Film Series: Reinventing Mexico

To pay tribute to the confluence of influences shaping the work of Carlos Chávez, the SummerScape 2015 Film Series will explore the relationship between realism, modernism, and nationalism in films from and about Mexico. The series will begin with the landmark, proto-neorealist Redes (The Wave), which brought together photographer Paul Strand, director Fred Zinnemann, Chávez, and fellow composer Silvestre Reveultas. It will conclude with a group of international films—including Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished Mexican project and John Ford’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory—that treat nineteenth and twentieth century Mexican history from different vantage points. These programs bookend an extensive retrospective of surrealist master Luis Buñuel, who worked in Mexico for nearly two decades and whose peripatetic career mirrored that of Chávez.

Films will screen Saturdays at 5 pm and Sundays at 7 pm.