The film – the first (and last) of its kind – was expected to play a small part in the Government’s plan to educate millions of illiterate citizens throughout the enormous country and bring them out of their isolation. […] The picture was to be made for the Federal Department of Fine Arts, headed by composer Carlos Chávez. The producer would be Paul Strand. […] We had recruited practically all ‘actors’ from among the local fishermen, who needed to do no more than be themselves. They were splendid and loyal friends, and working with them was a joy. In addition to acting, they carried all the equipment, rowed the boats and did a multitude of other jobs, earning more money than ever before – forty-five cents per day, per man – and enjoying themselves hugely. […] I’m told that some years later the Nazis found the negative in Paris and burned it. A few prints still exist. —Fred Zinnemann

NOTES ON THE RESTORATION
The restoration of Redes used the best surviving materials, namely a 35mm safety duplicate negative and a positive print preserved at the Filmoteca de la UNAM in Mexico. The digital restoration produced a new 35mm internegative.

Director

Fred Zinnemann

Vienna-born Fred Zinnemann had childhood dreams of becoming a musician, and later planned on a law career, before his viewing of the movies of Erich Von Stroheim drew him into the movie business, initially as a cameraman. He came to the United States in 1929, and later found work as an editor, and subsequently as an assistant to documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, and then as an assistant to choreographer Busby Berkeley. He joined MGM in the late ‘30s as a director of comedy shorts, and won an Academy award for his 1938 short subject That Mothers Might Live. Zinnemann moved up to full-length features in 1941, but found little opportunity to work on anything but B-pictures until 1948, with The Search, a drama set in post-World War II Europe. He didn’t really become a major recognized box-office name as a director, however, until 1952 when his Western drama High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, which had been perceived by most observers as headed for commercial disaster, became a monster… read more

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VENIMOS LOS JODIMOS Y NOS FUIMOS

4Sep12

Un curioso caso de cine de denuncia social en el panorama de la industria filmíca nacional de los años treinta. Producida bajo los auspicios de la SEP, esta cinta relata los avatares de un grupo de pescadores, quienes hartos de la precaria condición laboral y económica en la que viven sometidos a causa de la explotación de que son sujetos por parte de un cacique acaparador, deciden organizarse y formar su propia cooperativa, lo que posteriormente acarreará consigo trágicas consecuencias para los integrantes del movimiento. Uno de los primeros acercamientos (o fusiles, según se vea) por parte del cine nacional a la estética eisensteiniana, en la que los realizadores tomaron "prestados" algunos de los elementos característicos del cine del maestro ruso en lo que al montaje, la puesta en escena y al empleo de actores no profesionales se refiere. Si bien desde sus primeros minutos de proyección todo aquel potencial espectador podría sentirse desanimado por hacerse evidente que la cinta esta (comprensiblemente) actuada con las patas (por eso de la "autenticidá", Muriel y Zimmerman decidieron emplear a pescadores reales y algunos otros lugareños de Alvarado, Veracruz), cualquier tipo de queja al respecto queda zanjada gracias a los (apocrifos; ni modo, hay que decirlo) aciertos visuales de la lente de Paul Strand y a la música de Revueltas. En su tiempo, constituyo un severo fracaso de taquilla, y si bien es cierto que con el paso del tiempo ha sido justamente revalorada como un clásico de la cinematografía mundial, la gran paradoja es que (al menos en nuestro país) no suele exhibirse con la frecuencia que merece.