Argentine Cinema ed. by Tim Barnard (review)

HUMANITIES 233 community of independent filmmakers who have struggled outside the government umbrella. (DAVID CLANDFIELD) Tim Barnard, editor. Argentine Cinema Nightwood Editions. iii, '77, illus. $10.95 paper When one considers the interest being aroused among English-speaking Canadian and American filmgoers by the commercial release of a number of recent films from Argentina, and when one counterbalances that present interest with the realization that, in the past as well, Argentine film culture flourished to the point of challenging both in productivityand in significance its major Latin American rivals, one quickly recognizes the timeliness and the potential usefulness of the first English-language anthology of critical and historical materials specifically concerned with the cinema of Argentina. During the past decade, monographic studies in English on the cinemas of Brazil, of Cuba, of Chile, and of Mexico have been rolling off the presses, vying with each other for shelf space even in non-specialized bookstores; this volume adds Argentina to that rapidly growing list. More modest in conception and execution than the sweeping comprehensiveness of its title might suggest, Argentine Cinema is a compilation text, a somewhat heterogeneous and charmingly eclectic collection of articles, interviews, film reviews, illustrations, and even a literary homage and a poem. It was designed as a companion-piece to a travelling retrospective series of Argentine films, planned by film programmer Tim Barnard and screened at the Ontario Film Theatre in the spring of 1987. It contains a historical overview and chronological summary written expressly for this volume by Barnard, republished scholarly material in English from other sources judged by him to be relatively inaccessible or esoteric (for example, specialized film journals such as Screen), and specially commissioned translations of articles and reports by significant filmmakers and theorists (though not always their most significant articles ). Well-known and readily accessible material - for example Solanas and Getino's seminal Towards a Third Cinema' - has been purposely excluded. In addition, it contains a rudimentary bibliography and thirtyeight graphic illustrations, many of them rare archival photographs. A number of the articles included were written at the height of the repressive dictatorship in the late seventies, notably Alfonso Gumicio Dagr6n's 1979 study of censorship, and Octavio Getino's mid-seventies update on the Cine Liberaci6n concept of a Third Cinema.' Others, for example Cozarinsky's piece on Borges, the 1985 report of SICA, the Argentine film workers' union, and the contributions by and about Fernando Birri, are considerably more recent, for the most part products of the 234 LEITERS IN CANADA 1986 scholarly activity generated by the increasingly important Festival of New Latin American Cinema held annually since 1979 in Havana, Cuba. In all cases, editorial information is carefully provided on when and under what circumstances the selections were originally written, and if and to what extent they have been adapted or revised. One nevertheless fears that a reader tempted by the dip-and-savour approach which the text's smorgasbord organization invites may inadvertently attribute contemporaneity to outdated material. It seems reasonably certain that, aside from the rich variety of its illustrations, the most frequently consulted and ultimately the most useful portions of the text will be the introductory historical overview and the concluding chronological summary of significant cinematic and sociopolitical events. Concise and coherent, the introduction is a balanced presentation of a complexity of issue and events, consistently informed by a clear awareness that, events of the last decade notwithstanding, 'the peculiar dynamics of the national film industry must be explained with reference to autonomous social and cultural forces as much as to the country's often calamitous political events.' Despite the considerable merits of this unassuming but attractive English -language introduction to one of the most diverse cinemas of Latin America, the serious student of Argentine film - as, indeed, of Latin American film in general - would still be strongly advised to acquire a working knowledge of the language in which both the films and the majority of the critical writing were originally conceived. (WENDY L. ROLPH) Christopher Faulkner. The Social Cinema ofJean Renoir Princeton University Press. 210. US $25.00 The son of the great impressionist painter, Jean Renoir brought to the cinema, more than most of...