Argentinian film
The Argentine film has a long tradition that goes back to the late 19th century and is an important part of the country's culture. The 20th century film industry produced many actors and directors who made Argentine film one of the most important in the Spanish-speaking world.
Silent movie era
Only one year after the debut in Paris , the “Lumière Cinématographe” was shown on July 18, 1896 at the Teatro Odeón in Buenos Aires. The first Argentinian films were shown just four months later, three short films that showed sights in Buenos Aires. For patriotic reasons, La bandera argentina by Eugène Py and Federico Figner (Fred Figner) is now considered to be the first film made in Argentina, the fourth short film produced in early 1897. It is unclear whether Figner, who was born in today's Czech Republic , also made the three other films. In 1900 Eugène Py, who was born in France, made his first documentary film ( Viaje del Doctor Campos Salles a Buenos Aires , German: "The Journey of Dr. Campos Salles to Buenos Aires"). The first cinemas opened in Argentina in 1901.
In the period that followed, many artists experimented with this new medium. Subjects were taken from Argentine history and literature. These include Nobleza Gaucha from 1915, who was inspired by Martín Fierro . In 1917 the tango musician Carlos Gardel played in the film Flor de durazno . A well-known director of the 1920s was José A. Ferreyra . Two of the most popular stars of the time ( Alvaro Escobar and Elena Guido ) appeared in many of his works . Towards the end of the 1920s, the tango was often included with accompaniment, later in the original sound.
1930s to 1950s
The incorporation of sound into films had a major impact on Argentine cinema. The first sound film was produced in 1930, and in 1931 the first film using "Vitaphone" was made. The producer José Agustín Ferreyra inspired other directors to also create sound films. In 1933 the “Movietone Sound System” came to Argentina, which allowed both language and music in film. The first cinematographic studios were also founded. In addition to the commercial cinemas, there were cinema clubs that also showed avant-garde films. Popular actors of the 1930s included Amelia Bence , Tito Lusiardo , Aida Alberti , Armando Bó , Floren Delbene , Arturo García Buhr and Tita Merello , who starred in Casamiento en Buenos Aires . Manuel Romero was one of the most famous directors in the country from around 1935 and often worked with Luis Sandrini .
In the 1930s and 1940s, 5,000 artists made an average of 42 films a year, making Argentina one of the world's leading film industries and film exporting countries. The focus was on popular and political topics with a socially critical touch. The focus was on the life of the urban lower and middle classes. Historical topics were also dealt with, for example in La guerra gaucha (1942) by Lucas Demare about an episode of the War of Independence in 1817. Mauricio Kagel described the visit to the cinema as an Argentine “national sport”. Eva Duarte, who later became Eva Perón , played a leading role in competition with Libertad Lamarque in the musical film La cabalgata de circo about a traveling group of actors. Lamarque had to leave the country in 1946 because of a dispute with Evita.
In 1944, the US imposed a celluloid embargo on Argentina because it had remained neutral during World War II, but actually to spread Hollywood productions in Latin America, and US companies bought Argentine production companies. In addition, many films were destroyed by recycling for acetone recovery. That is why films have been rescued, archived and shown by the Cinemateca Argentina since 1949 .
Although the government responded with a quota system for foreign films, the increasing popularity of shallow American films, pressure from the Catholic Church, and increased censorship by the Perón government limited the growth of the Argentine film industry. Last but not least, the harassment led to the exile of a number of well-known actors. The decreasing interest in local films led to the establishment of the "Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía" in 1957/58. a. was to fund films. The invention of television, introduced in Argentina with Canal 13 in 1951, put further pressure on the film industry.
After the fall of Juan Perón in 1955, Leopolde Torre Nilsson and Fernando Birri made documentary films that analyzed the political causes of Argentina's economic decline.
The horror film genre, generally less noticed in Argentine cinema, was covered by Narciso Ibáñez Menta with his "Dracula" film adaptations, which kept both moviegoers and TV viewers awake.
1960s and 1970s
From the late 1950s onwards, a new generation of filmmakers developed both technically and aesthetically to the point that Argentine works were also shown at international festivals. Among them were u. a. Victor Ayala and Fernando “Pino” Solanas , who showed the unrest in the late 1960s in his films. His two-parter La hora de los hornos (“The Hour of the Blast Furnaces”, 1968) was an emblematic film about the struggle against neocolonialism . Other directors were no longer content with just making films, but also wrote the scripts themselves. Alias Gardelito from 1961 dealt with the problem of leading an honest life despite poverty. The title of the film alludes to Carlos Gardel, who was the musical role model for the main character. Often films were also produced in collaboration with Spain and both Argentinian and Spanish artists appeared in them. Slapstick films were also a popular genre of the time .
The troubled times also led to nostalgia, which was encouraged by the military. Classics of literature were filmed again, including the national epic Martín Fierro (1968) by Lautaro Murua and La vuelta de Martín Fierro (1974). From around 1965 to the beginning of the 1970s, many sex comedies were also produced and shocked the audience with a previously unseen amount of bare skin.
In 1973, during Perón's second term in office, censorship was abolished. There was another brief boom in Argentine film. The innovation of the Ciné Vérité in France also influenced Argentine filmmakers like Sergio Renán . His first film, The Armistice ( La tregua 1974), was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film in 1975 . Another film that caught the attention of the Argentine audience was the Fantastic Film Nazareno Cruz y el lobo (1975) directed by Leonardo Favio. In this film, Leonardo Favio processed a legend that is part of the Guarani mythology and shows parallels to European werewolf say. Nazareno Cruz y el lobo attracted more than 3.4 million people to the cinemas and was considered to be the most successful film in Argentina to date.
The military dictatorship from 1976 onwards again led to censorship, which is why Argentine filmmakers turned to light-hearted, happy subjects. One of the most famous works of this period is La nona (The Grandmother, 1979) by Héctor Olivera (* 1931). However, rising debt and high inflation rates created an unstable economic climate and ruined the Argentine film industry. Many filmmakers went into exile while Hollywood imports soared.
1980s and 1990s
A loosening of the censorship in the early 1980s led to the "Schlammschlachten-Kino", in which issues such as corruption and impunity were denounced without naming the current rulers directly. Other works dealt with the violation of workers' rights. With the return to democracy and the lifting of censorship in 1983, slapstick and comedy films also fell in popularity, and more serious subjects were preferred. The past of the dictatorship and the “dirty war”, which has only just been overcome, was also worked up on film. The best-known works include the 1986 Oscar winner La historia oficial ( The Official History ) by Luis Puenzo and South - Sur and Los hijos de Fierro by Fernando Solanas . A second group of films dealt with exile and homesickness, e.g. B. Fischermann's Los días de junio from 1985. Controversial literature and history of the 19th century were also filmed, including Hombre mirando al sudeste , a short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares , published in 2001 as K-PAX - Anything is possible in the USA Remake experienced.
The INC (later INCAA ), the National Institute for Cinema and Audiovisual Art, was founded in 1987 and has since produced 130 full-length art house films. Film funding was continued under the neoliberal government of Carlos Menem from 1989 to 1999. But the pegging of the peso to the US dollar increased production costs and the traditional cinemas emptied themselves as a result of competition from television, video and US American multiplex cinemas, which were able to enforce their high admission prices.
The 1990s experienced a time of the "new cinema", shaped a. a. from independent productions. Issues such as crime, fear of existence, survival, alienation, identity search and repressed sexuality were content productions such as Adolfo Aristarains A place in this world (Un lugar en el mundo) from 1992, which was also nominated for an Oscar Rapado of Martín Rejtman from the same year or Pizza, birra, faso (by Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro ) and Mundo Grúa (directed by Pablo Trapero ). El Bonaerense and Nacido y Criado also come from Trapero . The filmmakers were also inspired by the country's rich cultural heritage. B. filmed the life story of the sculptor Lola Mora . Political history also remained on the agenda, including “Eva Perón”, a response to Evita by Alan Parker .
2000 until today
Buenos Aires is still the center of the Argentine film industry. However, the new millennium began with the greatest economic crisis in Argentina's history. These and their impact on people have been the subject of a number of films, including Memoria del Saqueo by Pino Solanas. In 2004 things temporarily picked up again when President Néstor Kirchner announced that he wanted to pay back outstanding film subsidies for the past three years and that he would no longer charge customs duties for film material. The devaluation of the peso since 2001 also brought numerous foreign productions into the country, as production costs were low.
The Argentine answer to Woody Allen is considered to be Daniel Burman , who u. a. Esperando al Mesíah , El Abrazo Partido and Derecho de Familia . Fabián Bielinsky , who made one of the best-known Argentine films, Nine Queens , also directed El Aura , Argentina's official entry for the 2006 Academy Award. Also nominated for an Oscar was The Son of the Bride (El hijo de la novia ) from 2001. In 2010, In her eyes (El Secreto de sus ojos) won the Oscar for best foreign language film from Juan José Campanella , who had previously become known as a director of TV series. Ricardo Darín , Héctor Alterio and Norma Aleandro star in the extremely successful love and crime film, which is set against the backdrop of the military dictatorship .
In 2007, a remake of the national epic Martín Fierro by Liliana Romero and Norman Ruiz was released as an animated film ( Fierro ). The comedy Chinese Take-Out (“Chinese take-away”, 2011) by Sebastián Borensztein (* 1963) is about the intercultural coexistence of an Argentine trader and a stranded Chinese man he has taken in.
Well-known directors recently are Lucrecia Martel , Sandra Gugliotta and Lucía Puenzo . From Martel come u. a. La Ciénaga - Morast and La niña santa - The holy girl , Gugliotta filmed A lucky day (Un día de suerte) . Lucía Puenzo, daughter of Luis Puenzo , received an award in Cannes in 2007 for her coming-out film XXY . In 2009 her film El niño pez ("The Fish Child") followed. Sabrina Farji (* 1964) directed Eva & Lola , for which she received the Audience Award of the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival in 2010. Here, as in “Das Fischkind”, Mariela Vitale (* 1982) played a leading role.
Around 15 to 20 feature films are currently produced in Argentina each year, of which the NCAA only sponsors a small proportion.
Film awards
The most important Argentine film award is the Cóndor de Plata , which has been awarded in several categories since 1942.
literature
- Jorge Finkielman: The film industry in Argentina. An illustrated cultural history . McFarland, Jefferson, NC 2004, ISBN 0-7864-1628-9 .
- Daniela Ingruber (Ed.): Films in Argentina (Latin American Studies ; Vol. 10). Lit-Verlag, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-50415-9 .
- John King, Nissa Torrents (Ed.): The garden of forking paths. Argentine cinema . British Film Institute, London 1988, ISBN 0-85170-220-1 .
- Joaquin Manzi: Aux armes, cinémas! Argentine 1966-1976 . CNED, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-13-060727-4 .
- Klaus Semsch: New locations. 'El nuevo cine latinoamericano' in search of a global place , in: K. Semsch (ed.), 'Nation' and 'Region'. On the topicality of intracultural processes in global Romania, Münster 2011, pp. 109–131.
- Pino Solanas: Lo que no somos Hollywoood . Buenos Aires 1999.
Web links
- Cine Nacional at cinenacional.com (Spanish)
Individual evidence
- ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung : In a country crazy about cinema . Report on the BaFiCi film festival in Buenos Aires with information on Argentine cinema, online article from April 29, 2010; Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ↑ Christina Richter-Ibáñez: Mauricio Kagels Buenos Aires (1946-1957). Münster 2014, p. 143.
- ↑ Chinese Take-Out on imdb.com