Que Viva Mexico

Amazon.com Hollywood's loss was Mexico's gain, as this glorious documentary will attest. Having failed to realize several projects in Hollywood, Russian film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein trekked to Mexico with producer Grigory Alexandrov and cameraman Eduard Tisse, and the famous writer Upton Sinclair as beneficiary. Their budget quickly ran out, and the film was never properly completed, but Alexandrov carefully assembled this version of Que Viva Mexico! in 1979, and the result is one of the most beautiful documentaries ever made. Although it was later criticized for presenting a fantasized view of Mexican culture, this remains a stunning example of Eisenstein's ability to meld people, politics, and ritual into a richly cinematic experience. Celebratory, socially alert, and at times even surreal, the film displays all of Eisenstein's revolutionary techniques while proving that his narrative style could have flourished in Hollywood. Instead, this marvelous film stands as a testament to what might have been. --Jeff Shannon Product Description Hollywood's loss was Mexico's gain, as this glorious documentary will attest. Having failed to realize several projects in Hollywood, Russian film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein trekked to Mexico with producer Grigory Alexandrov and cameraman Eduard Tisse, and the famous writer Upton Sinclair as beneficiary. Their budget quickly ran out, and the film was never properly completed, but Alexandrov carefully assembled this version of Que Viva Mexico! In 1979, and the result is one of the most beautiful documentaries ever made. Although it was later criticized for presenting a fantasized view of Mexican culture, this remains a stunning example of Eisenstein's ability to meld people, politics, and ritual into a richly cinematic experience. Celebratory, socially alert, and at times even surreal, the film displays all of Eisenstein's revolutionary techniques while proving that his narrative style could have flourished in Hollywood. Instead, this marvelous film stands as a testament to what might have been. From the Back Cover Having revolutionized film editing through such masterworks of montage as Potemkin and Strike, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein emigrated west in hopes of testing the capabilities of the American film industry. Quickly ostracized from Hollywood, Eisenstein, Grigory Alexandrov and photographer Eduard Tisse (at the urging of author Upton Sinclair) wandered south of the border where they began filming a highly stylized documentary on the people and volatile social climate of Mexico. Unfortunately, a lack of funds prohibited the film's completion and the famed director was unable to edit the film. In 1979, by referring to Eisenstein's extensive notes and sketches, Alexandrov assembled the most definitive version of the film-as close to Eisenstein's vision as one is ever likely to come. A blend of the ethnographic, the political, the scenic and the surreal, Que Viva Mexico! is nothing short of brilliant and remains superior to the legion of films it strongly influenced: Welles' It's All True, Jodorowsky's El Topo and the works of Sergio Leone. With sequences devoted to the Edenic land of Tehuantepec, the savage majesty of the bullfight, the struggles of the noble peon and the hypnotic imagery of the Day of the Dead, Que Viva Mexico is a vivid tapestry of Mexican life which (thanks to Alexandrov's careful restoration) takes its rightful place alongside Eisenstein's other legendary works. Also included on this DVD are Romance Sentimentale (1930), an attempt to apply Soviet montage theories to sound/visual editing, and on amazing rediscovery: Misery and Fortune of Woman (1929). Intended to encourage legal and sanitary birth/abortion clinics in Europe, this remarkable film is also a stunning dramatization of the plight of working class women, displaying all the earmarks of Soviet montage and the distinctive genius of Segei Eisenstein.
ASIN: B00005A05K
VSKU: DBV.B00005A05K.N
Condition: New
Author/Artist:Sergei Bondarchuk|Mara Griy|Grigori Aleksandrov|Sergei M. Eisenstein
Binding: Dvd
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