Argentine Cinema and Immigrant Filmmakers: The Use of Subversion in Mario Soffici’s Viento Norte

Year 2021, Issue: 55, 185 - 205, 01.05.2021

Susan Savage Lee

Abstract

Even from the world of film’s early inception, themes of country, nation, and national identity appeared in Argentine movies shown
in elite theaters and impoverished barrios. One of the first films in Argentina, La Bandera argentina (1897), for example, by the French-Argentine director Eugene Py, showcased images of the Argentine flag as
well as scenes from the city center, Buenos Aires. Although the cinematography was rather simplistic, at the same time, this film explored
the country, setting the stage for future filmmakers to do the same.
While films like Py’s provided an accessible entry point into Argentine
life and cultural identity, outside of the movie houses, not all citizens
felt welcomed.
The 1930s, known as the Infamous Decade, because of José
Félix Uriburu and Agustín Justo’s military regimes, affected film content while placing minority filmmakers in precarious positions offscreen. The preoccupations of working class and minority audiences
guided which movies they watched, at the same time, the conservative
governments attempted to censor what they considered to be “lowbrow” culture. This content, like the tango and melodramas, drew immigrants and the working class to movie theaters. To combat the difficulties posed by politicians like Uriburu and Justo during the Infamous
Decade, Soffici turned to mainstream genres, such as the gauchesque.
His film, Viento norte (1937), a gauchesque loosely based on Lucio
Mansilla’s Una Excursión a los indios ranqueles (1870), was one of
his most successful productions. In Viento norte, Soffici uses Mansilla’s gauchesque narrative to reach both mainstream and marginalized
audiences.
Although scholars have looked at Soffici’s later films or casually mentioned his early movies in brief analyses, to date, Soffici’s
Viento norte has remained largely ignored. Viento norte holds an important position in film history because of Soffici’s subversion of the
gauchesque, a genre associated with nationalism and national identity
formation in the twentieth century. In addition to this, analyzing Soffici’s contribution to film in this era helps further illuminate the difficulties that immigrant filmmakers faced during the Infamous Decade.

Keywords

Latin American film, Infamous Decade, Mario Soffici, Viento norte

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