The Cinema Museum London 27 March 2013

SALVADOR TOSCANO

CARMEN TOSCANO

A National and Family Portrait

A unique compilation of early cinema, the documentary Memo-

rias de un Mexicano shows authentic newsreel footage from the be-

ginning of the 20th century filmed, and collected, by cinema pioneer

Salvador Toscano. The film was produced in 1950 by Toscano’s

daughter, Carmen who, during nearly ten years, selected and edited

material from her father’s archive. She converted the original 16 fps

speed into 24 fps adding sound, script and narration. The film was

exhibited at Cannes Festival in 1954 and declared Mexican Historical

Monument in 1967.

Memorias de un Mexicano depicts a crucial period of Mexican

history: the Revolution that took place between the 1910s and the

1920s. Through a voice over, an invisible narrator tells the story of his

family as well as that of the whole nation. Mexican life at the turn of

the century is shown through popular dances, religious ceremonies,

inaugurations of railways, and official commemorations of the inde-

pendence centenary. The core of the film, however, is its selection of

the military and political actions that happened since the outbreak of

the Revolution and the fall of Dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1910.

Central to the film is cinema itself: the story begins with the arri-val of the Cinématographe Lumière to Mexico City in 1897. Indeed it was Salvador Toscano himself - a cinematographer and also an en-trepreneur - who opened in the same year the first cinema of Mexico

City. The newsreel footage on which Memorias de un Mexicano is

based, shows us the features of early films: the single-shot views of

parades, processions and approaching trains typical of the so called

‘actualities’ coexist with fragments of edited sequences. Interestingly,

the factuality of the original footage and its re-edition in a documen-

tary form, on the one hand, and the multiplicity of its ‘authors’ and of

their respective political aims, on the other, question the alleged

‘realism’ and ‘objectivity’ of early nonfiction films and of the documen-

tary genre itself.

At the crossroad of information and propaganda, this film mixes

historical and individual memory and offers to the 21st century specta-

tor an incredible visual testimony of the early history of Western cin-

ema. Maria Chiara D’Argenio

Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies [SPLAS] King’s College London

Strand

London WC2R 2LS

The Cinema Museum

2 Dugard Way

(off Renfrew Road)

London SE11 4TH

Tel.: +44 (0)20 7840 2200

Fax: +44 (0)20 7840 2299

info@cinemamuseum.org.uk http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk

Curated and introduced by Maria Chiara D’Argenio

With thanks and acknowledgment to:

Verónica Zárate Toscano, Raymundo Castellanos Juárez, David M.J. Wood,

Guadalupe Ferrer, Antonia Rojas Ávila, Gabriela Garcíadiego del Río,

Martin Humphries

Fundación Carmen Toscano (Mexico); Filmoteca de la Universidad Nacional

Autónoma de México (Mexico DF); Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin

American Studies, King’s College London; Embajada de México en Reino Unido

Images: 1950 poster of Memorias de un mexicano (Courtesy of the Filmoteca UNAM, Mexico

DF), still from Memorias de un mexicano, portrait of Carmen Toscano, 1898 Mexican poster of

the Cinematograph Lumière, portrait of Salvador Toscano (Courtesy of the Fundación Carmen

Toscano, Mexico)

© Fundación Carmen Toscano

Brochure design: Luis Rebaza-Soraluz and Maria Chiara D’Argenio