Buänuel and Mexico: The Crisis of National Cinema (Google eBook)

Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz

University of California Press, 2003 - History - 202 pages

Though Luis Buuel, one of the most important filmmakers of the twentieth century, spent his most productive years as a director in Mexico, film histories and criticism invariably pay little attention to his work during this period. The only book-length English-language study of Buuel's Mexican films, this book is the first to explore a significant but neglected area of this filmmaker's distinguished career and thus to fill a gap in our appreciation and understanding of both Buuel's achievement and the history of Mexican film.
Ernesto Acevedo-Muoz considers Buuel's Mexican films--made between 1947 and 1965--within the context of a national and nationalist film industry, comparing the filmmaker's employment of styles, genres, character types, themes, and techniques to those most characteristic of Mexican cinema. In this study Buuel's films emerge as a link between the Classical Mexican cinema of the 1930s through the 1950s and the "new" Cinema of the 1960s, flourishing in a time of crisis for the national film industry and introducing some of the stylistic and conceptual changes that would revitalize Mexican cinema. Though Luis Buuel, one of the most important filmmakers of the twentieth century, spent his most productive years as a director in Mexico, film histories and criticism invariably pay little attention to his work during this period. The only book-length English-language study of Buuel's Mexican films, this book is the first to explore a significant but neglected area of this filmmaker's distinguished career and thus to fill a gap in our appreciation and understanding of both Buuel's achievement and the history of Mexican film.
Ernesto Acevedo-Muoz considers Buuel's Mexican films--made between 1947 and 1965--within the context of a national and nationalist film industry, comparing the filmmaker's employment of styles, genres, character types, themes, and techniques to those most characteristic of Mexican cinema. In this study Buuel's films emerge as a link between the Classical Mexican cinema of the 1930s through the 1950s and the "new" Cinema of the 1960s, flourishing in a time of crisis for the national film industry and introducing some of the stylistic and conceptual changes that would revitalize Mexican cinema.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Mexican Cinema in the Time of Luis Bunuel: 15
• Bunuel and Mexico: 32
• Los Ohidados and the Crisis of Mexican Cinema: 57
• Genre Women Narrative: 80
• On the Road: 111
• Masculinity and Class Conflict: 124
• From Bunuel to Nuevo Cine: 143
• Filmography of Luis Bunuel: 153
• Notes: 159
• Bibliography: 177
• Index: 187

About the author

Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Buänuel and Mexico: The Crisis of National Cinema
• Author: Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2003
• ISBN: 0520930487, 9780520930483
• Length: 202 pages
• Subjects: History / Latin America / General; Performing Arts / Film & Video / Direction & Production; Performing Arts / Film & Video / History & Criticism