Celluloid Nationalism and Other Melodramas

Susan Dever

Description

Celluloid Nationalism and Other Melodramas looks at representation and rebellion in times of national uncertainty. Moving from mid-century Mexican cinema to recent films staged in Los Angeles and Mexico City, Susan Dever analyzes melodrama's double function as a genre and as a sensibility, revealing coincidences between movie morals and political pieties in the civic-minded films of Emilio Fernández, Matilde Landeta, Allison Anders, and Marcela Fernández Violante. These filmmakers' rationally and emotionally engaged cinema—offering representations of indigenous peoples and poor urban women who alternately endorsed "civilizing" projects and voiced resistance to such totalization—both interrupts and sustains fictions of national coherence in an increasingly transnational world.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Prologue

INTRODUCTION
Of Melodrama and Other Inspirations

Part I : Post-Revolutionary Mexico

1. Re-Birth of a Nation: On Mexican Movies, Museums, and María Félix

2. Las de abajo: Matilde Landeta's Mexican Revolution

3. Pimps, Prostitutes, and Politicos: Matilde Landeta's Trotacalles and the Regime of Miguel Alemán

Part II: Fin de Siglo Mexamérica

4. Neomelodrama as Participatory Ethnography: Allison Anders's Mi vida loca

5. The Last Judgment: Marcela Fernández Violante's Requiem (for) Melodrama

EPILOGUE
Deeds that Inspire Confidence

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Latin American
• Ethnic studies
• Latin America
• History of film
• Caribbean

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791486658
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

CELLULOID NATIONALISM AND OTHER MELODRAMAS

T H ES U N YS E R I E S CULTURAL STUDIES IN CINEMA/VIDEO W H E E L E R W I N S T O N D I X O ND I T O R| E

and

SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory Michelle A. Massé, editor

CELLULOID NATIONALISM AND OTHER MELODRAMAS 

From Post-Revolutionary Mexico tofin de siglo Mexamérica

S U S A N D E V E R

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2003 Susan Dever

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dever, Susan, 1955– Celluloid nationalism and other melodramas : from post-revolutionary Mexico to fin de siglo Mexamérica / Susan Dever. p. cm. — (SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video) (SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5763-X (alk. paper) — (ISBN 0-7914-5764-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—Mexico—History. 2. Melodrama in motion pictures. 3. Mexican Americans in motion pictures. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory

PN1993.5.M4 D48 2003 791.43'0972—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002030972

I dedicate this book to my father, for bequeathing his love of Los Angeles, and to my mother, for giving her all so that I could love Mexico.

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C O N T E N T S



List of Illustrationsix

Acknowledgmentsxiii

Prologue1

I N T R O D U C T I O N 5 Of Melodrama and Other Inspirations

P ART I Post-Revolutionary Mexico

C H A P T E R O N E 47 Re-Birth of a Nation: On Mexican Movies, Museums, and María Félix

C H A P T E R T W O 71 Las de abajo: Matilde Landeta’s Mexican Revolution

C H A P T E R T H R E E 95 Pimps, Prostitutes, and Politicos: Matilde Landeta’sTrotacallesand the Regime of Miguel Alemán

vii

viii

CONTENTS

P ART II Fin de SigloMexamérica

C H A P T E R F O U R 125 Neomelodrama as Participatory Ethnography: Allison Anders’sMi vida loca

C H A P T E R F I V E 167 The Last Judgment: Marcela Fernández Violante’s Requiem (for) Melodrama

E P I L O G U E 195 Deeds that Inspire Confidence

Notes197

Bibliography233

Index251

I L L U S T R A T I O N S



F IGURE p.1.Return to the Light. Mural by Charles Freeman, 1994. F IGURE i.1.Flor silvestre’s revolutionary bedfellows. F IGURE i.2. Dolores del Río andmarranitoinMaría Candelaria. 26 F IGURE i.3. Matilde Landeta on the set ofLa Negra Angustias. 28 F IGURE i.4. Independent production: the car Landeta hocked to make her films. F IGURE i.5. María Elena Marqués as La Negra Angustias and Elda Peralta as a Federalist wife. F IGURE i.6. La Negra’s fleeting heterosexual fling. F IGURE i.7. Quinine queue inMaría Candelaria. 34 F IGURE 1.1.María Candelaria’s “colorful natives.” F IGURE 1.2.María Candelaria’s fetishized feminine. F IGURE 1.3.La virgen María(Félix) inRío Escondido. 50 F IGURE 1.4. Félix as Doña Bárbara, devourer of men. F IGURE 1.5. Exotic Hollywood/Brazilian Dolores del Río in Flying Down to Rio. F IGURE 1.6. María Félix nationalizes Hollywood. F IGURE 1.7. Mapy Cortés exoticizes Mexico. F IGURE 1.8. National arbiter Félix inRío Escondido. 60 F IGURE 2.1. Learning about “Juárez and Cervantes, Kant and Freud.”

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