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Adela Pineda Franco's Steinbeck and Mexico: A Cinematographic Gaze in the Era of United States Hegemony

2019; Penn State University Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/steinbeckreview.16.1.0107

1754-6087

Lynn Loewen,

Asian American and Pacific Histories

Adela Pineda Franco's book focuses on John Steinbeck's “cinematographic incursions” into Mexico rather than on his literary output to argue that Steinbeck's cultural, political, and socioeconomic concerns were intricately linked to Mexico. Franco deftly interweaves research from a multitude of primary and secondary sources and relevant theories from literary and historical criticism, cinematography, and philosophy. The introduction promises “a broad panorama of the transnational contexts” that circumscribe selected works of Steinbeck; three of the principle themes of this study are film as a “tool of social development,” the intersection of “Mexican nationalism and the cultural industry,” and “the political use of the image of the Mexican Revolution” (33–34). Pineda delivers much more.The first chapter, “Steinbeck in the Era of Roosevelt and Cárdenas,” describes the development in the 1930s of a romanticized concept of what constituted Mexico as a cultural and political entity (“lo mexicano”). Pineda carefully articulates analyses of Mexican nationalism, the Great Depression and New Deal in the United States, the distinct politics of state-centered governments in each country, the exchange of diverse aesthetic and political theories of U.S., European, and Mexican intellectuals, as well as relevant background on the Mexican Revolution (1910) and its consequences. According to the author, a confluence of mitigating factors resulted in a contradictory vision (fantasy) during that era—Mexicans were perceived as post-revolutionary nationalists demanding economic and social change as well as passive indigenous communities desiring an agrarian existence and a return to pre-industrial cultural traditions. Pineda considers various manifestations of this contradiction an important aspect in Steinbeck's work.Chapter 2, “Biopolitics and Community: The Forgotten Village in Times of War,” deals with Steinbeck's incursion into documentary film during World War II and discusses the advent of cinema as a technological force in biopolitics. The Sea of Cortez. A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), co-authored with Edward F. Ricketts, is perceived by Pineda as a chronicle of a biological expedition, a censure of capitalist exploitation of natural resources, and a politicized critique of approaching wartime violence. Two years later, after Pearl Harbor, she indicates how Steinbeck contradicted these views with his photo-illustrated, nonfiction, pro-war, pro-technology text, Bombs Away. The Story of a Bomber Team. In both books, Pineda identifies Steinbeck's use of the cinematic gaze in narrative and photos; by showcasing the grand spectacle of war machines in action, the audience is distanced from the horrific destruction they cause.Having laid the groundwork, the author unpacks the complex process of creating and co-producing (U.S. and Mexico) The Forgotten Village (1941), written by Steinbeck. The plot of the didactic documentary fiction deals with the introduction of advances in public health to an indigenous atavistic agrarian community. Pineda elucidates how the wartime social political contexts in both countries nurtured cooperation against fascism while laying the groundwork for the hegemonic presence of the United States in Mexico. She observes that selected cinematic techniques (e.g., off-camera narration, all Mexican cast, un-staged sequences) underscored the contradiction referred to previously. Western thought, caught in the crux of war and rampant technology, sought to promote modernization and at the same time preserve the mirage of the “forgotten village,” a metaphor for the natural state of an indigenous community untouched by technology (100).The third chapter, “The Sublime Object of Ideology: The Pearl by Steinbeck,” examines the language of the novel and cinematic devices of the U.S. and Mexican co-production (1947). Pineda begins with a review of Steinbeck's pro-democracy, antifascist wartime work, showing how he embraces film as a means to social awareness. Begun in the previous chapter, she continues documenting the collaboration between both film industries as a means for the United States to gain allies and concurrently extend its authority. She demonstrates how film was the precursor of Steinbeck's oral and visual linguistic strategies in the novel—his documentary approach, visual description, direct dialogue, and setup of action scenes. Easily translated to film adaptations, they merged with characteristics of Mexican film of that era (e.g., the ethereal play of light and shadow, vast landscapes, repetition). Steinbeck wanted The Pearl to be an “honest film”; however, as Pineda maintains, the result was a rendition of the unattainable fantasy of the indigenous Mexican community—the “sublime object” of nationalist ideology (111). She sees the story framed as a didactic tale from the oral tradition as well as a parable to be interpreted. If the pearl is a metaphor for capitalism, representing unending desire, then the protagonist's rejection of its power could be interpreted as the result of his journey through the fantasy of capitalism, arriving at a burgeoning awareness of the exploitation of his village (120).The chapter concludes by contrasting The Pearl with Steinbeck's satirical novel The Wayward Bus (1947), written during the same time period. Pineda asserts that the author restores his critical view of postwar consumer society through the lens of Mexican referents by having the characters pin their desires on Hollywood, consumption, and “lo mexicano”—all sublime objects of ideology.Chapter 4, “The Melancholy of Zapata: ¡Viva Zapata! and the Cold War,” contextualizes Steinbeck's affiliation with Mexico during the Cold War. Pineda traces the roots of the McCarthy era, beginning with the prewar creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1938. In the 1950s, Hollywood became a primary target for HUAC because of its influence on the popular imagination. Shortly after filming ¡Viva Zapata! (1952) the director, Elia Kazan, testified against eleven Communist Party members and used the movie as proof of his conversion to anti-communist beliefs (159). Begun in the first chapter of this book, Pineda continues the analysis of the post-Cárdenas Mexican political, economic, and cultural state of affairs. She examines how the original post-revolutionary reforms were dramatically altered if not forgotten under subsequent presidents. But despite reality, the legacy of the Revolution continued to thrive through a variety of unofficial channels.In great detail, Pineda dissects the opening scene of ¡Viva Zapata!, where Steinbeck breaks with traditional cinematic representations of the Mexican Revolution. First, in the formal meeting with President Diaz, he presents Zapata and his followers as timid yet articulate citizens and not uneducated revolutionaries. Then, he frames their demand as the restoration of appropriated land rather than as a revolutionary step toward nationalism (151–53). The second scene parallels the first, but the historical turns fictional. Now Zapata sits as the President of Mexico in the National Palace listening to complaints of another revolutionary leader and his followers. Steinbeck had done extensive research prior to writing the script with the firm intention of representing the truth about the Mexican Revolution. Contrary to that goal, the film became an allegory of the idea of “revolution” (146, 155). These and other portrayals in the script resulted in a veto by Mexican censors, the denial of permission to film in Mexico, the resignation of the major cameraman, and 20th Century Fox's demand that Marlon Brando be the lead rather than Pedro Armendáriz (153).Pineda ranges far and wide with commentary on the host of concerns of Kazan, the critical reception, and diverse interpretations of the movie in the United States and later in Mexico, the worldwide impact of the Cuban Revolution and its socialist alternative to communism in the 50s, the CIA involvement with three Mexican presidents as informants beginning in 1961, and the alternative “readings” of Zapata's significance as a historical and mythical figure. According to Pineda, Zapata's assassination could be interpreted as an allusion to “Steinbeck's obsessions with the death of the indigenous pre-modern community, as the sublime object of his ideology,” as well as hope for its rebirth (176–77). A final “Coda” to the chapter summarizes Carlos Fuentes's essay “Viva Zapata” (1969, New York Review of Books), written seventeen years after the film; he concluded that because Mexican citizens could no longer exercise their rights under the disproportionate power of the state, “we have all become Zapatistas.”The final chapter, “‘Flight’ and the Mexican Homo Sacer,” analyzes Steinbeck's short story “Flight” (from The Long Valley, 1938) as well as the television (1956) and movie (1961) adaptations, not scripted by Steinbeck. Although written before the author's immersion in Mexico's culture and politics, Pineda shows how the story not only foretells his fixations on Mexico but also foreshadows style, plots, and characters in his literary and cinematic work from 1940 to 1952 (175). She utilizes concepts of Homo Sacer, as developed in the work of Giorgio Agamben, to interpret the characterization and destinies of Zapata and Pepe, the protagonist in “Flight” (176–77).At the end of the chapter and of her study, Pineda quotes Steinbeck: “I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction” (Travels with Charley, 1961). She then concludes her own travels through Steinbeck's literary and cinematographic work with a final observation: “Mexico was one of the most relevant symbolic spaces where Steinbeck could sublimate the disturbing answer to this unknown, projecting it onto the fateful destiny of the pre-modern indigenous community” (188).