancigers apparatus would allow them to film with mini- told him to make what he wanted but to make mal intervention in the street, filmmakers had it worthwhile (Aub 118). come to rely increasingly on reconstructions. These stagings involved events that had actu- Disarming the Critics ally happened and events that could have hap- pened (i.e., typical moments and syntheses Bufiuel's insistence on the documentary value of actual incidents; the term reconstruction of Los olvidados stemmed, in part, from his was used, no matter how inappropriately, to need to anticipate and disarm any reaction cover the hypothetical as well as the actual). to the spectacle of poverty and violence that The resultant tendency toward fictionalization could easily have been construed as a slight to coincided with the advent of Italian neorealism Mexico, his adopted country.'^ He argued that and North American docudrama: fiction films he only filmed what he had witnessed in per- that aspired to a documentary status, both in son or had found In the records he consulted, style and subject (Winston 120,122), and that at the same time asserting, in the voice-over were often described as documentaries (Bar- prologue, that the problems shown in the film nouw 185). plague all great cities—New York, London, North American productions such as CaU Paris, Mexico. In an interview in La Prensa, he Northside 777 (1948), directed by Henry Hatha- says, "I've taken a slice of life as It's lived here, way, and Boomerang (1947), directed by Elia or in London or in Paris. If it's hard to watch, Kazan, were based on actual events, filmed as that's not my fault. I haven't shown anything much as possible in locations associated with I didn't see, and I've actually held back a lot" those incidents, and made, at least in part, (qtd. in Montes).'^ Years later Buiiuel told De la with nonprofessional actors.'They performed Colina and Perez Turrent that he had included strongly at the box office, as did the work of the voice-over prologue, with its reference to the Italian neorealists, who relied to an even first-world capitals, so that the censors would greater extent on location shots and nonpro- pass the film (61).

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©2005 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFTHE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS In fact, the outcry against Los olvidados a line he had begun in his youth ("Bufiuel esti- was not so vociferous as has been alleged. ma"); in other words, he really saw it as a docu- Although initially it failed at the box office, mentary. The following pages study the film in that failure apparently had more to do with the that light, focusing on two elements it shares general public's preference for Hollywood-style with Las Hurdes and with other representations entertainment than with indignation (Perucho; ofthe documentary mode: its serious social Suarez del Solar). One critic commented that purpose and its claim to authenticity. the film was a success among the poor in spite In contemporary interviews, Bufiuel differ- ofthe rather daunting ticket prices (Montes). entiated Los olvidados from his "poetic" works Bufiuel blamed the film's weak performance ("jTiene un suefio realista!") and from his other at the box office on insufficient publicity and Mexican ventures: "The rest are melodrama, a bad choice of theater ("Buiiuel estima") for fiction with actors. This is a documentary ..." its first run. In spite of its commercial failure, (qtd. in Rassan). He insisted on the film's so- Los olvidados garnered favorable publicity in cial dimension. In 1954, he called it "a social Mexico even before winning the Jury Prize at protest film" and continued, "I had to make a Cannes. After the prize, which focused interna- film that was socially conscious. That's the di- tional attention on the Mexican film industry, rection I'm going in" ("Testimonio" 7}. He told the film received fresh accolades in the press, the Revista de America critic that the film owed was given a new run, and garnered ten Arieles, its success to the fact that "it's not a private Mexico's highest awards, including best film, story The problems of private individuals best director, and best screenplay (Novedades). ... are just not very interesting any more. You One critic even accused the Mexican film world have to see yourself as part of mankind" (qtd. of suffering from "olvidaditis" (Juan Dieguito). in Climent 25). The reviewers defended Bufiuel from charges of The tone here is consistent with Bufiuel's Mexico bashing; his strategy had worked. political sympathies. He atways insisted on his admiration forthe Communist cause even A Documentary in Mind though he refused, for pragmatic reasons, to acknowledge his onetime membership in the For tactical reasons, then, the director pitched Party. His films would continue to be rooted in Los olvidados as a documentary, but he did so a deep-seated awareness ofthe class structure as well because he saw the film as continuing and its effects (for him, of course, these would

Photo 1: Location photo- graph of a market on the outskirts of Mexico City, taken by Bunuel. Cour- tesy of Archivos Docu- inentale5 (AB 1108.68/1), Filmoteca Espafiola, Madrid.

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©ZO05 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS include the psychological). This emphasis on troduction 22). In Los olvidados, as elsewhere, the individual as representing a larger body the reference to institutions signals the kind of accords well with documentary practice, which film we will see, and the voice-over in the open- is concerned primarily with the group, however ing sequence reinforces that orientation. defined. As Winston points out, "Parts need to Buiiuel's insistence on the film's institutional stand forwhole classes if a claim of social rel- credentials and on the amount of research that evance is to be sustained" (134). Documentary went into it are part of his effort to validate its titles often point to this concern for the group: take on the subject at hand. Following classic Workers and Jobs (1935), Tenants in Revolt documentaty practice, he atso insists on his (1934), The People ofthe Cumberland (1937), personal experience ofthe conditions he films. Nightcleaners (1975), The Revolt of the Fisher- This assertion that the filmmaker has spent time men (1934), and The Forgotten Ones— Los olvi- on site and knows whereof he speaks (no mat- dados. ter how slight the actual exposure may be) has Bunuel was clearly familiar with documen- formed part of documentary discourse since the tary discourse. In interviews, he made the kind rr]aking of Nanook of the North (1922) because it of appeal to science that was widely used to bolsters the form's claims to authority and also legitimate documentaries: "My film doesn't assures the spectators—this assumption un- appeal primarily to ouremotions, but rather derlies all documentary practice—that the film to our sense of reason." He even went so far opens a window onto a segment ofthe preexist- as to say at one point, "I was inspired by psy- ing world.""' Although Bufiuel doesn't include chopedagogy" (qtd. in Montes)."" He insisted, himself and his crew in the film, as he did in Las too, on the amount of research involved in the Hurdes—or rather, he does so only obliquely film: "I started going to the )uvenite Court, to in the scene in which Pedro throws an egg at the women's prison, that Maria Luisa Ricaud di- thecamera'^—he stakes his claim to firsthand rected. She let me see the reports of—what do knowledge repeatedly in interviews and com- you call them?—social workers. I went to clinics mentaries: "I spent almost six months getting to for the retarded, I saw the reports on individual know those poor neighborhoods. I'd head out beggars" (qtd. in Aub 118; see also "Diario early by bus and wander through the alleyways, del Arte" 2 and Montes). The film's bleak end- making friends, seeing what people looked like, ing also comes from a documented source: a visiting houses I walked around Nonoaico, newspaper account ofthe discovery of a dead the Plaza de Romita, a lost city in Tacubaya" twelve-year-old boy on a garbage dump. (qtd. in De la Colina and Perez Turrent 56). He Documentary films turn on questions of evi- sees himself as bearing witness to a reality dence and testimony—documentation—to sup- that he has experienced intimately and that his port the contention that they provide insight detractors, Mexican as well as foreign, simply into actual phenomena. (Although this claim do not know: "In my incursions into the poor is highly problematic, it is part ofthe scientific neighborhoods ofthe capital, I saw things many longing that characterizes the form).''' Its narra- journalists knew nothing about, things that are tive structure doesn't admit the talking heads now being shown for the first time" (qtd. in "Dia- that people so many examples of the mode, rio del arte" 2, emphasis added). but Los olvidados does cite the support of In his commentary on the problems of pov- experts and institutions-the Behavioral Clinic erty, broken families, and delinquency, Bunuel of the Ministry of Public Education, the Social avoids easy answers. The voice-over with which Services Department, the Farm School—in a Los otvidados opens states baldly that "the prominently displayed note of thanks following film is not optimistic; it leaves solutions up to the credits. These mentions provide what Bill the progressive forces of society" (19). This is Nichols calls "the institutional framework" that considerably toned down—probably with the helps us recognize a documentary as such {In- censors in mind—from the contention in the

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©2005 BY THE BOARD OFTRUSTEES OFTHEUNJVERSJTYOF ILLINOIS original screenplay that the problem would be without a livelihood because labor was dis- dealt with only by "a more just society" (5). In placed by machinery. At the same time, invest- any event, the film itself presents no answer, ment in social programs dropped precipitously and this absence left a number of reviewers, (Acevedo-Munoz 60). In ever increasing num- evidently accustomed to the problem-solution bers, peasants fled from poverty in the country- structure common in the documentary, at a side to poverty in the capital. loss.^^ Bufiuel, as usual, refused to spell out In 1949, lesus Silva Herzog published an es- the film's meaning—"I haven't tried to moralize say in Cuadernos Americanos announcing that in Los otvidados, eh? The moral effect, if there the Revolution was dead. Ernesto Acevedo-Mu- is one, will be experienced by the spectator in inoz cites Silva's piece as part of an ongoing de- his contact with the film" (qtd. in Montes)—but bate occasioned by the Aleman government's the message ofthe film is fett even more force- conservative turn, its outright renunciation of fully for being implicit: the only real solution Revolutionary values, and its promotion of ac- to the problem of delinquency among the poor celerated modernization: the crisis in Mexican lies in a massive social change, the kind that identity. He argues, further, that Los olvidados would, as the director ofthe Farm School re- also forms part of this national interrogation marks wryly, "lock up poverty for good" (105). (57-79)- Bufiuel's refusal to provide Los olvidados The film shows Mexican culture at this with the sort of obvious thesis favored by most transitional point between a traditional and a documentarians stems, then, from his prefer- modern culture. But it also makes clear that for ence for making viewers come to the meaning most peasants trapped in slums outside the of a film on their own, but it is also part of his city proper modernity does not mean educa- concern with giving Los otvidados a sense of tion and a chance of advancement; instead, it's life lived, rather than analyzed (a point that will represented by street smarts or crime. Mean- be taken up later). His proximity to the material while, the traditional is reduced to superstition validates the treatment, suggesting that Buiiuel and the hypocritical lamentations ofthe Blind- has somehow accessed the real when others man. The huge framework of a skyscraper in have failed, an assertion that is the very stuff of construction hovering over a wasteland has not documentary, as we have seen. Appropriately, just a metaphoric but also an indexical value. then, included in the credits of/.oso/wdados The camera here meticulously documents the is a notice to the effect that "This film is based vestiges ofthe old order, the avatars ofthe entirely on real events, and all the characters new, and the disorder entailed by the shift from are authentic." one to the other.*' To begin with, Los otvidados concerns a In fact, Bufiuei made a huge effort—apart specific place and a definite time. It takes from his (and Luis Alcoriza's) research into the place during the presidency of Miguel Aleman records—to make his representation of Mexican (1946-52), a period of economic development slum life as trustworthy as possible. As late as and modernization that "forgot" the peasants My Last Breath (1982), he defended the film's by abandoning the program of land distribution veracity in things large and small. A Mexican instigated under Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40). mother would never act like Pedro's? But he'd Under Cardenas, a third ofthe population was read a story in the newspaper about a woman awarded a parcel of land, and it seemed that who tossed her little son out of a moving train. the promise of the Revolution (1910-17) was You'd never find three brass beds in a wooden finally being fulfilled. Succeeding governments, shack? But Bunuel himself had actually been in however, refused to support subsistence farm- such a shack and seen the beds (243-44). He ing, opting instead for the creation of modern took Edward Fitzgerald, the set-designer, with factory farms that benefited the wealthy and him on countless forays into the slums and got foreign corporations but left peasant farmers Pedro Urdimales to "Mexicanize" the dialogue.

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©2005 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS (The original script in the Filmoteca Espafiola agreeable aesthetic impressions," but that he shows the extent of that reworking.) He used could not entirely hold back Figueroa, who gave mostly nonprofessionals as actors and shot the film a rich palette of greys instead ofthe extensively on location—primarily Nonoaico—in harsh contrasts the director desired (138). a style that imitated the newsreel, much to the Like the neorealists, Bunuel made a point dismay of his cameraman, Gabriel Figueroa of not using professional actors in the film. (Baxter 211). The cast included some students from the Farm 5chool, but the requirement of a grade- Neorealist Techniques school education probably excluded most slum kids—although the child who played Ojitos In giving ios otvidados its feeling of actuality, apparently had a story much like his character's Bufiuel used techniques learned, in large part, (De la Colina and Perez Turrent 56-57). Bunuel, from the Italian neorealists, although he never however, chose the cast very carefully for the admitted the debt and excoriated them for a physical types he wanted to represent, and he tendency to fall into sentimental cliches. He used the few professional actors (Miguel Inclan shares their concern with showing a specific and Stella Inda were the only two generally time and place and their awareness of an actu- recognized) in an understated way.^' This cast- ality that impinges on—is, in fact, the very stuff ing meant that the screen was peopled largely of—the action at hand. Much of that feeling is with unfamiliar faces chosen not for their "star" conveyed through camera style and the use of quality but for their credibility. The juvenile location shooting. actors were extensively rehearsed (Aranda 139), Buiiuel planned carefully to give the shoot- but allowed to ad-lib in background dialogues ing of/.oso/wdodos the hit-or-miss quality of and engage freely in horseplay, contributing news coverage. In many sequences, the estab- once again to the sense that the camera is spy- lishing shot comes late, or not at all. The com- ing on spontaneous behavior." position seems haphazard. In one scene, the boys' legs are cut off at the knees. In another, Documentary with a Twist one ofthe boys walks straight into the camera, momentarily darkening the screen. In the scene When Bunuel claims that what De Sica and Ros- when the gang attacks the Blindman, the cam- sellini did had already been done in the novel, era apparently has a hard time following the he is less than candid (Climent 25). He owed action, which is off-center or even off-screen. more than he cared to admit to the neorealists, In the numerous market scenes, a constant who, as we have seen, had already worked out stream of customers and vendors passes in techniques for giving their films the look of ac- front of the lens; there is no sense of remove: tuality footage. Los olvidados, however, differs viewers feel they are in the middle ofthe actual from theirwork in significant ways. market as people go about their business. The One ofthe most obvious differences is camera at times follows random figures that Bunuel's insistence on providing his characters have no relation to the drama except as part of with an inner life that is projected on screen. the general milieu that generates it.'"' Transi- His insistence (see above) that the film owes tions between scenes are functional but not everything to science and nothing to poetry overly smooth, since prompts (like dialogue was just part of his strategy for subverting criti- hooks and establishing shots) are kept to a cism. In a 1958 address, he complains that the minimum. Throughout Los otvidados, Bufiuel neorealists' attempts to represent reality fail avoids images of superficial beauty, creating precisely because they lack poetry and a sense instead an effect of dirtiness. Aranda argues of mystery ("Cine" 185). The neorealists focus that "Bunuel did everything within his power on the material circumstances that define a to prevent the audience from experiencing any character: the Bicycle Thief is a man who needs

JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 57.4 / WINTER 2005 ©2005 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFTHE UNIVERSITY Ot^ ILLINOIS a bicycle, period. ForBunuel, the inner life is reviewers agape, and an astringent Spanish part ofthe equation; it is affected by circum- humor that escaped many (especially among stances, but it also spills over into these cir- the English and North Americans). cumstances in strange and sometimes perverse This ferocity may have been motivated in ways. Robert Kolker calls him "the neo-realist part by a need to set himself off from DeSica ofthe unconscious" (95). Think of the moment (whom he admired) and Rossellini (whom when Jaibo, driven not only by lust but also by he did not). It also suited Bufiuel's taste in a vague memory of his mother's face, seduces filmmaking. Certain scenes in L'Age d'Or and Pedro's mother; or of Pedro's deadly attack on almost all of/.OS Wurde5 are notable for their the hens, which he associates with that mother brutality. Los olvidados, in fact, opens with an and her betrayal. These tangled emotions allusion to Las Hurdes: the close-up of a child might just possibly be perceptible to an atten- of frightening ugliness, who is playing the bull tive observer, but this is not the case with the and who looks more animal than human, much dream sequence that revolves around a hunk of like the cretinous hurdanos who were treated meat and the uncanny images that accompany with the same unforgiving close-ups.^'' The Jaibo's death. Buinuel would argue, in fact did harshness doesn't preclude a compassion that argue, that these imaginative projections offer encompasses the bad lots as well as the good, glimpses into an expanded reality (the compre- but it does forestall the kind of easy pathos that hensive reality of surrealism—"Cine" 185), but undermines many ofthe Italian productions. "I it is a reality not to be found in the documents wanted to protest the sad condition of the poor on which the film is based. without beautifying it," Bunuel commented, There is also an eccentricity about many "because 1 detest the saccharine treatment so of Bunuel's characters (here and elsewhere) often given to the character ofthe poor" (qtd. in that sets them off from most ofthe figures that Sanchez-Vidal 119). populate neorealist drama. The latter conform Bufiuel, then, took what he could use from to type, but Bufiuel's characters have an almost the neorealists and molded it to his own ends. Dickensian quality, with quirky traits that can- He saw the film as a return to the self, picking not be explained by the constraints ofthe situ- up where he left off in Las Hurdes ("Bunuel ation. The Blindman, for example, is not just estima"), that is, with his own very personal avaricious, wicked, a "Porfirista," and a pedo- take on documentary practice, which, as we phile; he's also a witch-doctor and a one-man have seen, includes elements of surrealism, band. Ojitos, the lost child, is also a storehouse social satire, and parody. Commercial consid- of folk wisdom regarding good luck charms and erations and the need to negotiate the maze beauty tips. Characters like these represent of state censorship forced him to curb some of social and economic groups, yes. but beyond his impulses: "I toned down the surrealist side that they are fiercely individual. so that the audience ... could follow the film, Bufiuel criticized the neorealists most and ... I tried to terrify the bourgeoisie a little severely for a tendency to the literary cliche, less" (qtd. in Diaz Ruanova). Apart from Pedro's which, as he saw it, vitiated their claim to real- dream and Jaibo's dying vision, the surrealistic ism." Their cultivation ofthe pathos of the vic- elements here are limited to the sort of bizarre tim— already an established tradition in docu- juxtapositions daily life supplies in a society mentary—may be due in part to the experience in transition. The attack on the bourgeoisie of filming in a war-torn country; nevertheless, it is implicit rather than overt, but it's still hard engenders just that sentimentality the directors to miss. Consider, for example, the merry-go- had sought to avoid in technical terms. Bufiuel round scene, in which a nattily attired little girl strips away the sentimentality and treats his sails around on her ride, happily indifferent to characters, villains and victims (and villainous the ragged urchins her age who are pushing the victims), with a ferocity that left contemporary contraption.•'^

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©2005 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Las Hurdes functions simultaneously as a dados does not so obviously fit; it has a point documentary and as a parody of documentary to make, yes. but it's driven by narrative. practice, much of the parody located in the titles and the voice-over commentary—tech- Narrative niques practically synonymous with documen- tary—which carry objectivity to the point of Documentary is never entirely free of narrative cruel indifference. In Los olvidados, Buiiuel also (in Las Hurdes it involves the film crew's explo- plays with the voice-of-god commentary, but ration of the region), but many commentators here—apart from the opening sequence—the insist that the form always gives rhetoric prece- voice of god is displaced onto the Blindman. dence over narrative. Bill Nichols, for example, an archconservative and pedophile, who pro- argues that the neorealist works are not quite vides a running critique of modern life: "When documentaries because they move toward a Porfirio Dfaz was in charge, people behaved. "congruence with the real that documentary and women stayed at home" (25). Unlike the must avoid, ultimately, if it is to constitute a voice-over in the first sequence, which presum- representation or argument about the real" ably speaks for the director and which admits [Representing 169), and Steven Lipkin points having no easy answer to the problem of juve- out that "even a documentary dependent upon nile delinquency, the Blindman has a very neat re-creation places subject over story" (x). solution: "They should hang all these criminals Winston, on the other hand, insists that, up by their feet" {Los olvidados 114). Finally, he although documentaries tend to privilege an goes beyond commentary and actually puts his argumentative over a narrative structure, there recommendation into effect; in otherwords, he are enough exceptions to negate the rule (253). piays God, He informs on iaibo and then tells Thinking along similar lines, William Guynn the police where they can find him. When he writes that "what distinguishes documentary hears the shots ring out that will bring about from fiction film is not the simple presence or the boy's death, he intones prophetically: absence of narrative" since narrative Is an es- "One down! One down! Soon they'll all meet sential component of all documentaries, and their ends (he looks at the sky and shakes his he adds that there is no particular narrative fists). They should all be killed before they're mode associated with documentary: "Certain born!"(ios oividados 125). In this terrible par- documentaries closely resemble the fiction ody, the voice of god is taken literally. It's the film in that they deploy its basic signifying voice ofthe Old Testament deity embodied in a structures at many textual levels" (154). Carl blind man who has no heart,-''' Platinga, too, argues that, because of reen- The parodic element that distinguishes actment—long considered an essential part Las Hurdes resurfaces obliquely, then, in Los of documentary practice—it's not any formal olvidados. Like the earlier film. Los olvidados quality that determines how the audience makes no effort to evoke pathos in its treat- sees a film, but rather the context in which ment ofthe marginalized population and the the film is seen (38). Nichols himself admits very real problems on which it focuses—just the at one point that the real difference between contrary. Both films intend to shock viewers out documentary and fiction film lies not in consid- of their complacency rather than lull them with erations of form but in "what we make of the easy tears. Their wake-up call is all the louder documentary's representation ofthe evidence for being unstated. Yet there are obvious differ- it presents" (Representing 125); later he refers ences as well. Las Hurdes is a parody. It closely to the importance of context—specifically a follows the conventions ofthe form in order film's institutional credentials—in establish- to subvert them; narrative, therefore, takes a ing an audience's expectations (Introductior) back seat to exposition. Ultimately there is little 22-23). This suggests that audience reception question that it belongs to the genre. Los olvi- plays a—the?—critical role. Winston concludes.

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©ZOO5 BVTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Photo 2: Slums on the edge of Mexico City, with the modern city and the skeleton of a high-rise building in the back- ground. Photograph tak- en by Bunuel, Courtesy of Archivo Documentales (ABiio8,686). FJimoteca Espaiiota, Madrid.

simply, that "The difference [between docu- considerations probably influenced the critics' mentary and fiction] is to be found in the mind response. ofthe audience" {253). The reception ofthe film as a documentary was particularly marked in Great Britain and the Contemporary Reactions United States, both of which in 1950 had strong traditions of factual filmmaking." Mexico did No matter how we view it now, at the time it not have an established tradition. Reviewers was released, Los olvidados was accepted by there referred repeatedly to the film's realism— a great number of reviewers as a documentary. "people say it's the most realistic film pro- As we have seen, Bufiuel carefully orches- duced in Mexico" (Rassan)—and to the social trated his presentation ofthe film to elicit problems explored therein, without considering this response. The film spoke to a problem its claims to documentary status. There were that affected many nations in the 1940s. In some exceptions. Efrain Huerta described it as postwar Europe, destitute children, many of "an authentic document about the belt of gar- whom had lost one or both parents, joined bage dumps that surrounds the city of Mexico" youth gangs and turned to petty crime to avert [El Nacional). El Universal referred to its treat- hunger (Covey 61). With the dissolution ofthe ment of "a serious social problem" and cited its Empire, waves of immigrants moved to Britain "civic courage," and Mercedes Pinto called it "a from the colonies, and they too formed youth sociological film" (ElAvance). Octavio Paz, in gangs (Covey 61). Throughout the Americas the essay he distributed in Cannes, speaks of it as well, postwar emigration to the big cities as "a social film" but then goes on to state cat- led to a huge jump in juvenile gang violence, egorically that "it is not a documentary," argu- whether in New York or in Mexico City. Critics ing that instead it belongs to the "passionate saw then that Los olvidados involved the seri- and ferocious" tradition of Goya and Posada, ous consideration of an issue (or set of issues, but without explaining exactly why that heritage since the film also implicated the family and precludes documentary status (10). the social structure) that was of much concern On the other hand, although some English to their societies and was much discussed by and North American reviewers described it as academic and government bodies. All these a pseudo- or semidocumentary, most tended

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©2005 BY THE BOARD DFTRU5TEE5 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS toaccept it as part ofthe genre. The headline declarations—and that he simply wanted to tell in the D/lanchester Post read "Origin of Crime a story (see above). His comments show a real Exposed in Mexican Film." Maude Miller interest in representing as faithfully as possible compared it to the Griersonian documentary the social conditions of children who had been and wondered "where films of this nature, left behind by progress, but Bufiuel obviously weighted with so much sociological purpose, believed Los olvidados had to tell a compelling fit in cinema entertainment" [Manchester Daily story if its message was to reach a wide public. Dispatch]. Kenneth Tynan described it as a The message here is the same one we find in "sociological film" [Sight and Sound). DIlys all his major films: we do not live in the best Powell saw it as "a film drawn not from the sub- of worlds; you must at the very least recognize conscious but from the police files" [Sunday this ("Cine" 186). Times). The Observer noted that "its purpose is Michael Renov writes that the domains of deadly serious." The Daily Graphic called it "a fiction and nonfiction "inhabit one another" factual film," and Empire News, "a social docu- [Theorizing 3), This study has not attempted ment." Dorothy Walker wrote that after seeing it to position Los olvidados on one or the other "people are sure to understand better the forc- side of a divide, but rather has suggested that es that breed selfishness, brutality and crime" a reading that expands questions of genre to and called it an "expertly done documentary" inciude the social and cinematic moments, {San Francisco News). The New Orleans States in Mexico and the largerworld, when the film argued that "Every parent, every school teach- was made and released will provide us with a er, every social worker or welfare agency em- deeper understanding and greater appreciation ployee should see this picture." Other reviews of this controversial work. gave the film a similar reading. Finally, the National Medical Correctional Association (US) NOTES held a special showing ofthe film at its annual 1, Up for discussion have been Buriuel's sources, congress in 1951. The Secretary, Ralph S. Banay, funding, political agenda, and manipulation of mate- commented in his presentation that the story rial, as well as the film's effect on its subject, the Hur- "has all the essentials ofthe documentary film danos. Recent studies include the collection of essays that accompanied the 1999 exhibition on the film at without a ponderous editorialization." the InstitutValenciad'Art Modern [Tierra sin pan: Luis As we have seen, Bufiuel himself created Bunuel y los nuevos caminos de las vanguardias), the context that elicited this critical response Merce Ibarz's Bunuel documental: 'Tierra sin pan' y su tiempo, and juan Carlos Ibafiez Fernandez's "Elemen- by repeatedly describing the film as a docu- tos para la contextualizacion historica de 'Tierra sin mentary, by referring to the amount of research pan': El documentalismo au service de la Revolution," into police reports and reformatory records that 2. The writer is using documentary, expository, and had gone into it, by insisting (both inside and nonfiction here quite loosely to indicate a film that outside the film) "that it is all merely true,"^^ by foregrounds issues; that is, at least to some extent, grounded on actual events; and that has a serious prominently displaying the film's "institutional social purpose. In a few paragraphs appended to credentials" after the credits, and by starting it his "Autobiography" when he was looking for work off with the voice-over that signals a nonfiction at the Museum of Modern Art, Butiuel spoke of his film. He also made a point of hiring amateur or interest in documentary. He divided the form into little-known actors and of filming extensively two types: the "descriptive" and the "psychological," which, "while both descriptive and objective, tries to on location. interpret reality," This type can express "love, sorrow, That this insistence on the documentary and humor" and "it is much more complete, because nature of the film was part of a strategy for besides illustrating, it is moving" {256). This, too. is a getting Los olvidados past the censors and definition that leaves a lot of latitude. Like Grierson, who defined his practice as "the creative treatment of into theaters is clear. Years later, Bufiuel told actuality" (qtd, in Winston 11), Bufiuel was unaware, De la Colina and Perez Turrent that he had no or indifferent to. the contradiction. interest in psychopedagogy—in spite of earlier

28 lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 57.4 / WINTER 200^ ©2005 BY THE BOAHO OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 3. Aranda makes a forceful case for the documenta- Pedro is sent on an outside errand, )aibo seizes the ry interest of a wide range of Bufiuel's films (116-18), money. Humiliated and infuriated by this loss, Pedro i^. See Clifford 121-27 a"d 145-46 for a discussion returns to his neighborhood and denounces his erst- of surrealist ethnography. while friend. That night, Jaibo murders him. and a little 5, Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are later the police shoot down Jaibo. In the film's final mine, image, Pedro's body is tipped onto a garbage dump by 6. Roman Guburn and Paul Hammond fix the date people who are afraid of being involved. between May 1931 and |une 1932 (63-64), but a letter 13. The majority of the interviews, reviews, and from Pierre Unik to Maurice Thorez. dated 30 lanuary publicity notices cited here come from three folios of 1932. describes Bunuel as a member of the Spanish press clippings related to Los olvidados that are part Communist Party (Bibliotheque National. Paris. Nouv of the Archivo Bufiuel, which |avier Herrera kindly Acq Fr 25094, Folios 33-35), made available to me at the Filmoteca Nacional Es- 7,1 use quotation marks because a number of pai^ola, I include as much information as is available these sequences were rigged. The death of the goat on the clippings, but in many cases date and page (it tumbles dramatically off a cliff, not because of a number are missing. misstep, as the narrator suggests, but because it was 14. Some of this was just showmanship. Years later, shot) is a case in point. when Bufiuel was talking about researching the juve- 8. As head of propaganda at the Republican em- nile court files, Tomas Perez Turrent asked if he were bassy in Paris, he arranged a safe-conduct for Ivens interested in treating the reeducation of minors in the (M ultimo suspiro 194) and government financing for film, and he answered. "No. I was interested in find- Malraux's film (De la Colina and Perez Turrent 44). He ing characters and stories" (56). always insisted that fiis role in making Espana leal en 15. For discussions of the very questionable claims armas was very limited (De la Colina and Perez Turrent to scientific truth that are part of the discourse of the 44) • form, see especially Winston 127-249 and Renov 9. Similar in style and intent were Hathaway's The "Introduction" and "Toward a Poetics," Javier Herrera House on g2nd Street (1945) and 13 Rue Madeleine and Breixo Viejo very generously provided me with (1946). which synthesize different actuai incidents copies of some ofthe original location shots taken by into one story, and Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement Bufiuel himself and held in the Archivo Buiiuel at the (1947). which originated in fiction. Daryl F. Zanuck, Filmoteca. who produced all of these films for Twentieth Cen- 16. For the effect of Flaherty's experiential stance, tury Fox, had worked as a documentarist during the see Warren 4. There are numerous discussions ofthe war and was familiar with location shooting (Lipkin assumption (both on the part of filmmakers and spec- 14-15)- tators) that documentary is transparent, that it is not a 10. As Marvin D'Lugo pointed out to me, the suc- construction but a privileged view ofthe real, Roscoe cess of David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) may also have 8-12 and Renov "Introduction" are particularly inter- played a part in the decision to make a film about a esting. Arthur argues that even the most recent and gang of destitute children. self-conscious documentaries "manage to obviate the 11. This portion of MaxAub's interview with Ameri- most self-contradictory tensions in the opposition of go is not included in Conversaciones con Luis Bunuel, lived reality and tropes of presentation" (133) while but it's part ofthe taped interview and the transcript, they "continue to pivot on historically specific legiti- which are both at the Fundacion Max Aub (Segorbe). mations of authenticity" (134). 12. The film concerns a gang of impoverished chil- 17. This self-conscious gesture brings up the is- dren living on the outskirts of Mexico City, The leader, sue of mediation, only to suggest, deceptively, that Iaibo. has just escaped from the reformatory. With the the camera has caught a spontaneous, rather than help of Pedro, he lures ]ulian, whom he suspects of scripted, event. being a stool pigeon, to a deserted area and then mur- 18. Bosley Crowtherofthe WewVork Times, for ders him. Pedro is horrified by the murder but does not example, complained "nor is any social solution even betray his friend. Jaibo is an orphan, and Pedro's only hinted," known parent, his mother, treats him harshly because 19. Both are combined in the figure of Pedro's he is the result of a rape. In an effort to get in the good mother, who treats her other children with "tradi- graces of his mother. Pedro finds work with a knife tional" motherly love and Pedro, the child of rape, sharpener, but Jaibo steals a knife from the shop, with a modern coldness, the product of fragmented and Pedro is accused of theft. Again he remains silent social circumstances. Her clothing—a rebozo and high about his friend's crime. His mother, ovenworked and heels—also speaks of this transitional moment. When angry, urges the police to punish Pedro, Instead, he is one critic attacked the high heels as unlikely. Bunuel taken to the Farm School, where he is treated kindly defended them as he did the brass beds. Again, the and an effort is made to educate him. However, jaibo. idea Is that these touches are real rather than (or in fearful that Pedro may betray him, lies in wait. When addition to) metaphoric.

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©2005 BV THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 20, Bufiuel would exploit this technique fully in Le REFERENCES Fontome de la Libert^ (1974). where apparently ca- sual encounters lead to abrupt changes in narrative Acevedo Escobedo. Antonio. El Nacional. AB 12613. direction. Filmoteca Espafiola. Madrid. 21, Miguel Inclan (the Blindman) had a success- Acevedo-Mufioz. Ernesto R. Buiiuel and Mexico: The ful career, Stella Inda {the mother) had had leading Crisis of National Cinema. Berkeley: U of California roles in numerous films but had disappeared from P, 2003. the screen at the time of toso/wdodos. Alfonso Mejia Aldecoa. Manuel, Interview. En torno a Bunuel. Ed (Manuel Aldecoa), who played Pedro, was greeted as Marisot Carnicero and Daniel Sanchez Salas. a new discovery, but he had several films behind him Madrid: Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cin- (Aldecoa 37-38), Alma Delia Fuentes (Meche) had ematograficas de Espafia. 2000. 35-46. appeared in a number of films but had had only one Amerigo, Federico. Tape and transcript of interview by starring role, in Guardian, elperro Salvador [l^^o). Max Aub, 13 Mar, 1969, Bufiuel material. Fundacion Roberto Cobos (el Jaibo) had a career as a nightclub Max Aub. Segorbe. Spain. dancer known as "Calambres." Aranda,), Francisco, Luis Bunuel. Trans. David Robin- 22, Numerous contemporary reviewers commented son, London: Seeker and Warburg, 1973. on the film's feeling of authenticity. The following is Arthur, Paul, "Jargons of Authenticity (Three American a sample. The critic for the Wewyor/tWor/c/re/egram Moments)," Theorizing Documentary. Ed. Michael and Sun wrote that the tilm was "so weli directed that Renov, New York: Routledge. 1993.108-34, you never suspect the director's hand. It seems to Aub. Max. Conversaciones con Luis BuhueL Madrid: be life itself directing,"John Maddison in Sight and Aguilar, 1985. Sound comments on the pleasure of seeing young ac- Banay, Ralph S, Rim presentation. Annual conference tors behave as though they weren't aware of the cam- of National Medical Correctional Association, Bl- era and concludes that "Nothing here is synthetic or loxi, MS, 24 Oct. 1951, AB i2ioo:ioa,b.c, Filmoteca coy or studio-bound," For Antonio Acevedo Escobedo Espanoia, Madrid, of El Nacional, "Life itself bursts out on the screen." Baxter. John. Bunuel. London: Fourth Estate, 1995. 23, In an interview, he alleged that "The best Ital- Bazin. Andre, What Is Cinema? 2 ^[s.irans. Hugh ian film, the most ambitious French production, has Gray, Berkeley: U of California P. 1971, a little moment when it betrays pure realism. It's . "Luis Bufiuel," The Cinema of Cruelty. Ed. Fran- because the opposite of Realism is Literature, the cois Truffaut, Trans, Sabined'Estree, New York: commonplace that's taken for granted, that no longer Seaver. 1982. 49-100, smells of life" ("jTiene un suefio realista!"). See also Bufiuel. Luis. "Autobiography," An Unspeakable Be- "Cannes lo premio" and "Luis Bufiuel y su obra," trayal. Trans. Garrett White, Berkeley: U of Califor- nia P, 2000. 245-57. 2i^. The script calls for a "close-up ofthe boy, who . "Bufiuel estima que 'Los olvidados' no tuvieron acts like a mad beast (his grimace shows a broken tooth), and throws himself into the attack, lowering his exito economico por haber sido lanzada equivoca- head and pointing his index fingers like horns" (19), damente." Interview by L.V, AB 12221:66, Filmoteca Espanoia. Madrid. 25. This is analogous to the pizzeria scene in The , "Cannes lo premio: Bufiuel habia de su carrera Bicycle Thief {lg/tS), but without the poignant tone. Bufiiiel combines outrage and humor. ysuestetica," Interview by Juan B, Climent, Revista de America 24-25. AB 12221:83a,b, Filmoteca Es- 26. Years later, in La Voie Lactee. another voice of pariola, Madrid, god—this time Bufiuel's actual voice—will sound on . "El cine, instrumento de poesia." Luis Bufiuel: the radio of a wrecked car, threatening evildoers with Obra literaria. Ed. Agustfn Sanchez Vidal. Zaragoza: hellfire and damnation, Heraldo de Aragon, 1982.181-86, 27. For some reason, there are no French reviews , Los olvidados. Mexico: Ediciones Era. 1980, among the three folders of clippings related to Los , "Los olvidados" {original typescript with hand- olvidados that were part of Bufiuel's personal collec- written emendations). Archivo Bufiuel, Filmoteca tion and that are now housed in the Filmoteca Nacio- Espafiola, Madrid, nal Espafiola. Antonio Castro Leal, the Mexican rep- resentative to UNESCO, commented in an interview -, "Luis Bufiuel y su estrujante film," Interview by that social workers in France saw the film as "hearing Rassan, Novedades de la Pantalta 4 Oct, 1950, AB witness to a French problem." 12221:8. Filmoteca Espafiola. Madrid. . "Luis Bufiuel y su obra." Interview by Clara 28. Numerous English-language reviewers referred Montes, La Prensa (Mexico) 26 Nov. 1950, AB to this comment as part of the voice-over, although it 12613:20, Filmoteca Espanoia. Madrid, does not appear in more recent editions ofthe film. , Mi ultimo suspiro. Trans, Ana Maria de la Fuente, Barcelona: Plaza y Janes. 1992.

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©2005 BY THE BOARO OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS —. Radio interview by Miguel Angel Mendoza. Tran- Lejeune, C. J. "Little Brutes." The Observer 5 May script of "Diario del Arte." Station XEB (Mexico). AB 1952. AB 12100:45, Filmoteca Espaiiola. Madrid, 12613:73a.b,c. Filmoteca Espaiiola, Madrid, Lipkin. Steven N, Real Emotional Logic: Film and Tele- —, "Sombrfas declaraciones del discutido Bu- vision Docudrama as Persuasive Practice. Carbon- fiuel," Interview by Dfaz Ruanova. Claridades dale: Southem Illinois UP. 2002. 25 Feb, 1951, AB 12221:36. Filmoteca Espafiola, Menendez Pelayo. Marcelino. Historia de los hetero- Madrid, doxos espaHoles. Mexico City: Porrua, 1983, 3 vols. —. "Testimonio," Los olvidados. By Luis Bufiuel. Miller. Maud, "Where Will 'X' Films Lead Us?" Man- Mexico: Ediciones Era. 1980. 7-8. chester Daily Dispatch 3 May 1952, AB 12100:66. . "(Tiene un suefio realista!" Interview, Esto Nichols, Bill, introduction to Documentary. Blooming- (Mexico) 4 Jan, 1951, AB 12613:61a, Filmoteca Espa- ton: Indiana UP, 2001. iiola. Madrid, •. Representing Reality. Bloomington: Indiana UP, Castro Leal, Antonio. "Nuestra miisica y nuestro cine." 1991- Interview, 15 June 1952. AB 12221. Filmoteca Espa- New Orleans States. 4 May 1952. AB 12100, Filmoteca iiola. Madrid. Espafioia, Madrid, Covey, Herbert C. Sfreef Gangs throughout the World. Novedades. AB 12110:74. Filmoteca Espafiola, Madrid. Springfield. IL: Charles C. Thomas, 2003. Paz, Octavio, "Testimonio." Los olvidados. By Luis Crowther, Bosley. "The Screen in Review," New York Bufiuel. Mexico City: Ediciones Era. 1980. 8-12. Times 25 Mar. 1952, AB 12100:21. Filmoteca Espa- Perucho. Arturo. "'Los olvidados.' una pelicula inov- iiola, Madrid. idable," El Nacional 21 Nov. 1950. AB 12613:49. Daily Graphic. "Ruthless Cruelty," 2 May 1952, AB Fiimoteca Espafiola, Madrid. 12100. Filmoteca Espafiola. Madrid. Pinto, Mercedes. "Mercedes Pinto opina acerca de De la Colina, Jose and Tomas Perez Turrent. Luis 'Los olvidados.'" ElAvance (Mexico) 23 Nov, 1950, Bufiuel: Prohibido asomarse al interior. Mexico: |. AB 12221. Filmoteca Espaiiola, Madrid, Mortiz/Planeta, 1986, Platinga, Carl. Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfic- Dieguito, )uan. "Glosas del cine," AB 1223:86. Filmo- tion Film. New York: Cambridge UP. 1997. teca Espafiola. Madrid. Powell, Dilys, "Horror and Pity," Sunday Times 6 May D'Lugo, Marvin. Conversation. May 2002. 1952. AB 12100, Filmoteca Espafiola. Madrid, El Universal 9 Nov. 50, AB 12221, Filmoteca Espafiola. Renov, Michael. "Rethinking Documentary: Toward a Madrid. Taxonomy of Mediation." Wide Angle 8.3-4 (1986): Empire News 6 May 1952, AB 12100, Filmoteca Espa- 65-78. fiola. Madrid. -, e6.Theorizing Documentary. New York: Rout- Fernandez Ibafiez, luan Carlos. "El documentalismo ledge, 1993. au service de la Revolution," Imagen, memoria y Roscoe, lane. Faking It: Mock-Documentary and Its fascinacion: Notas sobre el documental en Espafia. Subversion of Factionality. Manchester: Manchester Ed, )osep Marfa Catala, )osetxo Cerdan. and Casi- UP, 2001, miro Totteiro. Madrid: Ocho y Medio. 2001.155-66, Sanchez Vidal, Agustfn, Luis Bufiuel. Madrid: Catedra, Gubern, Roman and Paul Hammond, "Bunuel. de 1994. runion libre au Front rouge," Positif/t82 (April Tynan. Ken. "Movie Crazy," Sight and Sound May 2001): 63-67. 1951. AB i2ioo:iob, Fiimoteca Espaiiola, Madrid. Guynn, William. >1 Cinema of Nonfiction. Rutherford: Unik, Pierre, Letter to Maurice Thorez, 30 Jan. 1932. Farleigh Dickinson P. 1990. Nouv. Acq. fr, 25094. Folios 33-35. Bibliotheque Huerta. Efrafn. "Close-up de nuestro cine." Supte- Nationale de France, Paris. mento de E! Nacional ig Apt. 1951, AB 12221:47. Valdes. Jaime, "Quienes obtuvieron los preciados 'Ari- Filmoteca Espafiola. Madrid. eles,'" AB 12221:65. Filmoteca Espafioia, Madrid. Ibarz. Merce. Bufiuel documental: "Tierra sin pan" Walker, Dorothy, "Delinquency Film Realistic," San ysu tiempo. Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Francisco News. AB 12100:66. Filmoteca Espafiola, Zaragoza. 1999, Madrid, IVAM (Institut Valencia d'Art Modern). Tierra sin pan: Warren, Charles, ed. Beyond Document: Essays on Luis Bufiuel y los nuevos caminos de las vanguar- Nonfiction Film. Hanover: UP of New England, 1996, dias. Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 1999, 3-15- Koiker. Robert Phillip, The Altering Eye: Contemporary Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real: The Documentary International Cinema. Oxford: Oxford LJP, 1983. Film Revisited. London: BFI, 1995.

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