Latina/o Literature and
Literature of the Americas at the
University of Northern Colorado

Books on Cinema

WOMEN IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: THEIR LIVES AND VIEWS (UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 186 pages, $12 paperback) EDITOR: June E. Hahner is a professor of history at the State University of New York at Albany. She is the author of Civilian-Military Relations in Brazil, 1889-1898, the documentary history A Mulher No Brasil, and numerous journal articles.

NOTES: This book lets Latin American women speak for themselves. The lives and views of women in different countries and economic and social circumstances, from colonial times to the present, are told in their own words. The general introduction raises significant questions concerning a new area of historical investigation. Each selection is preceded by a brief introduction placing it in an appropriate historical and biographical context. There is an extended bibliography with suggestions for additional reading.

Keller, Gary D.

CHICANO CINEMA: RESEARCH, REVIEWS AND RESOURCES

((C)1985, Bilingual Press, 202 pages, $17 paperback, ISBN: 0-916950-52-2)

AUTHOR: Gary D. Keller is a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University.

NOTES: This is the first book dedicated to the subject of both Chicano cinema and the depiction of Chicanos and other Latinos in U.S. and Mexican films. The pioneering volume will serve as a landmark to define the field for many years to come. Contributors include Jesus Salvador Trevino, Sylvia Morales, David R. Maciel, Alejandro Morales, Carlos Cortes and others.

Keller, Gary D.

HISPANICS AND UNITED STATES FILM: AN OVERVIEW AND HANDBOOK ((C)1994, Bilingual Press, 230 pages, $16 paperback, ISBN: 0-927534-40-1)

AUTHOR: Gary D. Keller is a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University. He is also known for his fiction writing; his scholarly studies in the areas of linguistics and bilingual education, literary criticism, and tests and evaluation; and his projects on behalf of minority students. NOTES: Gary D. Keller's first book on film, "Chicano Chinema: Research, Reviews and Resources" (1985), quickly established itself as a major work on the subject and continues to be used today around the nation and internationally in courses dedicated to the investigation of the Hispanic role in films and the film industry as well as the image of Hispanics in American film. Now, building upon years of intense investigation, Hispanics and United States Film: An Overview and Handbook documents how Hispanics have been depicted in American film and how they have participated individually in filmmaking, either as actors or as directors, cinematographers, producers, and in other roles. This book begins its study at the turn of the century and provides an overview of the changing image of Hispanics in American film from the earliest cinema to the present. The book includes chapters on the emergence of U.S. Hispanics on film, the depiction of race in films, character and film types in the first decades, and the era of social consciousness. Major attention is given to the silent period, the social problem films, the movies of the early Civil Rights movement, and current film and television. In addition, there is considerable coverage of the development of Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban American film. In its role as handbook this book provides the best single source of information on Hispanic personalities in American film and on American films produced from 1896 to the present time that have a Hispanic focus. Hundreds of films, actors, and other figures of the film industry are referenced.

Noriega, Chon A.

CHICANOS AND FILM: REPRESENTATION AND RESISTANCE

(University of Minnesota Press, 330 pages, $15.95 paperback, ISBN: 0-8166-2218-3)

AUTHOR: Chon A. Noriega is assistant professor in the Department of Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currator of film programs at the Whitney Museum and a consultant on issues of curriculum development and media distribution.

NOTES: In Chicanos and Film, Chon A. Noriega has gathered the work of scholars who have been instrumental in the development of Chicano film studies. The contributors explore Chicano representation in both Hollywood and Mexican cinema and the resistance encountered within studio production, the press, and countercinema. Ultimately, Chicanos and Film offers a provocative examination of the historic, textual, and critical issues at the nexus of Chicano studies and film studies, brilliantly revealing how film illuminates social history and how artifacts of expressive culture draw their determinate shape from social and political realities.

Pettit, Arthur G.

IMAGES OF THE MEXICAN AMERICAN IN FICTION AND FILM

((C)1980, Texas A&M University Press, 282 pages, $9.95 paperback, ISBN: 0-89096-115-8)

AUTHOR: The late Arthur G. Pettitt was associate professor of history at Colorado College, Colorado Springs.

NOTES: This is not a book about the historical Mexican, nor is it about what the Anglo-American has actually done to him. Instead, it is, as the author has written, about "the Mexican in the Anglo's literary and cinematic imagination. It is, in other words, a study of the response of American popular culture to a different and rival culture." From the beginnings of Anglo-Mexican interaction in the American Southwest, Anglos have responded to conflicts between two cultures with feelings of physical, cultural, and moral superiority, as readily evidenced in more than 100 years of popular writing, from the dime novels of the 19th century to today's westerns, and nearly 70 years of movies.

Julianne Burton

CINEMA AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS (c1988, University of Texas Press, $22.50 hardcover, $10.95 paperback) A major work offering an introduction to the personalities and practices of 20 Latin American filmmakers. Interviews with Fernando Birri, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Carlos Diegues, Patricio Guzman, and Helena Solberg-Ladd are included among others. A fascinating study that balances personal achievement against the backdrop of historical, political, social, and economic circumstances that have influenced each director's career.

Ruben Sosa Villegas

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