composition. Surely these are the actors and the amateur assistants, friends who came by to help further the international avantgarde, rejecting the dominance of nationalism and the archaism of fresco, here, on this rooftop, at the intersection between Europe and America, between film and literature, between reality and dreams, between thirteen and twenty two. In the end, time has reduced Emilio Amero's short but significant career as a filmmaker to a few brief citations, to three photographs, to some distant memories and unending debates ... concretely, there is little more. Because of this, it is hard to reach any deeper conclusions about the importance of Amero in the history of experimental film, at least, that is, until those relentless archeologists of celluloid traces uncover-as they eventually do-something more visually powerful, something more exciting, that will allow us to better understand his important work of seven decades ago. NOTES:
very impressed with the machinery
group portrait, I am certain that Lola
[in the US] and even made a film
took that picture; in those years
about the various movements of one
before their separation in 1934, they
machine, sort of a mechanical ballet."
frequently worked side by side . 1 have
Steve Dimick, "Emilio Amero:
not been able to confirm reports that
'Mexican Art Has Lost Its Roots,"
films (or fragments of films) by Amero
Oklahoma ¡ournal Fun Guide (August
are to be found (or once were to be
19, 1973), p. 13.
found) in the archives of the Museum
4 There is also some evidence that
of Modern Art, New York, or the
Amero made documentary shorts and
Filmoteca Española, Madrid.
newsreels for Pathé. Dimick, p. 13.
11 Dennis, p. 142.
5 In Cartas a Manuel Rodríguez Lozano (México, FCE, 1975), p. 98. 6 Carlos Mérida, "Fotografía y
THE WAVE, PAUL STRAND'S
Cinematógrafo Emilio Amero," Revista
TRIBULATIONS
de Revistas #1178 (December 11,
Lorena Gómez
1932), reproduced in Mexicana,
p.l72. 7 Guillermo Sheridan, "Gilberto Owen y Federico García Lorca viajan a la luna," Vuelta 259 (May 1998), p.1 7. Part of his "proof" is a letter from Lorca to Dalí (from the summer of 1930), where Lorca says that his "new things" include "a film 1 have made with a black poet from New York." Sheridan tries to show that "the black poet" must have been Owen, but I think this little detail is far from resolved. See Sheridan, p.18.
It all began on a journey from New Mexico to Mexico City in a Model A Ford, one day in 1932. Three people were in the car: a woman, an eighteen-year-old man and a photographer, Paul Strand . When they arrived at the Universal Hotel in Saltillo, Coahuila, Strand wrote a letter to Carlos Chávez, who would be his friend for many years, and explained to him why he was visiting his country:
8 Quoted in Diers, p. 34. 9 Ibid, p. 35. It is not my intent in
For a number of reasons, New
this essay to deal with the literary
York does not seem to be the
1 See Horacio Fernández, "Emilio
interpretations of Lorca's script. See
place for me this year. I mainly
Amero," en Mexicana: Fotografía mod-
instead Federico García Lorca, Viaje a
feel that I would not be able to
erna en México, 7920- 7940, Valencia,
la luna, ed . Antonio Monegal,
work there. By work I mean pho-
IVAM, Centre Julio González, 1998,
Valencia, Pre-Textos, 1994; and Nigel
tography-the pictures I made
pp. 163-193. Amero returned to the
Dennis, "Viaje a la luna: Federico
this summer job are done, print-
US in 1934; in 1946 he was named
García Lorca y el problema de la
ed and framed-therefore, I am
professor of printmaking and mural
expresión," Revista canadiense de estu-
now in Mexico, a place which,
painting at the University of
dios hispánicos #25 (Fall 2000),
for starters, appears to me as a
Oklahoma in Norman. He died in
pp.137-149.
new and different world. Even
Norman in 1976.
10 Two were published without cred-
the mountains in Monterrey and
2 This essay is part of a research proj-
it in the issue of Windmill that includ-
here in Saltillo are completely dif-
ect still in progress. I would like to
ed Diers' article; the "close-up"
ferent from anything I have ever
thank Frederic Amat, Jesse Lerner, and
appears here for the first time. The
seen in the United Sta tes. They
Charmaine Picard for their help.
8 x 10 negatives were discovered in
are mysterious, fantastic and, at
3 Richard Diers, " Prologue" to "Trip
Lola Álvarez 8ravo's archive (now at
times, almost grotesque in their
to the Moon," New Directions in Prose
the Center for Creative Photography,
fierceness.'
and Poetry #18 (1964), p. 34. In
University of Arizona, Tucson). As
another interview, Amero said : " 1 was
Manuel Álvarez Bravo appears in the
290
Strand believed countries were