I was going to show this clip of an early film of Mario Moreno's in class today, but, of course, we ran out of time. The paragraph below is a translation (done mostly by Google and then doctored by me) of the description posted on YouTube.
For many reasons, this film is a gem of national filmmaking. Eagle or Sun is the third Cantinflas movie and takes place two years before that character's jump to fame with "That is the Detail." Eagle or Sun reproduces the atmosphere of the carpas, which were the most important entertainment in Mexico during the first part of the twentieth century. That's where the character was forged by Cantinflas and this is an emulation of that glorious era. The comic routines between Cantinflas and Medel are really typical of the Mexican tent. And if that were not enough, Eagle or Sun is also a film of the Russian Boytler Arcady, a great filmmaker who was nothing less than a ward of the legend of world cinema Sergei Eisenstein, who, incidentally, also shot in Mexico. The character who is smiling is owner of the tent, and is embodied by none other than the incredible actor Luis. G. Barreiro, who began his career in silent movies and made dozens of movies in Mexico and the United States, in addition to having been in at least four movies with Cantinflas: This is my Earth (1937), Eagle or Sun (1938), The Gendarme Unknown (1941) and Grand Hotel (1944).
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2 comments:
It's really interesting to watch this film and see the vaudeville-type comedy happening (or already happened) in a different country. There are some really similar routines going on, even if I don't know what they're saying. It's more the gesture, which we talked about in class yesterday. Does gesture have to be translated? In some cases, yes, but in others, such as this type of comedic routine, not necessarily. The gestures are pretty universal or I wouldn't have recognized this as a vaudeville or Abbott and Costello type performance. Even down to the hat brim flipping out and then bouncing around, they're so much like our own film stars of old.
Oops. Wasn't finished.
I wonder if it's the NorthAmerican influence that creates this peformance type in the culture. I know the history, but it seems like there has to be some sort of cross-culturalization going on for such similarities to occur.
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