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Gabriel Figueroa was more than a cinematographer. A consummate artist, he captured with grandeur a sense of Mexico that would, as the poet Carlos Fuentes affectionately observed, bring us to “see Figueroa’s Mexico and not the one that really existed.” Beginning in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, Figueroa’s rich chiaroscuro embodied Mexico’s entrenched contrasts—the monumental faces weathered like the arid land, the expressively lit cathedrals dark against turbulent skies, the timeless agave, stark and prickly. The painters Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco were Figueroa’s intimates, and their influence can be detected in what Siqueiros called “murals that travel.” Figueroa was the man who made manifest Luis Buñuel’s sardonic surrealism by underscoring mundane but unexpected details. And he will forever be associated with director Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, who said with remarkable swagger, “There only exists one Mexico: the one I invented”—but it was Figueroa’s highly dramatic feel for the land that engendered this invention. In the mid-thirties, Figueroa apprenticed to Hollywood cinematographer Gregg Toland, and was much admired by American directors such as John Ford and John Huston, who used his signature style to great effect. He cut a dashing figure across the film industry, but his social conscience always preceded him: Gabriel Figueroa’s aim was to give back to Mexican culture a dignified image of itself, and this he did, a lo grande.Thursday, July 31, 2008
6:30 p.m. Days of Autumn
Days of Autumn is a real rediscovery, a Sirkian melodrama starring Pina Pellicer, “unforgettably touching.”—Tribeca Film Festival. Adapted from a B. Traven story.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
8:30 p.m. Macario
Also a Traven adaptation, this Day of the Dead fable blends traditional folktale with social satire as it follows a luckless woodcutter’s struggles.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
6:30 p.m. Victims of Sin
Rumba dancer Ninón Sevilla plays an avenging angel in this camp musical/melodrama featuring intoxicating rhythms and cinematography.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
8:10 p.m. The Fugitive
Henry Fonda and Dolores Del Rio in a John Ford classic, adapted from Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
8:30 p.m. The Night of the Iguana
Richard Burton shines in this adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, into which director John Huston “injects his own sly humor.”—Time Out
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