Advert
Supported by
Critic’s Notebook
A Lincoln Center retrospective highlights the half-century aimed at the general public that continues to influence filmmakers.
By Carlos Aguilar
Charitable charlatans, clumsy womanizers, enigmatic ladies and even a monster-fighting paladin captured the minds of Mexican audiences in the golden age of the country’s film industry in the mid-20th century.
An era of prolific productions across genres and stars reaping the benefits of exclusive studio contracts, it rivaled the Hollywood formula in the quality and variety of its output. Today, most local Mexican productions struggle to find their place on the screens amid the omnipresent presence of American blockbusters that attract local moviegoers.
But from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s, Mexican cinema flourished in part thanks to American involvement in World War II. With American resources devoted to the war effort, Mexican corporations saw an opportunity to produce films for and about their own country. which may also be shown in other Spanish-speaking territories.
With titles largely from this period, the retrospective “Everyday Show: Popular Mexican Cinema” opens Friday at Film at Lincoln Center. Entertainment aimed at the general public, these films focused their attraction on unlikely heroes and heroines who, despite their personality quirks or individual circumstances, demonstrated a strong ethical compass and unwavering pride. They (for the most part) do what is ultimately right, even if human weaknesses more than once get in the way of their maximally productive intentions.
For several decades after their first theatrical release, most of those films have endured in the Mexican collective consciousness and continue to influence popular culture through their uninterrupted availability on television. As a child, in Mexico City in the 1990s, I captured fragments of them a stopover at my grandmothers’ house, for whom the men and women who then appeared on the small screen had been larger-than-life in their youth.
We are recovering the content of the article.
Allow JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access. If you’re in player mode, log out and log in to your Times account or subscribe to the full Times.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Do you want all the Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement