Sensationalism, Cinema and the Popular Press in Mexico and Brazil, 1905-1930
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Sensationalism, Cinema and the Popular Press in Mexico and Brazil, 1905-1930 By Rielle Edmonds Navitski A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kristen Whissel (chair) Professor Natalia Brizuela Professor Mary Ann Doane Professor Mark Sandberg Spring 2013 Sensationalism, Cinema and the Popular Press in Mexico and Brazil, 1905-1930 © 2013 by Rielle Edmonds Navitski Abstract Sensationalism, Cinema and the Popular Press in Mexico and Brazil, 1905-1930 by Rielle Edmonds Navitski Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Media University of California, Berkeley Professor Kristen Whissel, Chair This dissertation examines the role of new visual reproduction technologies in forging public cultures of sensationalized violence in two rapidly modernizing nations on the periphery of industrial capitalism. I trace parallel developments in the production and reception of silent crime and adventure film in Brazil's First Republic and in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico, at a moment when industrialization and urbanization were reshaping daily experience without eliminating profound social inequalities. Re-evaluating critical frameworks premised on cinema’s relationship to the experience of modernity in the industrialized U.S. and Western Europe, I argue that these early twentieth-century cultures of popular sensationalism signal the degree to which public life in Mexico and Brazil has been conditioned by violence and social exclusion linked to legacies of neo-colonial power. In the first half of the dissertation, I examine cinematic re-enactments of real-life crimes filmed in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Mexico City between 1908 and 1919. Combining an emphasis on location shooting with melodramatic tropes inherited from popular literature and theater, these true-crime films grapple with representational problems at the heart of the cinematic medium: its potential for both documentation and dramatization and its indeterminate relationship to topical events. Incorporating analysis of locally produced crime serials, I focus on the dynamics of unequal cultural exchange between Mexico and Brazil and industrialized nations, particularly France and the United States, which acted as exporters of cultural products. Addressing the economic polarization of metropolitan centers and rural areas, the latter half of the dissertation analyzes fiction features produced outside the two countries’ principal cities in the 1920s, where economic development lagged behind that of urban centers. These productions drew on the conventions of imported serial films and westerns (particularly location shooting and dynamic action sequences) to display local landscapes even as they asserted mastery over cinematic technology’s viscerally thrilling effects. In constructing violence and risk as markers of local modernity, early Mexican and Brazilian crime and adventure films rendered spectacularly visible the social tensions of national modernization projects. 1 For my family i TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………….iii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………...v INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………..viii CHAPTER 1: Cinema, Criminality and Popular Sensationalism in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, 1906-1913....1 CHAPTER 2: Imported Serials, Paraliterary Appropriations, and the Production of Crime Films in Rio de Janeiro, 1917-1924……………………………………………..…………………….36 CHAPTER 3: Spectacles of Violence and Politics: True-Crime Film in Post-Revolutionary Mexico City, 1919- 1926………………………………………………………………………….………………….58 CHAPTER 4: Nationalist Iconographies, Cosmopolitan Images of Crime: Regional Production of Adventure Films in Mexico, 1920-1927…………………...………………………………………………...92 CHAPTER 5: Serials, Westerns and Cine-Romances: Adventure Melodrama in Regional Films and Cinema Magazines in 1920s Brazil…………………………………………..……………………........113 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………...149 REFERENCES…...…………………………………………………………………………….152 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………...199 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the Institute for International Education, which provided a fellowship in support of my research in Mexico and Brazil, as well to the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley, for additional funding support. Many, many thanks to my dissertation committee, especially to my chair Kristen Whissel, who has provided indispensable guidance and insightful comments, even after slogging through chapter drafts rivaling an M.A. thesis in length, and went above and beyond to support my job search. Her dedication to the field and to her students has long been an inspiration to me. My gratitude to Natalia Brizuela, who welcomed me into her courses early in my graduate study, encouraged me to learn Portuguese, and urged me to think through the politics of culture; to Mary Ann Doane, for mentoring me as an undergraduate, supporting my graduate and professional career, and agreeing to join the committee at a fairly late stage of the project; and to Mark Sandberg, a wonderful interlocutor who always seems to know exactly the right question to ask to move a project forward. Philip Rosen’s courses at Brown sparked my interest in Latin American cinema, resulting in the undergraduate thesis I completed under his direction, which in turn paved the way for future projects. Jennifer Bean’s course on serials, slapstick, and other “body genres” of the silent era, taught during a semester as a visiting professor at Berkeley, was crucial in concretizing my interest in early film. Francine Masiello’s seminar on mass culture and modernist literature in 1920s Argentina was also pivotal in developing the research interests from which this dissertation developed. Thanks as well to Candace Slater for her course on the region in contemporary Brazilian literature, and for putting me in touch with her contacts in Brazil. I would like to recognize the helpful, professional staff of the following archives in Brazil: the Cinemateca Brasileira in São Paulo, with special thanks to Daniel, Renato, and Adilson Mendes, who invited me to present a section of this work in progress at the Jornada Brasileira do Cinema Silencioso in 2012; the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, especially Luiz, who spontaneously arranged for me to meet the filmmaker Fernando Spencer and even (against my protests) insisted on sweetening the cups of coffee he offered me; the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, especially Virginia and Bruno for their research suggestions and assistance in navigating necessary paperwork; the Museu da Imagem e do Som – Rio de Janeiro, the Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, the Arquivo Nacional, and Fundação das Artes. I also want to express my appreciation to the staff of the following Mexico City archives: the Filmoteca de la UNAM (special thanks to Nahún Calleros Carriles, Víctor Manuel Romero Cervantes and Antonia Rojas), the Biblioteca Lerdo de Tejada, the Hemeroteca Nacional, the Biblioteca Nacional, the Cineteca Nacional, and the Archivo General de la Nación, I have found Brazilian archivists and scholars, with rare exceptions, to be unusually generous with their time and encouragement. Thanks to Fabiana Diaz, Hernani Heffner, and Carlos Roberto de Souza, who provided me with contacts and suggestions upon the barest of acquaintances; to Pedro Lapera, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the Biblioteca Nacional and passion for early film history have been an inspiration; and to Paulo Carneiro da Cunha Filho, who was kind enough to provide me with a copy of his book on silent cinema in Recife, hot off iii the presses. Special thanks are due to Rafael de Luna Freire, who very generously shared his unpublished work with me and provided valuable comments and insights on my project, and to Luciana Corrêa de Araújo, whose scholarship and expertise I have often relied upon, and with whom I have had the pleasure of discussing Brazilian silent film on several occasions on two continents. Going above and beyond the tradition of Northeastern Brazilian hospitality, Ronaldo Correia de Brito, Avelina Brandão and Isabel Correia Brandão welcomed me into their home at a time when I felt lost. Ronaldo made seemingly innumerable phone calls on behalf of my research project, for which I am deeply grateful. In Mexico, I owe a great deal to David M.J. Wood, who was instrumental in arranging my stay as a visiting researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Together with Itzia Fernández, David fostered many opportunities for intellectual exchange, especially the Seminario Cine y Archivo that the three of us co-founded. Many thanks as well to Esperanza Vázquez Bernal for agreeing to share with me her comprehensive knowledge of the life and films of Gabriel García Moreno. Thanks to those who enriched my sometimes difficult time abroad: mi carnalito Oswaldo Mejía Mendiola, dear friend and research companion; fellow ex-pats and partners in crime Sara Potter and Katherine Brodbeck; kindred cultural historians Lena Suk and Aialä Levy; and faraway friends Vanya Tsutsui, Cláudia Paz, Patricia Méndez Obregón, and Diana Restrepo Restrepo. Thanks to Misha Maclaird for helping to orient me before my first research trip to Mexico City in 2008, and for sending dispatches from the frontlines of academia, filmmaking and film festivals ever since;