From March 25-28, I attended the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Montréal. I gave a paper,“Taste, Trash, and Distinction: Historical Lessons from Mexican Screen Studies”, as part of a panel, ‘The Cinema of “Crisis” Reading 1980s Mexican Film against the Grain’ organised by Olivia Consentino, Ohio State University. In attendance was Ma.Cristina Alemán…
Category: Mexican film
Macario – A (Transnational) Day of the Dead Film
I am currently working on a chapter on adaptation and am pulling out films that have literary origins to watch to flesh out my discussion. Given that it is the Dia de los santos difuntos [All Saints Day], which still falls within the celebratory commemorative period of Dia de los muertos [Day of the Dead],…
Arturo Ripstein and La perdición de hombres
I recently sent off a chapter to the editors of a collection on the Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein. I want to share some brief thoughts on this prolific director and some images from the film I discuss in my chapter, La perdición de los hombres/The Ruination of Men (2000). In an interview with Paulo Antonio Paranaguá…
Violence in Heli
Find my recent post “VIOLENCE AS NARRATIVE FUNCTION OR, SOME THOUGHTS ON WHY HELI DIVIDES CRITICS” in Mediático: http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2014/06/30/violence-as-narrative-function-or-some-thoughts-on-why-heli-divides-critics/
Oscar/Emilio
For those unfamiliar with this story you may be interested to know that the Oscar statuette was modelled on the Mexican filmmaker and actor Emilio Fernández. Click here: http://www.studio360.org/story/oscars-real-name-is-emilio/ for the full story. Emilio Fernandez in the 1934 movie Janitzio (Luis Marquez Romay)
María Félix – Centenary
Over the last 24 hours multiple writers and newspapers have marked the centenary of María Félix’s birth on the 8th of April 1914. In curious symmetry she also died on the 8th of April in 2002 at the age of 88. She is an unfamiliar figure in the English-speaking world. She never acted in an…
Screen Violence: A Reflection
I recently blogged about how war photographs are used as a way of efficient storytelling in a Portuguese film (http://www.niamhthornton.net/death-on-film-how-far-can-you-go/). In response to that I had some interesting discussions on Twitter and a decision with Fiona Noble to write blog posts on our shared interest in screen violence. In the process of writing we have…
Access, distribution and research: Marcela Fernández Violante
As part of a project on Latin American women filmmakers (mostly directors and producers) I will be writing about Marcela Fernández Violante. She has been at the centre of Mexican filmmaking since the 1960s. She was one of the generation of first filmmakers who were educated in film school and later she became the director…
Imagining the Mexican Revolution
I’m delighted to have a chapter in this book that arrived this morning: It has already received glowing praise, as can be seen from the back cover: The table of contents shows the coverage, depth and diversity of essays: For more information on where to buy the book, see here: http://www.c-s-p.org/flyers/Imagining-the-Mexican-Revolution–Versions-and-Visions-in-Literature-and-Visual-Culture1-4438-5316-X.htm
Revolución online, on demand and on DVD
Here’s a link to a short description of Revolución [Revolution] (2010) made by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s company Cananea: Curt Hopkins (2010) “The (Mexican) Revolution Will be Televised – But on YouTube, and 100 Years After it Began” Readwrite, November 5th, http://readwrite.com/2010/11/05/the_mexican_revolution_will_be_televised_-_but_on. It includes a short video interview with the filmmakers. The film was first…