A Retrospective Organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Presented in Association with The Cineteca Nacional, Mexico
We will present fourteen feature films made between 1933 and 1950 by Fernando de Fuentes (1894-1958), in a tribute to Mexico's most influential director in the 30s and 40s. Following on The Museum of Modern Art's retrospective this fall, these screenings mark the first exhibition in an English-speaking country of a director who is almost unknown outside Mexico. New English-subtitled copies have been made by The Cineteca Nacional of Mexico and were selected by Adrienne Mancia, Curator of Film, Museum of Modern Art, who writes:
“De Fuentes embraced classical film genres, but... he also initiated and refined other genres that were important to the development of Mexican cinema: the drama of the 1910 Revolution, the family melodrama, rural comedy, the horror film. He was also interested in adapting literature to the screen and was fascinated by the theme of the ‘femme fatale....'
“De Fuentes' most ambitious work... is his early trilogy set against the background of the Mexican Revolution: Prisoner No. 13 (1933), El Compadre Mendoza (1933), and Let's Go with Pancho Villa (1935). His emphasis is not on the Revolution itself but on the individual dramas set in motion by the turbulent events of the times....
“De Fuentes established María Félix as a star in Dona Barbara (1943); teamed Dolores del Río and Arturo de Córdova in Jungle Fire (1945); brought Tito Guízar into his most charming performance in Alla en el Rancho Grande (1936); and worked with another popular Mexican singer, Jorge Negrete, in That's How They Love in Jalisco (1942). (He) also worked with the great art director Edward Fitzgerald and the great Mexican cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Alex Phillips.”
