Customer Reviews

The Film Industry in Argentina: An Illustrated Cultural History

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My favorite films of the past ten years or more have come from Argentina. So, I was eager to get this book and learn more about the Argentine film industry.

The book, which covers two of my favorite topics - movies and Argentina, has a very dry text and barely held my interest. Perhaps I wanted to hear more gossipy items about Carlos Gardel, or the rivalry between Eva Duarte and Libertad Lamarque. Dish some dirt on Mirtha Legrand. Instead this reads like a film student's thesis, examining the earliest days of cinema from the first public exhibition at the Odeon Theater in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1896 through the 1930's. I would have preferred the author to concentrate (exclusively) on what was going on within the Argentine film industry and spend a lot less time on "compare and contrast with Hollywood". It spends far too much time on Hollywood and the local Bs As reaction to imported product.

Apparently the direction taken during the early days was to use film as an educational tool rather than a vehicle for mindless stories (though there were some of those, too). According to the author, the biggest draw in getting people into the cinemas was the popularity of tango and the growth of broadcast radio. People went to the theaters not because the films were so interesting, but because the theaters employed tango orchestras to play during the silent features. When sound entered, the orchestras left - and so did a large portion of the audience. Despite his photo on the cover, relatively little time is spent on international mega-star, Carlos Gardel, and the impact of his untimely death in 1934.

If you're interested in an highly academic approach to the early history of the Argentine film industry, you will love this book. (That would also explain why this slender paperback, published in English in the USA, - not an import - is priced like a college textbook instead of a general interest book.) If you're looking for something more conversational, or something that will give a better understanding of how Argentine cinema arrived at its current (second) Golden Age, then this book will disappoint. There is no mention of anything after 1940; so, for me this didn't connect the dots.

Two and a half stars (mostly because there are a lot of photographs).