Cinema in Latin America: Visions of a Continent in Transition

Professor DeeDee Halleck
dhalleck@weber.ucsd.edu
Tuesdays 7:00 - 9:50PM
Winter Quarter, 1999

Com Cul 110
Copley Auditorium, CILAS

This course will look at the role of contemporary media in Latin America. We will explore the "new cinema" movement and recent developments in film, popular television and video activism. Each class will consist of a film screening, after which a discussion will take place. In addition, many films will be made available at the Undergraduate Playback Center. Students may also view films at local cinemas or from video stores which are made in Latin America. Students are expected to see three films each week and report on them with a short review, either via email or hard copy. The first hour and a half of each class will be devoted to screening and is open to the general public free of charge. After a break, the class will resume with discussion and historical background. Several guest producers will visit the class during the quarter. A few outside screenings will also be required.

The first hour and a half of each class will be devoted to screening and is open to the genral public free of charge. After a break, the class will resume with discussion and historical backbround. Students seeking credit are required to stay for the discussion.

Graduate students are expected to do additional reading and to attend occasional discussion seminars which will be announced.

Readings:

Suggested Further Readings:
A book report from one of these (and others TBA) will be due 9th week Highly Recommended:
Course Work:

Short paragraph reports on three films screened at playback or from video store (or from art and or video exhibitions): due each week (films in class do not count) for a total of 27 film reports. The reports should be personal: how that film related to your own life, or developed your perceptions. If for some reason you miss one of the class screenings, you must see the video at playback and report on it also. This does not count as one of your three weekly screenings.

Third Week: Geography test

Mid Term: Test on readings and lectures and/or scavenger hunt

Final: Paper (or web page or video) about one specific film or video, which contextualizes the work in terms of Latin American history, the range of Latin American film styles and the specific national setting of the film.

FIRST WEEK:

The Gringo in Mañanaland, by DeeDee Halleck: a survey of images of Latin America from popular media in the U.S.
(Required: Central Station, now playing in several plexes around the county.)

SECOND WEEK:

Cuba: The Dialectic of Film
For the First Time the cinemobile comes to a remote mountain town in the early days of the revolution.
Death of a Bureaucrat by Tomas Gutierez Alea. A brilliant send up of government bureaucracies.
Guantanamera, Gutierez Alea's last film. The problem getting buried in one's home town during a gasoline shortage.

Recommended: Jose David Sadivar: Looking Away at 1898: Rossevelt, Marti, Montejon Room 3155 Literature Bldg. Jan 13, 4:30

THIRD WEEK: (first six film reports due in class this week)

Cuba: The Reconstruction of History
I am Cuba and the last section of Lucia by Humberto Solas follows three women through Cuban history: each segment is filmed in the style of the period. Considered the most ambitious of Cuban films.

Recommended: Amy Kaplan, Birth of an Empire Room 3155 Literature Bldg. Jan 20, 4:30

Recommended: Los Californios, lecture on a photo exhibit by Leland Foerster. January 19, 6 PM Seuss Room, Geisel Library. (But hurry back to get to class in time to see all of I Am Cuba, especially the first scene!)

Geography Test: name all the countries of Latin America

FOURTH WEEK:

Mexico: From Maria Candelaria to Place without Limits
A look at Mexican cinema, from the early days, through the Golden Age to the camp exotica of Arturo Ripstein FIFTH WEEK:

Mexico: Matilde Landeta: My Filmmaking, My Life, a documentary on the life of the pioneer of women's cinema in Mexico.
Midterm due.

SIXTH WEEK:

Chile: The Battle of Chile by Patricio Guzman. One of the truly great documentary films of all time, this intense look inside the Chilean coup will help explain the recent headlines about ex-President Pinochet.

SEVENTH WEEK:

Brazil: Quilombo by Carlos Diegues a spirited look at a runaway slave colony
EIGHTH WEEK:

Brazil: Hour of the Stars by Susana Amaral. A young worker from the country runs into trouble in the big city.

NINTH WEEK:

The Caribbean
Euzhan Palcy's Sugar Cane Alley is a bitter sweet story of growing up in the Caribbean.

TENTH WEEK:

Video as Social Intervention
El Salvador: Time of Daring and Television Spots by Radio Vinceremos and the FMLN.
Nicaragua: What Happened to the Toilet Paper? Aqui En Este Esquina and the Cabildo de Mujeres. These documentary videos present Nicaragua from the eyes of the Sandinista workers.
Brazil: TV Maxambomba: Brazil's traveling community media

Films at Playback & Video Stores:

Cuba

De Cierta Manera by Sara Gomez. An experimental Cuban feminist film.

The Last Supper by Tomas Gutierez Alea-- a look a slavery in Cuba.

Se Permuta by Juan Carlos Tabio. An experimental Cuban feature film.

Strawberry and Chocolate by the late Tomas Gutierez Alea, Cuba's greatest director.

Enrique Colina's documentaries: socialist realism from Cuba. (Spanish)

A Tribute to Santiago Alvarez: the great Cuban documentary maker

Lucia Set in three different periods and made with three different approaches to cinema, this film is an ode to strong, revolutionary women.

Memories of Underdevelopment by Alea: the favorite Cuban film of the bourgeouis press.

Letter from the Park: Alea does a Garcia Marquez novel in a romantic post card haze.

Death of a Bureaucrat by Tomas Gutierez Alea. A satirical look at bureaucracies.

For the First Time, Cubans living in a remote community are introduced to the cinema through Charlie Chaplin.

Plaff a very experimental narrative that makes fun of the economic hardships in Cuba in the very structure of the film. By Juan Carlos Tabio, the co-director of Strawberries and Chocolate.

Ortiz de Zarate's Experimental Tapes. Ortiz works for the Ministry of Culture and here documents a famous artist who paints dancers (Mendive). This is not Degas.

Tapes from San Antonio de los Baños. In 1988 Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Fernando Birri founded a new school for media in a small town 50 miles from Havana. This tape includes several tapes made by students at that school.

The Greening of Cuba: how Cuba is fighting the blockade by using ecological methods of farming.

Who's Afraid of the Little Yellow School Bus? U.S. Citizens do their bit to break the blockade.

Guatemala

La Verdad Bajo la Tierra Originally called the forensic video group, Communicarte is opening up the dialogue in this war-ravaged country.

Los De Eres is a ode to the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

Panama / Kuna Yala

Am Tule Marbi by local filmmaker CheChe Martinez on the indiginous people of the coastal islands.

Music videos from Panama: a selection of music videos from a Deep Dish program.

The Panama Deception, a scathing indictment of U.S, invasion of Panama. Available at most video stores.

El Salvador

TV Spots by the FMLN. After years of war, the war is now on the television screen.

Vida Allegre, a look at prostitution in El Salvador

Nicaragua

Womens Cabildo, a TV program made during the Sandinist years in Nicaragua.

Sandino, Santo y Seño, A TV program of historical music made during the Sandinista years.

Que Pasa Con El Papel Higenico? A shortage of toilet paper makes life hard in blockaded Nicaragua. Made by the Agrarian Reform ministry. (MINDINRA)

Nicaragua, 1979. Jon Alpert's famous reports on the Today show won several emmies and ultimately got him fired from main stream TV. This one documents the victory of the Sandinistas.

Colombia

Love, Women and Flowers Jorge Silva and Marta Rodriguez look at flower workers.

Mexico

Archibaldo de la Cruz, Bunuel's Mexico: very weird and very brilliant.

Matilda Landeta: documentary on the great feminist Mexican filmmaker from the 1940's recently rediscovered.

Simon of the Desert: an anti-nuke film by Bunuel.

Los Olvidados Bunuel's masterpiece set in the slums of Mexico City.
See the web page on this by Raj Mudare.

Frida by Paul LeDuc An eloquent portrait of the painter who had great physical suffering. Recaptures the community of artists in Mexico City of the 30's.

From Here, From this Side by Gloria Ribe juxtaposes stereotype images in a similar way to The Gringo in Mañanaland.

Viaje al Centro de la Selva (Journey to the Center of the Jungle) made by a group of Mexican supporters of the Zapatistas. One of the first looks at Sub Commandante Marcos and the movement in Chiapas. (Spanish)

A Cry for Freedom and Democracy by CheChé Martinez looks at the first few days after the Zapatista up-rising, and at the supression of that movement by the PRI government.

Canal 6 de Julio. This lively collective brings on-going news reports to Mexico's citizens through street corner sales and offerings in book stores and magazine racks. This episode is about the Aguas Blancas Massacre. It includes a clandestine section shot of the army doing its dirty work: Mexico's own version of the Rodney King tape.(Spanish)

Puente a la Esperanza (Bridge to Hope). This is a recent interview with Marcos. (Spanish)

The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas by Sol Landau. Zapatistas.

Bolivia

Radio Novelas. A group of Canadian indigenous people travel to Bolivia to share their radio experiences with a group of Quechua producers.

Uruguay

Web Art Web@rte - Primera revista uruguaya de web arte:

Brazil

TV Maxambomba: an experiment in "street TV".

Bye Bye Brazil a group of hippie types journey into the interior, past devastation both human and ecological.

TV Viva is a group in the North who put on street TV and now work in their regional TV center.

Black Orpheus by Marcel Carne is a delerious look at carnival.

Hour of the Stars: a poignant story of a country girl adrift in the big city.

How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. A sardonic look at the conquest and a send up of the "canabalistic" aesthetic. One of the most important films made in Latin America and the subject of endless debate.

Pixote Youth of the urban decay battle in a detention center.

Haiti

Bitter Cane by DeeDee Halleck, Ken Ives, Pennee Bender and Ben Dupuy. the history of Haiti with vignettes from the semi feudal coffee and sugar industries. Interviews with Haitian/American business men form a critique of the assembly plants of the present.

Killing the Dream by Crowing Rooster looks at the difficult times in recent Haiti, where the dreams for a better life under Aristide are bitterly crushed by the harsh realities.

Jamaica

The Harder They Come is the film that brought reggae music into the mainstream.

Argentina

The Official Story by Luis Puego looks at the contradictions between the personal and the political in the family of an army officer who adopts the daughter of a disappeared woman.

The Funny, Dirty Little War. A humorous look at military dictatorship by Hector Olivera.

Chicano / Border Films

Chicano Park by Marilyn Mulford looks at the historical background of this San Diego institution and the scene of current battles between the city and the community of Logan Heights.

Guillermo Peña's brilliant performance art was a key ingredient in the Border Arts Workshops early years.

Corridos, Linda Rondstadt gets nostalgic.

Frontierlandia, by Jesse Lerner and Ruben Ortiz Torres Punk/techno look at our hometown.

Sin Fronteras A look at the tense conditions at the border. Made by CheChé Martinez and Colin Jessop.

Latin America in General

La Esperanza Incierta a TV documentary about South America made for UK. It looks at Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina.

Que Todos Se Levantan Made by Europeans in collaboration with producers in Guatemala in answer to the Quincentennial celebrations.

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