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12 - Cinema in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

John King
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Dazzled by so many marvellous inventions, the people of Macondo did not know where their amazement began . . . They became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theatre . . . for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortunes tears of affliction had been shed would appear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one.

In this passage from the novel Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Gabriel García Márquez depicts the impact of 'modernity' on the previously isolated town of Macondo. New technologies of light, speed and sound - 'so many marvellous inventions' - are brought in on what is described as an 'innocent' yellow train, though this innocence is revealed to have more sinister implications as the imperial powers, in the form of the banana company, soon arrive and take charge of the region. A local merchant offers the first movie projection in town, with films and equipment bought in from outside: the very technology of cinema, its cost and sophistication, is seen to reflect and exacerbate the unequal development between 'peripheral' places like Macondo and the metropolitan centres. The new audiences would gradually learn the conventions of documentary and narrative cinema, but the immediate impact of the medium was thrilling, ‘dazzling’, ‘amazing’. The people of Macondo have an immediate empathy with filmic melodrama – and melodrama would be one of the main structuring forces of Latin American cinema – but find the developing ‘star’ system, with celebrated actors in different roles, somewhat less believable. Cinema, which Macondo’s mayor calls ‘a machine of illusions’, is here seen as a most powerful form of entertainment, instruction but also obfuscation.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Cinema in Latin America
  • Edited by John King, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521631513.013
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  • Cinema in Latin America
  • Edited by John King, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521631513.013
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Cinema in Latin America
  • Edited by John King, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521631513.013
Available formats
×