A Conversation with Lordes Portillo Hector A. Torres, Lourdes Portillo Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, Volume 34.1 (2004), pp. 66-72 (Article) Published by Center for the Study of Film and History DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/flm.2004.0030 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/170464 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] To r r es | A Conversation with Lordes Portillo A Conversation with Lordes Portillo Hector A. Torres University of New Mexico [Mesilla, New Mexico, April 5th, 2003] to write. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not a writer, but I imag- H.T. We’re here, celebrating the Border Book Festival, brain- ine it’s cheaper, in any case. Writing doesn’t cost as much child of Chicana author Denise Chávez. as filmmaking. L.P. Right. H.T. The technical side of film seems overwhelming and daunt- H.T. We’re here to talk a little bit with Lourdes Portillo, film- ing and you seem to have mastered the craft. maker. What other kinds of works do you do – do you do L.P. Well, I don’t know if I’ve mastered the craft; I’ve mastered any other kind of work besides film? mastering the craftsman. You know? I’ve mastered work- L.P. No, I don’t actually. I mean, I do video and installations, ing with people and trying to have those people have the like museum installations and that sort of thing. But, you same vision—share the vision with me, and have the inspi- mean like writing? No, no, no. ration and the desire to fulfill that vision. I think I’ve ac- H.T. Film is your focus. complished that because I’ve been surrounded by wonderful L.P. Film has been my career since I was twenty-one years old. artists. H.T. Okay, then, why film, how film, from where film? H.T. In your work with the films that you’ve produced, does the L.P. You know I was an immigrant to Los Angeles with my fam- question of origins interest you? Chicano and Chicana lit- ily when I was a teenager. And Los Angeles is for film like erary production is very much concerned with the question the way Detroit is for cars. So there’s a lot of film jobs and of origins, the question of recovering history. How does this there were a lot of film jobs even then when I was twenty- question affect you, if it does? one. And some friends of mine asked me if I wanted to L.P. Oh, yes, it does. Totally. I mean I feel like even though I’m work on making an educational film. I did and it was the not a writer, my best friends are writers, my son is a writer, first time. Up until that moment I didn’t know what I was my niece is a writer. You know literature is a thing that is going to do with my life, so I worked in this film as a pro- very close to me. I feel it deeply in my heart. I don’t have duction assistant. I felt like it was the most natural and the skill. You know, I wasn’t born in this country. English wonderful thing that I had ever really done up to that point. is not my first language. Spanish is my first language so I I just took to it immediately and felt that it probably was always felt insecure about language. But the question of the only way that I was going to be origins, I think that I’ve expressed it able to have a voice in the culture very much in my work. It definitely because I felt like I needed to say is a preoccupation of mine in a visual some things. But, I didn’t even re- way. alize that I had that desire until I H.T. You talked about you being saw what it was like to be in film an immigrant, English being a sec- production. ond language . can I ask…? H.T. So the coming to film production L.P. …Sure, ask anything. was a real transformation in your H.T. What were the tracks you sense of self? made? Where was the point of ori- L.P. I think so. It was like finding my gin and how did you end up in voice. That’s what it was, even L.A.? though it’s a very complex under- L.P. Okay. My family comes taking. It’s not a simple thing. It’s Courtesy of the author. from Chihuahua, Chihuahua City for easier to paint and easier, perhaps, Lordes Portillo many, many generations, as far as I 66 | Film & History Hector A. Torres | Special In-Depth Section can see. I mean as far as I’ve investigated from the 1700s, L.P. I think postmodernity kind of really captured my imagina- you know. My family has been in Chihuahua, and, my tion a few years back. You know the whole notion of layer- father’s family hasn’t been. ing of different experiences, particularly in film. And you My father’s family was an immigrant from Zacatecas. He see that in The Devil Never Sleeps. came into Chihuahua, met my mother, and married her. He H.T. Early in your career? decided that he wanted to immigrate into the United States, L.P. Like in the 90s. I’m not so involved in that concept now. otherwise we would have remained in Chihuahua, I’m sure. I’m kind of trying to go in a different direction. That was And from there, we moved first to Mexicali, so I’ve lived in kind of my more intellectual period. Now, I’m trying to the border for many years. And from Mexicali, we then just really focus on the more intuitive, really, really intui- moved to Los Angeles, and then I moved to San Francisco. tive, true sense of what I’m feeling in terms of portraying H.T. Back to film a little bit. those things in film. What were you thinking about L.P. Sure. postmodernity? H.T. How does film help an audience, a general audience, come H.T. Well, I’m just thinking you know that the issues that are to grips with history, with culture, with language? confronting chicanidad in our days are issues concerning L.P. Well, I think it’s a shorthand; it’s a kind of unconscious, fragmentation, concerning the lack of a unified subject. All artistic, visual shorthand for feelings and for information. these things. And I’m wondering, how do they make their It’s almost subliminal, if it’s actually done that way, a sub- way into your sensibility, into your crafting of the film, the liminal kind of suggestion that is implanted inside of you actual putting together of the film. For instance, with when you watch film. I think that’s what it is because it’s Señorita Extraviada, roughly how much footage was in- not so obvious as a painting or literature. I mean literature volved in a film like that. How much of it ended up on the can also be extraordinarily complex, but film and video have floor, how much of it ended up as the visual medium that the advantage of being a visual medium, which you know you endorsed. can convey a variety of messages. As you just saw right L.P. A lot. A lot. I mean we had a lot of footage, I don’t remem- now with Ray’s film. ber exactly how much we had, but we had a lot of footage. H.T. Yes. Ray Santisteban’s film, Texas Voices. At the scene of Well, you know in film as in any work of art, you just have editing where the various parts have to come together, how to get to its essential, to the essential vision of the person do you handle that portion? who conceived it. But that’s different than what you’re talk- L.P. Well, I technically don’t do the editing. You know I have an ing about. editor. I work very closely with a person who shares my H.T. Let me ask you a thematic question: Why is the devil so vision and who shares my sense of justice, also my sense of important for chicanidad? aesthetics and humor and everything. I actually have al- L.P. I think what happened is that there was a whole movement ways surrounded myself with people who share a lot of the of romanticization—is that how you say it? There’s this way that I look at the world, and they are not necessarily romanticization with the idea of the essential Chicano. You Chicanos, which is interesting. You know? They’re from know? Familia. La Raza. Aztlán. All that stuff. You see every race; we have similar affinities. So the editor and I sit one of the things that happens with my filmmaking which down and look at all the footage. I go into the film, when I is in a sense probably the same philosophy that Sandra shoot the film with kind of a story, like a paragraph. The [Cisneros] has: we have to go into the deepest, darkest in- film is about this, basically; that paragraph gets translated ner self.