Argentina



PERONISTA AND NEOFASCIST IMPACTON THE INDUSTRY

Political considerations that have affected the fortunes of the industry cluster around two important periods: the Peronista period (1946–1955) and the neofascist period of military dictatorship (1966–1973; 1976–1983). While Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974) was never a dictator in the proper sense of the word, he was a strong-arm populist who used the film industry to propagate the ideology of his movement. Peronista ideology is often rather confusing and contradictory, and it is not always easy today to point to specific ways in which it is present in films from the period. One of the most important films made under the aegis of Peronism was Las aguas bajan turbias ( Roiling Waters , Hugo del Carril, 1952). Perón also used the industry to reward supporters and punish adversaries by, for example, insisting on positions for the former and the severance of the latter. Eva Duarte, Perón's mistress, is a well-known beneficiary of this practice, although when Perón married her in 1946, he demanded the destruction of the negative and prints of the 1945 film that was designed to be a vehicle for her career, La pródiga ( The Prodigal Woman ). The title was far too problematical, given the accusations of Perón's opponents against his wife; it means "woman of easy virtue" and the film tells the story of a woman with a shady past who becomes a philanthropic landowner. It was saved from total destruction thanks to a secretly held copy, and was eventually released in 1984 to damning reviews.

The icon of the ways in which Perón punished his adversaries was Libertad Lamarque (1908–2000), who—legend has it—was driven from the sound stage and from Argentina in a spat with Eva Duarte. Lamarque had a long and successful career in Mexico and elsewhere, returning to Argentina only after Perón's fall in 1955. Many other Argentine actors also sought their fortune in Hollywood, most notably Fernando Lamas (1915–1982), who was married to the swimmer Esther Williams (b. 1922) and who served as the all-round Latin lover in such films as The Merry Widow (1952) and The Girl Who Had Everything (1953).

During the neofascist period, filmmaking was severely curtailed, as was the distribution of US films, by the Axis-sympathizing governments prior to PerĂłn and then by PerĂłn during his regime. Nevertheless, Buenos Aires remains almost fanatical about film, and foreign films have always played an important general cultural role in Argentine society, as well as serving as closely studied models for Argentine filmmakers.

It is important to note that private, semi-clandestine film clubs allowed for some distribution of films that could not have been shown publicly during the neofascist period. Many films were either banned outright or severely mutilated, and this had a dampening effect on production initiatives, with many insignificant films filling the resulting void. In addition to defecting actors, such as Héctor Alterio (b. 1929), Norman Briski (b. 1938), and Norma Aleandro (b. 1936), who figured prominently in the resurgence of filmmaking in Spain after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco (1892–1975) in 1975—precisely the period of the worst phase of military tyranny in Argentina—major directors such as Carlos Hugo Christensen (1914–1999) and Héctor Babenco (b. 1946), both with extensive directorial records in Brazil, also worked elsewhere.



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