Salvador Toscano

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Salvador Toscano Barragán

Salvador Toscano c 1921.jpg

Salvador Toscano, c. 1921
Born 22 March 1872
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Died 14 April 1947
Mexico City
Occupation Filmmaker and director, producer, distributor of early Mexican films.
Known for First Mexican filmmaker

Salvador Toscano Barragán (22 March 1872 –14 April 1947), also known as Salvador Toscano, was a director, producer and distributor of early Mexican cinema films. [1] He was Mexico's first filmmaker. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Cinema of Mexico

The history of Mexican cinema goes back to the ending of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when several enthusiasts of the new medium documented historical events – most particularly the Mexican Revolution – and produced some movies that have only recently been rediscovered. During the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, Mexico all but dominated the Latin American film industry.

Contents

Biography

Toscano was born in 1872 in Guadalajara, Jalisco. [1] [2] He began studying to become a mining engineer, however changed his career to become a filmmaker. [2] [3] He used a Cinematograph camera and projector which was first introduced in France in 1895. [2] It was introduced into Mexico a year later when the first presentation of film in Mexico was made on 15 August 1896. [2] [5]

Cinematograph motion picture film camera which also serves as a projector and printer

A cinematograph is a motion picture film camera, which also serves as a film projector and printer. It was invented in the 1890s in Lyon by Auguste and Louis Lumière.

Toscano opened Mexico's first public movie theatre at 17 Jesús María Street in Mexico City in 1897. [2] [7] [8] In the public theater he showed such famous early films as The Great Train Robbery , A Trip to the Moon , and The Kingdom of the Fairies. [2]

<i>The Great Train Robbery</i> (1903 film) 1903 American silent short Western film directed by Edwin Stanton Porter

The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American silent short Western film written, produced, and directed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. Actors in the movie included Alfred C. Abadie, Broncho Billy Anderson and Justus D. Barnes, although there were no credits. Though a Western, it was filmed in Milltown, New Jersey. The film was inspired by Scott Marble's 1896 stage play, and may also have been inspired by a 1900 train robbery perpetrated by Butch Cassidy.

<i>A Trip to the Moon</i> 1902 French black-and-white silent science fiction film directed by Georges Méliès

A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 French adventure film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites, and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. It features an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers, led by Méliès himself in the main role of Professor Barbenfouillis, and is filmed in the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous.

Toscano began his movie career by filming local scenes in Mexico and local news events. [2] [3] [5] Some early short film titles of these, made in 1896 and 1897, were Men in Scuffle on the Main Square and Rural Police Riding Their Horses. [5]

Toscano began full length production filming in 1898, directing and producing his own movies. [2] [3] They were mostly documentaries pertaining to Mexico. [2] [3] Toscano was the producer of the first full-length film in Mexico. [2] [3] [6] [7] It was fiction based on the play Don Juan Tenorio . [2] [3] [4] [6] [9] The film was made in 1898 starring the Mexican actor Paco Gavilanes. [2] [6]

Don Juan Tenorio: Drama religioso-fantástico en dos partes, is a play written in 1844 by José Zorrilla. It is the more romantic of the two principal Spanish-language literary interpretations of the legend of Don Juan. The other is the 1630 El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, which is attributed to Tirso de Molina. Don Juan Tenorio owes a great deal to this earlier version, as recognized by Zorrilla himself in 1880 in his Recuerdos del tiempo viejo, although the author curiously confuses de Molina with another writer of the same era, Agustín Moreto.

Toscano was a documentary filmmaker mostly however. He filmed on the Mexican Revolution and most of his movie making was on this subject. [2] [3]

Mexican Revolution major nationwide armed struggle in Mexico between 1910 and 1920

The Mexican Revolution, also known as the Mexican Civil War, was a major armed struggle, lasting roughly from 1910 to 1920, that radically transformed Mexican culture and government. Although recent research has focused on local and regional aspects of the Revolution, it was a genuinely national revolution. Its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the failure of the 35-year-long regime of Porfirio Díaz to find a managed solution to the presidential succession. This meant there was a political crisis among competing elites and the opportunity for agrarian insurrection. Wealthy landowner Francisco I. Madero challenged Díaz in the 1910 presidential election, and following the rigged results, revolted under the Plan of San Luis Potosí. Armed conflict ousted Díaz from power; a new election was held in 1911, bringing Madero to the presidency.

Toscano had a rival named Enrique Rosas who also produced films in Mexico at the same time. [5] Many movie theaters had been constructed by 1902 in Mexico City and within a few years many more were spread throughout Mexico. [5] Toscano's last film was shot in 1921. [2]

Toscano's daughter Carmen took many scenes of his Mexican revolutionary documentary films and reintroduced it under the title of Memorias de un mexicano (Memoirs of a Mexican) in 1950. [2] [3] [4] [5] [10] The scenes were filmed by Toscano between 1897 and 1923. Much of the footage was about President Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary events of his reign. [2] [3] [5] [7] [10] The reintroduced film was 100 minutes long and premiered 24 August 1950. [2] [3] [5] [10]

One of the propaganda "photo-ops" Toscano made of Díaz was called General Díaz on a Stroll Through Chapultepec Park. [5] Toscano also made documentary films of Díaz's grand celebration of Mexico's first one hundred years of independence. [5]

Since 1982 the movie industry of Mexico has awarded the Salvador Toscano Medal in recognition of outstanding contribution to Mexican cinematography. [11]

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References

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Directores del Cine Mexicano: Salvador Toscano" . Retrieved 2008-07-17.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 "Salvador Toscano Barragan - Mexico's first filmmaker" . Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Mexican Cinema". Archived from the original on 2008-03-12. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  4. 1 2 3 "Movies - Cinema of Mexico". Archived from the original on 2008-07-08. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Standish, pp. 120-121
  6. 1 2 3 4 Bethell, p. 521, The first man in Mexico to make a primitive fiction film was Salvador Toscano Barragan (1872-1941), in 1898, with the first of many film versions of that nineteenth-century romantic staple, "Don Juan Tenorio."
  7. 1 2 3 4 Raat, p. 35, The father of the Mexican film industry was Salvador Toscano Barragán.
  8. ↑ Noble, p. 59
  9. ↑ Noble, p. 27
  10. 1 2 3 Noble, p. 58-9 and p. 195
  11. ↑ Jaszczak, p. 348

Bibliography

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