Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

de Francisco Villa, qui fini président du
Mexique à la fin du film). Avec ce film, la
Mutual réalisa son objectif, qui était de
redonner la confiance du public américain à
Villa, en le représentant comme un
personnage affable et populaire. Ces images
n’ont jamais essayé de dépeindre les
motivations sociales de Villa et de ses
partisans, ni de commenter ses origines et
ses objectifs (John Reed s’en est chargé à
travers ses articles publiés dans le
Metropolitan Magazine réunis plus tard
sous le titre Mexico Insurgent). La partie
documentaire du film, qui prévaut bien
entendu sur sa partie romancée, a servi de
base pour la prise de décisions politiques
nord-américaines alors que de puissants
médias, comme celui de W.R. Hearst,
essayaient de faire pencher leur
gouvernement vers une occupation totale du
Mexique.
1 In 1909 Charles Pathé began the
systematization of information on film
with his Pathé Journal. Its American
edition in turn marked the beginning of
film journalism in the United States in
August, 1911. That same month marked
the beginning of The Vitagraph Monthly of
Current Events.
2 Friedrich Katz. The Secret War in
Mexico. Europe, the United States and the
Mexican Revolution. Chicago. The
University of Chicago Press. 1981, p.
150.
3 “With Villa in Mexico”. Reel Life. May 9,
1914, pp. 10-11.
4 “The Battle of Torreon and The Life of
General Villa”. The Motion Picture News.
May 23, 1914, p.58.
5 “The Film of Villa-Torreon as seen by War
Correspondents”. Reel Life, May 23, 1914.
P.29.
6 Iris Barry “Prefacio” to the work by
Lewis Jacobs published in Barcelona,
Lumen under the title: La azarosa historia
del cine americano, 2 vols., vol.1, p.13.
saying that the expedition returned to the US without having found
any trace of Villa.
Douglas Fairbanks, in the film His Majesty, The American (1919),
expresses very clearly the extremely negative view Americans had of
Mexicans and especially of Francisco Villa, as well as their
interventionist tendencies not only with regard to Mexico but Russia
as well, at a time when radicals were well entrenched in power. In
the film Fairbanks works in New York in all manner of jobs from
fireman to policeman among other things, in spite of being the son of
a rich family with more than enough money to live on. A caption at
the beginning presents him as a popular philosopher who comments
humorously on life in a huge city in comparison with the romantic
and athletic possibilities of life to the south of the Rio Grande. One
day he arrives at the office of the Mayor of New York to complain
about the many problems of the city, only to be told that if he wants
to see real problems he should go to Mexico. He gets onto a train. As
he travels the story unfolds of how the peace of Alaine, in Europe, a
centuries-old monarchy, was broken by demagogues stirring up the
masses, a direct allusion to Russia in 1919 in the throes of its
revolution. A gunshot awakens him. Frightened, he asks: “Are we in
murderous Mexico?” He is at Peace Vale, Texas, still a 100 miles from
Mexico. He completes his journey by donkey. When he arrives at last
in Mexico, the following caption appears:
Presenting MURDEROUS MEXICO (where you can expect to find)
Bullets
Bandits
Featuring: Francisco Villa
He admires the peacefulness of the countryside. He lights a cigar on
the sun burnt ground. He asks why the place is so desolate. He is
told that the inhabitants are dead because Villa makes a visit every
year to kill people. Fairbanks’ visit coincides with Villa’s annual
arrival, who rides through the village scattering terror. Fairbanks
catches up with him and with one acrobatic leap drags him from his
horse. They fight and Fairbanks drowns Villa in a muddy pond. The
village regains its confidence. The inhabitants feel “saved” from their
nightmare. The excessive caricature of Villa and the exaggeration of
the situation in Alaine were examples of the new positioning of the
United States as a world power emerging from the First World War,
trying to expand its political and economical control, an effort in
which movies were to play an important role. In reaction other
countries were to initiate a process aimed at limiting the
representation of their countrymen in American films, conditioned by
the political and economical interests involved. A phrase by Iris Barry
expresses the fact very clearly: “Although it is true that other
countries have also contributed to the volume of film production
since 1895, the film industry has grown to be an essentially
American expression, and the history of cinema has grown to be part
of the history of the United States”.6
40 Journal of Film Preservation / 63 / 2001