Abstract
Arturo Ripstein has directed twenty-nine feature films, seventeen documentaries, and numerous short films (See filmography at the end of this Introduction.). Demonstrably, he is the most prolific and celebrated Mexican filmmaker of his generation (Ripstien’s generation includes the film directors Felipe Cazals [1937], Jorge Fons [1939], Jaime Humberto Hermosillo [1942], and Paul Leduc [1942].). Given the tumultuous history of Mexico’s film industry during the second half of the twentieth century, Ripstein’s accomplishment is striking.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
See filmography at the end of this Introduction.
- 2.
Ripstien’s generation includes the film directors Felipe Cazals (1937), Jorge Fons (1939), Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (1942), and Paul Leduc (1942).
- 3.
For an overview of the history of the Mexican film industry during Echeverria’s and President López Portillo’s six-year term presidencies (sexenios), see Charles Ramírez Berg’s, Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study Mexican Film, 1967–1983 (Austin: Texas University Press, 1992).
- 4.
Nicholas Bell, “Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #7 The Devil Between the Legs (El diablo entre las piernas) Arturo Ripstein,” Ioncinema.com, January 8, 2019, accessed January 13, 2009, https://www.ioncinema.com/news/annual-top-films-lists/foreign-films-of-2019-the-devil-between-the-legs-el-diablo-entre-las-piernas-arturo-ripstein.
- 5.
Arturo Ripstein has won five Ariels, the highest award given by the Mexican Academy of Film. For over a decade, Ripstein has withdrawn his films from entering into competition for awards or nominations. In 2014, he was awarded The Golden Ariel for lifetime achievement.
- 6.
John Hopewell, “Venice: Arturo Ripstein to Receive Biennale Award,” Variety, August 26, 2015.
- 7.
Kelly Vance, “Down There: Bleak Street Is the Latest from Provocative Mexican Auteur,” Noir City, Spring 2016, p. 64, accessed January 16, 2019, http://filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymag/Down-There.pdf.
- 8.
For example, see Charles Ramirez Berg’s, The Classical Mexican Cinema: The Poetics of the Exceptional Golden Age Films (Austin: Texas University Press, 2015); Robert Irwin and Maricruz Ricalde, Global Mexican Cinema: It’s Golden Age (London: British Film Institute, 2013); and Ignacio Sánchez Prado, Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema, 1988–2012 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 2015).
- 9.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2017 (Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2018), 14.
- 10.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2016 (Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2017), 95.
- 11.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2015 (Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2017), 212.
- 12.
A search on Film Literature Index (FLI) lists only seven articles published between 1976 and 2001. And a search on (FIAF) an international index to film periodicals lists only six. A search on Hispanic American Periodicals Index (Hapi) produces only eleven since 1977. A search on MLA International Bibliography for peer-reviewed journal articles renders a total of fourteen articles published between 1989 and 2018.
- 13.
Jesús García Rodrigo, El cine de Arturo Ripstein: La solución del bárbaro (Valencia: Ediciones de la Mirada, 1998); Klaus Red Eder, Arturo Ripstein : Filmemacher aus Mexico (München: Filmfest, 1989); Philippe Colombet, “La représentation de l’intolérance dans El castillo de la pureza (1972) de Arturo Ripstein,” MA diss., Université de Bourgogne; and Caryn Connelly, “Passionate Extremes: The Melodramas of Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego,” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2006. A recent doctoral dissertation on Camp in Latin America, includes a chapter on Ripstein’s films. See Sergio A. Macías, “El camp latinoamericano y la manifestación del exceso en tres casos: José Aunción Silva, Copi, y Artruto Ripstein,” PhD diss., University of Colorado Boulder, 2017.
- 14.
See, for example, Emilio Garcia Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine con Emilio Garcia Riera (México: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1988); Manuel Pérez Estremera, Correspondencia inacabada con Arturo Ripstein (Huesca: Festival de Cine de Huesca, 1995).
- 15.
Paulo Antonio Paranaguá, Arturo Ripstein: La espiral de la identidad (Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española, 1997).
- 16.
Garcia Riera (1988).
- 17.
In an interview Ripstein stated: “My films are not derivative of a political situation of political action. I’ve never tried to make a political issue more important than the narrative. I’ve always tried to make films about things that scare me or leave me in awe… I’ve always that engaged writers prefer politics to writing and I’ve always preferred filmmaking to politics.” See Sergio de la Mora, “A Career in Perspective: An Interview with Arturo Ripstein,” Film Quarterly 52, no. 4 (Summer 1999): 7–8.
- 18.
Arturo Ripstein, “El lugar sin límites,” El Lugar sin Límites, Summer 2015, p. N/A, accessed April 4, 2019, https://ellugarsinlimites.com/2015/07/13/el-lugar-sin-limites-arturo-ripstein/.
- 19.
Lourdes Portillo, “Arturo Ripstein: Oral History,” Academy Visual History Program Collection, 160:28, September 2015, http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/arturo-ripstein/.
- 20.
For three recent studies on Ripstien’s film adaptations, see Marin M. Winkler, Classical Literature on Screen: Affinities of Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Patricia Salzman-Mitchell and Jean Alvares, Classical Myth and Film in the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); and Andres Lema-Hincapie and Conxita Domènech, Letras hispánicas en la gran pantalla: De la literature al cine (New York: Routledge, 2017). Also see, María B. Clark, “Arturo Ripstein’s Colonel in The Labyrinth of Solitude,” in Essays on Hispanic Film and Fiction, ed. George Cabello-Castellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood (Corvallis: Oregon State University, 2004).
- 21.
Paz Alicia Gacriadiego, “Paz Alicia Garciadiego,” in Medalla Salvador Toscana: Destacada Guinista (México: Conaculta, 2013), 13.
- 22.
Lourdes Portillo, “Paz Alicia Garciadiego: Oral History,” Academy Visual History Program Collection, 30:09, September 2015, http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/paz-alicia-garciadiego/.
- 23.
Lourdes Portillo, “Arturo Ripstein: Oral History,” Academy Visual History Program Collection, 117:12, September 2015, http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/arturo-ripstein/.
- 24.
“I will say at once … that the ‘uncanny’ is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, very familiar.” Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , Volume XVII (1917–1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works (London: Hogarth, 1955), 219.
- 25.
Ibid., 219
- 26.
Ibid., 220. My emphasis.
- 27.
Jacques Lacan, Anxiety (London: Polity, 2016), 41–42.
- 28.
De la Mora (1999, 7).
- 29.
The three interviews with Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego which structure this volume and compliment the different chapters were conducted by Luis Duno Gottberg and Manuel Gutiérrez Silva over three days in the fall of 2012 at Rice University.
- 30.
See Catherine Grant, “La función de ‘los autores’: La adaptación cinematográfica de El lugar sin límites,” Revista Iberoamericana LXVIII, no. 199 (Abril-Junio 2002); “Becoming ‘Arturo Ripstein’? On Collaboration and the ‘Author Function’ in the Transnational Film Adaptation of El lugar sin límites,” Mediático, January 2014, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2014/01/27/becoming-arturo-ripstein/.
- 31.
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
- 32.
Carlos Monsiváis, Aires de familia: Cultura y sociedad en América Latina (Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000), 61.
- 33.
See Caryn Connelly’s, “Looking for Love Where the Air Is Clear: Deconstructing Masculinity in Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garcíadiego’s Mentiras piadosas (1988),” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 37, no. 2 (2008): 50–75; “Passionate Extremes: Gender Types and Archetypes in the Films of Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garcíadiego,” in Leading Ladies: Women in Hispanic Literature and Art, ed. Yvonne Fuentes and Margaret R. Parker, 152–164. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006; “Passionate Extremes: The Melodramas of Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego,” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2006. And Claudia Schaefer, “Clothes Make the Man: Closet, Cabaret, Cinema in El lugar sin límites” (Arturo Ripstein, 1978); in Despite All Adversities: Spanish-American Queer Cinema, ed. Andrés Lema-Hincapié and Debra Castillo (New York: State University of New York, 2015); and “Crimes of Passion: Arturo Ripstein’s Profundo Carmesí and the Terrors of Melodrama,” Latin American Literary Review 29, no. 57 (January/June 2001): 87–103. Claudia Schaefer is preparing a forthcoming monograph on Arturo Ripstein’s films.
Films
This filmography has been compiled from Paolo Antonio Paranaguá’s, Arturo Ripstein: La espiral de la identidad (Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española, 1997), 305–313, and The Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0728149/. It does not include Arturo Ripstein’s work for television.
Tiempo de morir/Time to Die (1966).
Los recuerdos del porvenir/Memories of the Future (1968).
La hora de los niños/Children’s Hour (1969).
El castillo de la pureza/The Castle of Purity (1972).
El santo oficio/The Holy Office (1973).
Foxtrot/The Far Side of Paradise (1975).
El lugar sin límites/The Place Without Limits (1977).
La viuda negra/The Black Widow (1977).
Cadena perpetua/Life Sentence (1978).
La tía Alejandra/Aunt Alejandra (1979).
La ilegal/The Illegal (1979).
La seducción/Seduction (1980).
Rastro de muerte/Trail of Death (1981).
El otro/The Other (1984).
El imperio de la fortuna/The Realm of Fortune (1985).
Mentiras piadosas/Love Lies (1989).
La mujer del puerto/Woman of the Port (1991).
Principio y fin/The Beginning and The End (1993).
La reina de la noche/Queen of the Night (1994).
Profundo carmesí/Deep Crimson (1996).
El evangelio de las maravillas/Devine (1997).
El coronel no tiene quien le escriba/No One Writes the Colonel (1999).
Así es la vida/Such Is life (2000).
La perdición de los hombres/The Ruination of Men (2000).
La virgen de la lujuria/The Virgin of Lust (2002).
El carnaval de Sodoma/The Carnival of Sodom (2006).
Los motivos del corazón/The Reason of the Heart (2011).
La calle de la amargura/Bleak Street (2015).
El diablo entre las piernas/The Devil Between the Legs (2019).
Short Films
El primer cigarro/The First Cigarette (1957).
La sopresa/ The Surpise (n/a).
Morir en México/To Die in Mexico (n/a).
H.O. (Juego peligroso)/ H.O. (Dangerous Game) (1966).
Crímen/Crime (1970).
La belleza/ Beauty (1970).
Exorcismos/ Exorcism (1970).
Autobiografía/Autobiography (1971).
Quitele el usted y tratamos (1984).
De todo como en botica (1984).
Mi gran noche/My Glorious Night (2004).
Documentary
Q.R.R. (Quien resulte responsable)/Whoever Is Responsible (1970).
Though Gustavo Alatriste (1922–2006) is credited as director of this documentary, in an interview with Lourdes Portillo for the Academy of Motion Pictures Visual History Program Collection, Arturo Ripstein reveals that he directed this film. See Lourdes Portillo, “Arturo Ripstein: Oral History,” September 2015, Academy Visual History Program Collection, 42:35. http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/arturo-ripstein/.
El náufrago de la calle Providencia/The Castaway of Providence Street (1971).
Los otros niños/ The Other Children (1974).
Lecumberri (El Palacio Negro)/Lecumberri (The Dark Palace) (1976).
Hombre con guitarra/Man with Guitar (1997).
Juan Soriano (Fecit dixit) (2001).
Los héroes y el tiempo/Time and The Heroes (2005).
Documentary Short
Salón independiente/Indpendent Salon (1969).
Tiempo de correr/Time to Run (1974).
Nación en marcha núm. 3/A Nation on the March Number 3 (1974).
Matemáticas/Mathematics (1975).
Español/ Spanish (1975).
Ciencias sociales/Social Science (1975).
Ciencias naturales/Natural Science (1975).
La causa (Tres preguntas a Chávez) /The Cause (Three Questions for Chávez) (1975).
El borracho/The Drunk (1976).
Contra hechos no hay palabras/There Are No Words Against Facts (1984).
Un día en la vida de dos restaurantes/A Day in the Life of Two Restaurants (2005).
Bibliography
Bell, Nicholas. “Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #7 The Devil Between the Legs (El diablo entre las piernas) Arturo Ripstein.” Ioncinema.com, January 8, 2019.
Clark, María B. “Arturo Ripstein’s Colonel in The Labyrinth of Solitude.” In Essays on Hispanic Film and Fiction, edited by George Cabello-Castellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood. Corvallis: Oregon State University, 2004.
Colombet, Philippe. “La représentation de l’intolérance dans El castillo de la pureza (1972) de Arturo Ripstein.” MA diss., Université de Bourgogne.
Connelly, Caryn. “Passionate Extremes: The Melodramas of Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego.” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2006.
———. “Passionate Extremes: Gender Types and Archetypes in the Films of Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garcíadiego.” In Leading Ladies: Women in Hispanic Literature and Art, edited by Yvonne Fuentes and Margaret R. Parker, 152–164. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
———. “Looking for Love Where the Air Is Clear: Deconstructing Masculinity in Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garcíadiego’s Mentiras piadosas (1988).” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 37, no. 2 (2008): 50–75.
De la Mora, Sergio. “A Career in Perspective: An Interview with Arturo Ripstein.” Film Quarterly 52, no. 4 (Summer 1999): 2–11.
Eder, Klaus Red. Arturo Ripstein: Filmemacher aus Mexico. München: Filmfest, 1989.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII (1917–1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. London: Hogarth, 1955.
Garcia Riera, Emilio. Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine con Emilio Garcia Riera. México: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1988.
García Rodrigo, Jesús. El cine de Arturo Ripstein: La solución del bárbaro. Valencia: Ediciones de la Mirada, 1998.
Grant, Catherine. “La función de ‘los autores’: La adaptación cinematográfica de El lugar sin límites.” Revista Iberoamericana LXVIII, no. 199 (Abril–Junio 2002): 253–268.
———. “Becoming ‘Arturo Ripstein’? On Collaboration and the ‘Author Function’ in the Transnational Film Adaptation of El lugar sin límites.” Mediático, January 2014. http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2014/01/27/becoming-arturo-ripstein/.
Hopewell, John. “Venice: Arturo Ripstein to Receive Biennale Award.” Variety, August 26, 2015.
Irwin, Robert, and Maricruz Ricalde. Global Mexican Cinema: It’s Golden Age. London: British Film Institute, 2013.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety. London: Polity, 2016, 41–42.
Lema-Hincapie, Andrés, and Conxita Domènech. Letras hispánicas en la gran pantalla: De la literature al cine. New York: Routledge, 2017.
Macías, Sergio A. “El camp latinoamericano y la manifestación del exceso en tres casos: José Aunción Silva, Copi, y Artruto Ripstein.” PhD diss., University of Colorado Boulder, 2017.
Monsiváis, Carlos. Aires de familia: Cultura y sociedad en América Latina. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000.
Paranaguá, Paulo Antonio. Arturo Ripstein: La espiral de la identidad. Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española, 1997.
Pérez Estremera, Manuel. Correspondencia inacabada con Arturo Ripstein. Huesca: Festival de Cine de Huesca, 1995.
Portillo, Lourdes. “Arturo Ripstein: Oral History.” Academy Visual History Program Collection, 160:28, September 2015. http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/arturo-ripstein/.
———. “Paz Alicia Garciadiego: Oral History.” Academy Visual History Program Collection, 30:09, September 2015. http://pstlala.oscars.org/interview/paz-alicia-garciadiego/.
Ramírez Berg, Charles. Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study Mexican Film, 1967–1983. Austin: Texas University Press, 1992.
———. The Classical Mexican Cinema: The Poetics of the Exceptional Golden Age Films. Austin: Texas University Press, 2015.
Ripstein, Arturo. “El lugar sin límites.” El lugar sin límites, Summer 2015, p. N/A. Accessed April 4, 2019. https://ellugarsinlimites.com/2015/07/13/el-lugar-sin-limites-arturo-ripstein/.
Salzman-Mitchell, Patricia, and Jean Alvares. Classical Myth and Film in the New Millennium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Sánchez Prado, Ignacio. Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema, 1988–2012. Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 2015.
Schaefer, Claudia. “Crimes of Passion: Arturo Ripstein’s Profundo Carmesí and the Terrors of Melodrama.” Latin American Literary Review 29, no. 57 (January/June 2001): 87–103.
———. “Clothes Make the Man: Closet, Cabaret, Cinema in El lugar sin límites (Arturo Ripstein, 1978).” In Despite All Adversities: Spanish-American Queer Cinema, edited by Andrés Lema-Hincapié and Debra Castillo. New York: State University of New York, 2015.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2015. Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2016.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2016. Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2017.
Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema: 2017. Mexico: Ministry of Culture/IMCINE, 2018.
Vance, Kelly. “Down There: Bleak Street Is the Latest from Provocative Mexican Auteur.” Noir City, Spring 2016, p. 64. Accessed January 16, 2019. http://filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymag/Down-There.pdf.
Winkler, Marin M. Classical Literature on Screen: Affinities of Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gutiérrez Silva, M. (2019). Introduction. In: Gutiérrez Silva, M., Duno Gottberg, L. (eds) The Films of Arturo Ripstein. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22956-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22956-6_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22955-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-22956-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)