Review

Reviewed Work(s): Nuevo cine latinoamericano. by Augusto Martínez Torres and Manuel
Pérez Estremera; Hacia un tercer cine. by Alberto Hijar;
Cine, cultura y descolonización.
by Fernando E. Solanas and Octavio Getino
Review by: Julianne Burton
Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 55, No. 2 (May, 1975), pp. 382-386
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2512131
Accessed: 23-10-2019 06:57 UTC

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 382 HAHR I MAY
One of the reasons offered by the Uiuguayan military to justify
their takeover was the state of "internal war" resulting from the
activities of an urban guerrilla organization known as the Movimiento
de Liberacion Nacional-Tupamaro. Therefore, a book which purports
to be "a comprehensive and analytical account of the birth, growth and
destruction of the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional-Tupamnaro" (p.
ix) should be welcomed because it could provide us the necessary
data to evaluate the impact of that guerrilla movement in Uruguayan
society. Unfortunately, Arturo C. Porzecanski's Urtigutay's Tupamaros
is not such a book.
Mr. Porzecanski's study is disappointing because despite his stated
objective, he has not written an analytical history of the M.L.N. but
a rather superficial and descriptive one. Based on sources already
available and offering no new insight, Uruguazy's Tupan-aros is divided
into five short chapters covering such topics as: ideology, membership,
organization, and tactics, with a final brief account of the Uruguayan
government's reactions to the M.L.N.'s actions from 1962 to 1972.
In each of these chapters, Porzecanski leaves a number of questions
unanswered. What is worse perhaps is his failure to deal with some
substantial issues: What factors contributed to the rise of the M.L.N.?
What are the ideological origins of the movement? Why and bowy
could it achieve such outstanding success for a number of years? What
was the impact of the Tupamaros in the gradual disintegration of the
Uruguayan democracy? What factors explain their present defeat?
And, can their experience be repeated in Uruguay or elsewhere?

Dartmouth University MARYSA NAVARRO

Nuevo cine latinoamei-icano. By AUGUSTO MARTINEZ TORREs and

MANUEL PEREZ ESTREMERA. Barcelona, 1973. Editorial Anagrama.
Pp. 226. Paper.

Hacia un tercer cine. Edited by ALBERTO HijAR. Mexico, 1972. Uni-

versidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Cuadernos de Cine, 20.
Illustrations. Pp. 144. Paper.

Cine, cultura y descoloniizacio6n. By FERNANDO E. SOLANAS and OCrA

GETINO. Buenos Aires, 1973. Siglo XXI. Pp. 205. Paper.

In March of 1973 the Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha, inter-

viewed in the Uruguayan weekly Mlarcha, put forth an optimistic
prognosis for the future of the New Latin American Cinema, calling

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BOOK REVIEWS I RELATED TOPICS 383
it "the most organized cultural form in Latin America": "The pros-
pects could not be better: we now have the experience of the sixties,
familiarity with internal and international markets, a greater 'de-
colonization' of world critical opinion, a more concrete knowledge
of the public taste in Latin America, a more profound mastery of our
own cinematographic technique and a de-mystification of the tech-
niques of imperialistic cinema, and above all, we have new political
conditions in Argentina, in Chile, in Peru."
The films which certified the importance of this incipient film
movement in the eyes of the world-e.g., The Hour of the Furnaces,
The Jackal of Nahueltoro, Memories of Underdevelopment, Lucia,
Antonio das Mortes-have received little exposure or serious com-
mentary in this country. In the intervening months since Rocha pre-
dicted that Latin American cinema was soon to become the most
interesting and active in the world, the political situation on the con-
tinent has changed to such a degree as to call the very survival of
the film movement into question. Given the paucity of available
material on the topic, it is difficult for the Latin Ainericanist to
evaluate the past achievements and attempt to chart the future pros-
pects of this cultural phenomenon or to appreciate its significance.
Fortunately, three recent books in Spanish provide essential historical,
critical, and theoretical background to the field.
From an historical point of view, the most comprehensive is Nuevo
cine latinoamericano by two young Spanish film critics, Augusto Mar-
tinez Torres and Manuel Perez Estremera. The authors, who have
traveled widely in Latin America and contribute frequently to such
Latin American film journals as the Peruvian Hablemos de cine, trace
the development of cinematography from its inception in nine Latin
American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba,
Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela) with some brief concluding notes on
the situation in some less cine-matographically developed nations.
Faced with two possible models for their awesome task of com-
piling the first panoramic presentation of the history and evolution
of cinema throughout Latin Amiierica, they chose a compromise between
cinematographic historiography and critical appraisal. They take
care to situate film, filmmakers, and film movements in their specific
historical and social context before offering critical evaluations of the
films themselves. This hybrid approach, though of necessity somewhat
mechanical and schematic at times, recognizes the importance of the
social and political roots of this cultural manifestation and facilitates
its comprehension by a wider audience.

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 384 HAHR I MAY
Though much of their commentary centers on politically com-
mitted or expressly revolutionary cinema, Martinez Torres and Perez
Estremera set themselves a course of political "objectivity" and a
"sincere and rigorous critical posture." The chapter on Cuban cinema,
due perhaps to this enforced divorce of ideological sympathies and
critical integrity, appears to be somewhat overcritical, yet it also
provides significant new data and an original analysis.
The book would have benefitted from the inclusion of a strong
concluding chapter, an attempt to summarize (more broadly and
conclusively than the often vague prognoses scattered throughout)
this incipient movement's prospects for survival, development, and
continuing impact on Latin American society. The inclusion of sche-
matic filmographies (principal directors, film titles, and dates) at
the end of each chapter provides a useful aid, but the book short-
changes the serious scholar by omitting index and bibliography, and
by failing to identify the sources of statistics and quotations. These
omissions, however, diminish in importance wvhen weiahed against
the extremely significant achievement of the book: the concise com-
pilation and skillful analysis of heretofore highly dispersed and often
inaccessible data.
Two other books, from Mexico and Argentina, effectively com-
plement the Spanish critics' historical-critical overview by providing
concrete documentation in the form of manifestoes, interviews, and
theoretical statements representing many of the most significant new
Latin American filmmakers and film movements.
Alberto Hijar's Hacia irn tercer cine offers selections from numerouls
Latin American film journals, several of wvhich are now unavailable.
In his two introductory chapters, the editor discusses the obstacles and
inherent contradictions in the attempt to develop a genuinely revo-
lutionary cinema, and he gives an overview of the history of the move-
nent up to 1971. The anthology begins with the famous essay "Hacia
un tercer cine" by the Argentine Grupo Cine Liberacion. There follows
an interviewv with the Uiriguayan director Mario Handler, conducted
by the Hispano-Argentine filmmaker Octavio Getino, and three short
pieces by Glauber Rocha ("Estetica de la violencia," "Manifiesto,"
and "No al populismo"). The "Informe del Grupo Cine Liberacio'n"
is followed by a manifesto from another Argentine group, Cine Rojo.
An interview with the Colombian filmmaker Carlos Alvarez precedes
a short piece by the Bolivian director Jorge Sanjines and an anonymous
letter directed to the Bolivian authorities protesting the "deferred"
showing of Sanjines's Yawar Mallku (Blood of the Condor). A short

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BOOK REVIEWS | RELATED TOPICS 385

statement by the Chilean director Miguel Littln is followed by selec-

tions on Senegalese and Vietnamese filmmaking, and the anthology
concludes, after a long mutual inteiview between the Argentine
director Solanas and the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Goddard, with
a theoretical piece on the absence of a "Third Cinema" movement in
Mexico. Despite its loose organization and the unevenness of some
of the material, Hijar's anthology is to date the only attempt to bring
together documentary material from all the Latin American countries
directly engaged in making the New Cinema. As such, it provides
valuable initial exposure to a diverse (and disperse) movement.
Similar in fonnlat, but more unified in content, is Cine, cultura y
descolonizacion by the founders of the Argentine Cine Liberacion
group, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. The selections trace
the activities and theoretical-artistic development of the group from
its early work beginning in 1966, through its first manifesto in May
of 1968 and subsequent theoretical statements. The chronological span
of the book concludes with an analysis of the group's experience up
to 1972.
As co-directors of the marathon documentary La hora de los hornos
(The Hour of the Furnaces), completed in 1968, the authors have
earned a special place among Latin Aimerican filmmakers. The three-
part film essay on colonialism and neo-colonialism, Peronism, and the
post-Pero6n period, violence and repression and the need for liberation-
of necessity filmed, assembled, and distlibuted clandestinely in Ar-
gentina-has had a tremendous impact on subsequent documentary
film production all over Latin Almierica. This film, and the theoretical
writings of its directors-especially the 1969 essay "Hacia un tercer
cine" which appears in both this and the Hijar collection-have estab-
lished Solanas and Getino as among the foremost theoretical spokesmen
of the New Latin American Cinema.
It is the experience of The Hour of the Furnaces that provides the
unifying motif for this anthology of intelviews, articles, and manifestoes,
which are directed specifically toward an exploration of the role of
film and film workers in the liberation struggle of dependent coun-
tries, with particular emphasis, of course, on the Argentine situation.
The continuing nature of the search begun with La hora de los hornos
is underlined by the theoretical evolution apparent in the selections
in this collection. This very inconclusiveness is, in the view of the
authors, the virtue and the greatest potential of the anthology, which
in their minds is destined primarily to those engaged in a similar search,
but is of deep imiport to those with a more passive interest as well.

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 386 HAHR I MAY
In defining the search of the Latin American filmmakers for new
forms of filmic expression, new levels of popular cultural participation,
and new methods of social impact, these three books are also incon-
clusive, but together they provide an essential basis for the eventual
formulation of the entire picture.

University of California, JULIANNE BURTON

Santa Cruz

The Chicanos: Life and Struggles of the Mexican Minority in the United
States. By GILBEJITO LOPEZ Y RIVAS. Translated and edited by
ELIZABETH MARTINEZ. New York, 1973. Monthly Review Press.
Tables. Appendix. Bibliography. Pp. 187. Cloth.

Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican

Amnericans. Edited by DAVID J. WEBER. Foreword by RAMNON
EDUARDO Ruiz. Albuquerque, 1973. University of New Mexico
Press. Illustrations. Index. Pp. xiii, 288. Paper. $4.95.

Lopez y Rivas's book is a short introduction to Chicano history

and the current Chicano Movement. The Chicanos, intendcd to be
read by those who have the barest acquaintance with the social
reality of Chicanos, was directed towards a Mexican audience, and
it was subsequently translated into English. Perhaps because of this,
the work is overly fundamental and too sketchy. The text is comprised
of a concise histolical review of the Chicano people written by the
author, and this is followed by eleven selected readings written by
Chicano activists. The author's essay analyzes the fundamental causes
of Chicano oppression, which he generally attributes to capitalism.
The readings are meant to introduce the reader to the ideology of the
Chicano Movement; however, these are too few to be representative
of any one tendency within the Chicano Movement. Moreover, the
readings are not introduced vith an essay by the editor (Lopez y
Rivas), and thus are not integrated in any way. In some cases there
is little relationship between them except that they are written by
individuals who are Chicanios. Consequently, the reader must make
the connection between articles.
In his short historical review the author uses a variation of the
Internal Colony as a key to understanding the oppression faced by
Chicanos, but the analysis is not developed satisfactorily. For example,
Lopez y Rivas cites Stalin's theory on the national question to support
the thesis that Chicanos are an internal colony; however, in his writings

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