Adapting a concept associated with the recent Quincentenary, the editors of this collection attempt to illuminate encounters among the peoples and cinemas of Latin America, Europe, and the United States. The authors of the 23 essays gathered here are well-known scholars from England, the United States, and Latin America. The essays, most of which have never been published before, are grouped into two parts: the first focuses on the representation of Latin American society in U.S. and European films, while the second is devoted to Latin American cinema. There is a brief introduction as well as a note preceding each essay; a conclusion would have been helpful in pulling together the many issues raised in the individual essays.
The essays are too brief to be more than suggestive, and their meaning is often veiled by the opaque discourse deemed appropriate for contemporary cultural studies. A few themes can be discerned, however. Several essays examine female characters and performers; for example, Ana M. López discusses the Hollywood movies of Dolores del Río, Lupe Vélez, and Carmen Miranda in terms of the way each actress fulfilled the role of Latin American “other” for U.S. audiences. Marvin D’Lugo examines recent Cuban films in which audiences are encouraged to perceive female protagonists as embodiments of the nation’s struggle for liberation and self-realization. Essays by Randal Johnson, Paul Lenti, and Nissa Torrents make clear that state support is necessary if serious films are to be produced in Latin America. Yet in an environment in which movie attendance is declining, such films often fail to find audiences, while lighter fare, such as Colombia’s Amar y vivir (1990) and Mexico’s La risa en vacaciones II (1991), enjoys commercial success. The three authors also indicate that state support can be fickle and counterproductive, furthering the interests of favored clients rather than those of the national industry.
Readers of this journal will be especially interested in the essays that discuss cinematic constructions of history. Margarita de Orellana, in an excerpt from her book La mirada circular (1991), shows how early U.S. films dealing with the Mexican Revolution nearly always depicted “the heroism and superiority of the United States, whose citizens alone were portrayed as capable of bringing peace, order, justice, and progress to a country like Mexico’’ (p. 6). Jean Franco points out contradictions in The Mission (1986), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and The Emerald Forest (1985), each of which purveys “neo-indigenismo with an all-star cast” (p. 82). Comparing portrayals of blacks in U.S. and Brazilian films, Robert Stam discusses historically based motion pictures such as Ganga Zumba (1963) and Quilombo (1984), which affirm Afro-Brazilian culture. In sum, the essays are a valuable introduction to current scholarship in a dynamic field.
