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Deconstructing the Divas: Music in Arturo Ripstein’s El lugar sin límites and La reina de la noche

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The Films of Arturo Ripstein

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Abstract

Since the advent of the sound era, music has played a defining role in Mexican cinema. Music was integral to the development of a national film culture, with popular songs often lending their titles to box-office successes such as Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936), Ay Jalisco no te rajes (1941), and Aventurera (1950). Music ultimately became a shorthand for a unique national identity, known as mexicanidad, with the plots of films in the 1940s and 1950s emulating the lyrics of these popular songs, or relying on their popularity for success with audiences already familiar with the soundtracks of the films. The questioning and overturning of the traditional association in Mexican cinema between music and a shared national identity are a central motif in Arturo Ripstein’s filmmaking practice, and one that will be examined in this chapter with reference to El lugar sin límites (1977) and La reina de la noche (1994). The manner in which gender norms and performance are interrogated in each work is discussed, as well as the way in which La reina de la noche reimagines the often-hackneyed genre of the biopic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Ian Inglis, ed., Popular Music and Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2003), 3.

  2. 2.

    K. J. Donnelly, ed., Film Music: Critical Approaches (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), 1.

  3. 3.

    K. J. Donnelly, The Spectre of Sound: Music and Film and Television (London: BFI, 2005), 57–58.

  4. 4.

    Ramírez Ramírez, Pablo Arrendo, and Enrique Sánchez, Comunicación social, poder y democracia en México (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1986), 70.

  5. 5.

    Eduardo De la Vega Alfaro, “Origins, Development and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paulo Antonio Paranaguá (London: British Film Institute, 1995), 80–81.

  6. 6.

    Eduardo De La Vega Alfaro, “The Decline of the Golden Age and the Making of the Crisis,” in Mexico’s Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers, ed. Joanne Hershfield and David R. Maciel (New York: SR Books, 1999), 167–168.

  7. 7.

    Carlos Monsiváis, “Mexican Cinema: Of Myths and Demystifications,” in Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas, ed. John King, Ana López, and Manuel Alvarado (London: British Film Institute, 1993), 142.

  8. 8.

    Charles Ramírez Berg, Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study of Mexican Film, 1967–1983 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 98.

  9. 9.

    Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society: 1896–2004 (Jefferson, NC: Mc Farland, 2005), 47.

  10. 10.

    “[H]abría que esperar el enorme éxito de Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936) para que se entendiera lo que después pudo parecer obvio: sería la explotación del folclor mexicano, del color local y, sobre todo, de las canciones, lo que daría al cine mexicano su solvencia comercial en todo el continente americano.” Emilio García Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1998), 81. My translations throughout.

  11. 11.

    Paulo Antonio Paranaguá, Arturo Ripstein (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997), 25.

  12. 12.

    Jason Wood, The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), 124.

  13. 13.

    “Buñuel no me enseñó técnica de cine; en cambio, aprendí de él que las mejores películas posibles son aquellas en las que uno no traicionaba sus más íntimos principios.” Paranaguá, Arturo Ripstein, 10.

  14. 14.

    García Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine, 187.

  15. 15.

    García Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine, 184.

  16. 16.

    Ramírez Berg, Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study of Mexican Film, 1967–1983, 123.

  17. 17.

    Suzanne Jill Levine, Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 285–287.

  18. 18.

    García Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine, 196.

  19. 19.

    Ana M. López, “Mexico,” in The International Film Musical, ed. Corey K. Creekmur and Linda Y. Mokdad (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 151.

  20. 20.

    García Riera, Arturo Ripstein habla de su cine, 184.

  21. 21.

    Manuel Puig, El beso de la mujer araña (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2004), 217.

  22. 22.

    Tomás Pérez Turrent, “Crises and Renovations (1965–91),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paulo A. Paranaguá (London: British Film Institute, 1995), 107.

  23. 23.

    Rafael Aviña, Una mirada insólita: Temas y géneros del cine mexicano (Mexico City: Editorial Oceano, 2004), 176.

  24. 24.

    Desirée J. García, The Migration of Musical Film: From Ethnic Margins to American Mainstream (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014), 79.

  25. 25.

    Sergio De la Mora, Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 106.

  26. 26.

    Roberto Ponce, “Frida, Antonieta, Tina, Nahui, Miroslava, y ahora…¡Lucha Reyes!” Proceso 868 (1993): 51.

  27. 27.

    De la Mora, “Por un amor: Lucha Reyes and Queer Mexican Culture,” 2006: n.p.

  28. 28.

    Cynthia A. Hanson, “The Hollywood Musical Biopic and the Regressive Performer,” Wide Angle 20 (1988): 15–23.

  29. 29.

    “…si bien [Ripstein] utilizó como base algunos rasgos fundamentales de la vida de la cantante, que son indudablemente comerciales—bisexual, alcohólica, hija de padre desconocida, madre regentadora de un burdel, que además termina suicidándose en 1944—logra superar los límites de un trabajo por encargo de productor para sacar a la luz unos de los relatos más rudos y conmovedores de los últimos años.” Pablo Abraham and Isabel González, “Arturo Ripstein: La tragedia o el infierno,” Encuadre 66 (1997): 54.

  30. 30.

    “Me interesa mucho más el aspecto oscuro de las personas, el lado negro de la humanidad, que es lo que creo que debe filmarse.” César Augusto Montoya, “Regodeo miserabilista,” Kinetoscopio 3 (1995): 31.

  31. 31.

    Ojalá me hubieras hecho caso de ser cantante de opera. Tu carrera es de esas que terminan pronto. Todo va bien mientras los billetes de par en par. Las farras se acaban. Los facilerosos apenas se agoten tu lana te olvidan. Por eso sigo con mi negocio. Así no vas a llegar a ningún lado.

  32. 32.

    Paranaguá, Arturo Ripstein, 240.

  33. 33.

    Marie Sarita Gaytán and Sergio de la Mora, “Queening/Queering Mexicanidad: Lucha Reyes and the Canción Ranchera,” Feminist Formations, 28, no. 3 (2016): 203.

  34. 34.

    Carlos Monsiváis, “Notas sobre la cultura mexicana en el siglo XX,” in Historia general de México II, Various authors (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1998), 1382–1390.

  35. 35.

    Yolanda Broyles-González, “Ranchera Music(s) and Lydia Mendoza: Performing Social Locations and Relations,” in Chicano Traditions: Continuity and Change, ed. Norma E. Cantú and Olga Nájera-Ramírez (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2002), 197.

  36. 36.

    Tim Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities: Alcohol’s Power in Mexican History and Culture (London: Taylor & Francis Books, 2004), 163.

  37. 37.

    Olga Nájera-Ramírez, “Unruly Passions: Poetics, Performance, and Gender in the Ranchera Song,” in Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader, ed. Gabriela F. Arrendono (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 199–200.

  38. 38.

    Japp Kooijman, “Triumphant Black Pop Divas on the Wide Screen: Lady Sings the Blues and Tina What’s Love Got to Do with It,” in Popular Music and Film, ed. Ian Inglis (London: Wallflower Press, 2003), 179.

  39. 39.

    Sarah M. Misemer, Secular Saints: Performing Frida Kahlo, Carlos Gardel, Eva Perón and Selena (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2008).

  40. 40.

    Veda Boyd Jones, Selena (Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000), 44.

  41. 41.

    Guadalupe San Miguel, Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century (College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2002), 90.

  42. 42.

    Rosa Linda Fregoso, Lourdes Portillo: The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Films (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 14–15.

  43. 43.

    Mitchell, ibid., 164.

  44. 44.

    Raúl Coronado, “Selena’s Good Buy: Texas Mexicans, History, and Selena Meet Transnational Capitalism,” Aztlán 26, no. 1 (2001): 82.

  45. 45.

    Deborah R. Vargas, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” in Latino/a Popular Culture, ed. Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 123–124.

  46. 46.

    Don Irvine, “Selena,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), March 21, 1997: D2.

  47. 47.

    Sergio De la Mora, “Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego’s Lucha Reyes and the Aesthetics of Mexican Abjection.” Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 12, no. 3 (2015): 282.

  48. 48.

    De la Mora, ibid., 285.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland

    Catherine Leen

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  1. Catherine Leen
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Correspondence to Catherine Leen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Manuel Gutiérrez Silva

  2. Professor of Caribbean and Film Studies, Chair, Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Luis Duno Gottberg

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Leen, C. (2019). Deconstructing the Divas: Music in Arturo Ripstein’s El lugar sin límites and La reina de la noche. 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_8

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