Synopses & Reviews
In January 1914, Pancho Villa became Hollywood's first Mexican superstar when he signed an exclusive contract with the Mutual Film Corporation. In return for $25,000, he agreed to keep other film companies from his battle-field, to fight in daylight whenever possible, and to reconstruct battles if the footage needed reshooting. Now the subject of an HBO film starring Antonio Banderas (And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself), Villa is one of the main protagonists in Margarita de Orellana's vivid account of the American movie industry's fascination with the events of the Mexican Revolution. Through memoir accounts, newspaper reports, and analysis of the films themselves, Filming Pancho reveals much about how Mexico was constructed in the American imagination and how the film images reinforced and justified American expansionism and racial and social prejudices.
Review
"Filming Pancho takes film seriously. It requires a knowledgeable historian like Margarita De Orellana to make sense of it all, to tell us who is who, and why what we are watching is significant." Kevin Brownlow
Review
"A first-rate contribution to the history of cinema and cinematographic technique." Friedrich Katz
Synopsis
On January 3, 1914 Pancho Villa became Hollywood’s first Mexican superstar. In signing an exclusive movie contract, Villa agreed to keep other film companies from his battlefield, to fight in daylight wherever possible, and to reconstruct battles if the footage needed reshooting.
Through memoir and newspaper reports, Margarita De Orellana looks at the documentary film-makers who went down to cover events in Mexico. Feature film-makers in Hollywood portrayed the border as the dividing line between order and chaos, in the process developing a series of lasting Mexican stereotypes—the greaser, the bandit, the beautiful señorita, the exotic Aztec. Filming Pancho reveals how Mexico was constructed in the American imagination and how movies reinforced and justified both American expansionism and racial and social prejudice.
Synopsis
An absorbing look at how early twentieth-century Hollywood shaped the US's conception of Mexico.
Synopsis
Hollywood, Pancho Villa and Mexico in the American imagination.
About the Author
Margarita de Orellana is the editor of Artes de Mexico and author of, among other works, Cine Mexicano, Enrique Climent: el arraigo de la imaginación, The Social Documentary in Latin America and Filming Pancho.John King is Professor of Latin American Cultural History at the University of Warwick.