2008/06/27

The Carnival

Most of the budget was spent -- or squandered -- during this story. Welles says he intended most of the 16 mm footage to be source material, to be restaged and refilmed in color on a soundstage later. By itself, the pandemonic dancing and "perfume wars" was insufficient, which is why Welles decided to shoot a voodoo ceremony in a favela, give drama to the action as well as trace the source of the samba.

The Wilson-Meisel-Krohn documentary uses the Carnival footage as a frame for their story of the Welles S.A. adventure. It opens with a sketched portrait of a witch doctor and Welles explaining his mission to Rio and his interest in the samba, closes with color footage of the Carnival, and a radio clip of Welles and Carmen Miranda explaining the various percussions used in the samba. Welles says he had in mind to actually intercut the third story about the voyage of the jangadeiros (Four Men On A Raft) with sequences from the Carnival.

Compiled and with notes by LAWRENCE FRENCH : Wellesnet
December 7, 1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; The U.S. enters World War II.Two weeks after the United States was drawn into World War II, RKO stockholder Nelson Rockefeller approached Orson Welles about going to Brazil on a good will mission. Shortly afterwards, John Hay Whitney, the director of the office for the coordination of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) sent this telegram to Orson Welles.

JOHN HAY WHITNEY TO ORSON WELLES:
December 20, 1941

DEAR ORSON:

WE UNDERSTAND YOU ARE WILLING AND MAY BE ABLE TO UNDER TAKE TRIP TO BRAZIL WHERE YOU WOULD PRODUCE MOTION PICTURES IN COOPERATION WITH BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT. IF THIS CAN BE ARRANGED IT WILL BE ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL TO THE PROGRAM OF THIS OFFICE AND ENERGETICALLY SUPPORTED BY IT. WE HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED EXPRESSIONS ENTHUSIASTIC APPROVAL FROM RIO. PERSONALLY BELIEVE YOU WOULD MAKE GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO HEMISPHERIC SOLIDARITY WITH THIS PROJECT.

REGARDS,
JOHN HAY WHITNEY

2008/06/26

Panamerican Odissey

It's All True: A Phantom Film

"A surprisingly high proportion of Orson Welles's few films deal with Latin America: Touch of Evil, of course, but also for instance The Lady from Shanghai and Mr Arkadin.

But it is It's All True that would have been Welles's most significant exercise in cinematic latinidad. Urged on by Nelson Rockefeller, Co-ordinator of "Inter-American Affairs," in 1942 Welles went down to Rio to make a film that would help undergird the US's "good neighbour" policy towards Latin America.

A plan emerged that the film would consist of three relatively independent sections: one, "My Friend Bonito," set in Mexico and about a child's relationship with his donkey; another, this time in colour, about the Rio Carnival; and a third, now back in black and white, about the epic 1600-mile sea voyage of four fisherman from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro."

Nuevo libro y una de las mayores colecciones internacionales sobre Orson Welles revelan aspectos inéditos de su aventura Latinoamericana> University of Michigan

2008/06/23

Rockefeller, Warhol, Ford, Kissinger

Nelson Rockefeller: Una vida dedicada a la filantropía ... en Sud América / A life dedicated to philantropy ... in South America

American International Association for Economic and Social Development, 1946-1968.
AIA was established by Nelson A. Rockefeller to promote “self-development and better standards of living, together with understanding and cooperation” in Latin America. AIA worked on rural economic development and education, forming partnerships with more than 230 organizations (such as the Association of Credit and Rural Assistance, the Inter-American Council on Nutrition Education, the Council on Rural Development, and the Inter-American Popular Information Program) and government departments in thirty countries, and enrolling more than 160,000 members in rural youth clubs. When it ceased operations in 1968, AIA left behind self-sufficient vocational education programs in Venezuela and Chile, and agricultural development programs in Venezuela and Brazil. Source: Rockefeller Philantropy





[Image: President Ford meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to discuss the American evacuation of Saigon. April 28, 1975. Oval Office, White House, Washington DC.
Source: http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/avproj/whitehouse-years-02.asp]

2008/06/22

Hollywood Meets South American



Bender, Pennee. "Hollywood Meets South American and Stages a Show" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, . 2008-06-21 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p114070_index.html>

Publication Type:
Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Abstract:
Although movies had utilized Latin America as an exotic backdrop for years, the 1940s ushered in an intense "Latin craze" with Latin American music, dance, film stars and even cartoon characters inundating U.S. movies and entertainment. Carmen Miranda sang and danced her way through ten Hollywood musicals with Latin American themes. Young and old alike watched Donald Duck frolic in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, and unite with cartoon characters from Mexico and Brazil to proclaim "all for one and one for all" philosophy in Saludos Amigos (1942) and Three Caballeros (1945). These Hollywood films served as part of a coordinated U.S. domestic propaganda campaign during the World War Two organized by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), a U.S. government agency lead by Nelson Rockefeller. This paper uses the OCIAA work with the Hollywood studios during the 1940s to illuminate how government agencies, Latin American artists and performers, business interests, and popular culture industries worked together to shift both international policies and perceptions of Latin America.

The OCIAA influenced feature film production through both official and personal channels. Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney, the first Director of the Motion Picture Division of OCIAA, had major investments in Hollywood studios and sat on the boards of directors of those studios as well as other cultural organizations. On the more official side, the OCIAA formed the Motion Picture Society for the Americas, (MPSA), a liaison organization made up of studio executives, agents and heads of industry guilds. The MPSA worked with movie producers to include Latin American locations, themes, music and talent into their feature pictures and suggested original script ideas, obtained background footage, and assisted in preparing special trailers for Latin America.

Twentieth Century-Fox produced numerous films with Latin American themes -- many featuring Carmen Miranda. Miranda has become an icon for the distorted image of Latin America in Hollywood films -- her identification with bananas, her use of broken and often comic English, her exaggerated portrayals of a sexually aggressive women, and her hybrid Latin songs. She is often characterized as a pawn of the Hollywood studios as they tried to please the U.S. government, but her on-screen and off-screen presentation during the 1940s reveal more complex and mixed messages She regularly acknowledged her role as a "Good Neighbor" while still insisting on asserting her Latin Americanness. This paper focuses on films sponsored by the MPSA and how the song lyrics about and images of Latin Americans in the musicals of the 1940s both conformed to and challenged government policy goals and U.S. business interests.

2008/06/21

Inter-American Affairs

ATACAMA DESERT (1943)
Series Title: State Department South America Series
Country/Location: Chile
Production Company / Filmmaker: Julien Bryan
Cinematographer: Julien Bryan, William James
Additional Production Crew / Credits: Graphics by Philip Stapp; Script by Tom Cobb; Music by Louis Horst; Narrated by Julien Bryan
Running Time: 17 min.
Sponsor Agency / Organization: U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
Years Filmed: 1943
Decade of Production: 1940s
Film Gauge: 35mm
Stock: B&W Nitrate
Footage Count: 601'
Sound: Narrated

Film Summary: Life and industry in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile showing traditional and modern methods of mining copper, nitrate, and iron; desert nomads; and the towns of Chiuchiu, Andacoya, Antofagasta, and Tocopilla. There is a study of the Chuquicamata mining community. Scenes of an Andacoya Christmas fiesta with an Indian juggler and poet on stilts, and of men playing golf on the sand dunes. (Jane M. Loy, Latin American Research Review, vol.12 no.3, 1977)

Notes: Made for the Federal Government (FDR good neighbor policy). Julien Bryan contracted by FDR administration. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Nelson Rockefeller, in charge of contracting filmmakers to make movies in South America. There are 23 films in the CI-AA series.


2008/06/18

Chile debates the future

International Herald Tribune
Reuters. June 12, 2008

"Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire and a likely right-wing candidate for the Chilean presidential elections next year, this week announced that he would favor selling 20 percent of Codelco to local pension funds.

The debate is a delicate one, not least of all because it involves the country's biggest source of income.
Codelco pays 10 percent of its revenue to Chile's influential armed forces, an amount that reached $1.39 billion in 2007. All of its pretax profit, about $8.5 billion last year, goes to government coffers and comprises a hefty portion of the national budget.

The company has made Chile the largest copper producer in the world. But Codelco's output has lately been declining, at an untimely moment for the economy."

2008/06/17

Copper Urhistory

LONDON METAL EXCHANGE: Bolsa mundial en que se fijan los precios de los metales no ferrosos

Copper Grade A
First traded on LME:1877
Current specification introduced: April 1986
World production: 15,544,500 tonnes per annum (2001)

Copper was the first mineral that man extracted from the earth and along with tin gave rise to the Bronze Age. As the ages and technology progressed the uses for copper increased. With the increased demand, exploration for the metal was extended throughout the world laying down the foundations for the industry as we know it today. Copper is an excellent conductor of electricity, as such one of its main industrial usage is for the production of cable, wire and electrical products for both the electrical and building industries. The construction industry also accounts for copper's second largest usage in such areas as pipes for plumbing, heating and ventilating as well as building wire and sheet metal facings.


Copper Committee
Gerd Hoffman (Chair) Norddeutsche Affinerie AG Recycling
Christian Schirmeister (Vice-chair) RBS Sempra Metals
Neil Bootman

Independent

Gonzalo Cuadra Chile Copper Limited
Philip Culliford Goldman Sachs Int
Frédéric Gloppe Oddo Metals
Thomas Goeda KM-Rohstoff GmbH
Tatsuya Inoue Mitsubishi Materials Corporation
Michael Lockwood Xstrata Copper Chile S.A.
Hilary Pepperman (Secretary) London Metal Exchange

BASE METALS los acontecimientos relacionados con la industria del cobre a tiempo real

2008/06/13

Copper Man 4

El exilio de la momia

Las gestiones para retornar la momia del minero Tiwanaku encontrado en Chuquicamata, se inician en 1990 cuando el arqueólogo Lautaro Núñez intentó su visado a Chile, pero sin éxito. En
el año 2001, en representación del Museo Padre Le Paige, Núñez viajó a Nueva York en compañía de Carlos Aldunate, director del Museo de Arte Precolombino. Sin embargo, los expertos en conservación del American Museo of Natural History cuestionaron el Museo Padre Le Paige, lugar dónde finalmente sería exhibida la momia en Chile, por carecer de equipos para preservarla en óptimas condiciones.

En 2005 tras una serie de negociaciones promovidas con ayuda de Codelco, la Sociedad Nacional de la Minería, el Consejo Minero, el ministerio de Educación, la Universidad Católica del Norte, representantes étnicos de San Pedro de Atacama y de la propia Cancillería chilena, finalmente se logró que la directiva del museo norteamericano permitiera efectuar un escáner completo al cuerpo del Hombre de Cobre, para tridimensionalizar el cuerpo a objeto de lograr en lo inmediato una réplica y exhibirla durante septiembre 2005 en Chile, en el marco de la conmemoración de los 100 años de la Gran Minería.

Actualmente se ha renovado el deseo de devolver la momia a un gruta en Chiu Chiu.
Carlos Aldunate cree que ahora las gestiones podrían avanzar por la vía diplomática, y no entre museos, impulsando una nueva campaña de aproximación con los norteamericanos, claro que en esta oportunidad con una petición formal a nivel de gobierno. De esta forma, la posibilidad de conseguir una potencial visa para la momia, podría materializarse dentro de un plazo no muy lejano

2008/06/12

Copper Man 3

Su cuerpo fue encontrado en 1899 en una estrecha grieta colapsada del distrito minero denominado La Descubridora, y que por estos días forma parte del mineral de Chuquicamata.
Mauricio Pilot, un ingeniero francés, dueño de una de las faenas más importantes de la zona, no titubeó en sacar partido a su descubrimiento, y luego de limpiar los escombros diseminados sobre el primitivo hombre, lo vendió a Edward Jackson, un conocido administrador de minas, según consta en una publicación de 1919 firmada por el cronista de la época, José Toribio Medina.

Un año después del descubrimiento, el empresario minero José Toyo adquirió el cuerpo momificado en 1.000 pesos en sociedad con Edward Jackson, con la idea de dividir las ganancias que obtuvieran de su exhibición tras una gira por el país.

Tiempo después, Jackson la vendió en 15.000 pesos chilenos a la sociedad Torres y Tornero, suma que pagarían en tres meses.

En ese lapso, Torres y Tornero llevaron la momia a Estados Unidos y la presentaron en la Exposición de Buffalo. No pudieron venderla porque pedían mucho dinero. La prolongada permanencia en el país del norte los hizo endeudarse con la casa Hemenway de Nueva York, que les embargó al Hombre de Cobre, regresando sólo gracias a que el cónsul chileno le pagó los pasajes.

Después de no haber recibido un peso, Jackson intentó recuperar la reliquia, encargando la tarea a Raimundo Docekal, ciudadano antofagastino que viajaba a Estados Unidos. Así le dio un poder y US$ 500 en oro. El buque en el que viajaba naufragó en el Estrecho de Magallanes, pero Docekal pudo llegar a Nueva York, pagó la deuda de 10.000 pesos chilenos y vendió la momia sin darle un centavo a su dueño.

Finalmente, en 1905, la momia del minero fue donada por J.P. Morgan al Museo Americano de Historia Natural de Nueva York. Desde entonces, el Hombre de Cobre se exhibe en el salón dedicado a las culturas de América del Sur.

2008/06/07

Copper Man 2

Hay un monumento de un minero cavando la tierra que se encuentra a la entrada de la zona industrial de la mina de Chuquicamata.

El guía, que a lo largo del recorrido ha dicho 186 veces la frase " la más grande del mundo", no habla del minero sino que sirve de señalización para hablar del artilugio que está a su espalda: la "Pala del Mundo".


Es el equivalente del Tiranosaurus Rex a la entrada de un Museo Natural.
Los huesos de un Rey Tirano que excabó la tumba del mundo. Más adelante la veremos, anuncia. El guía turístico lleva la indumentaria del minero, como si hubiera interrumpido su tarea al fondo del hoyo, pero sus manos son las de un oficinista de Santiago.
Empiza el recorrido con un discurso en dólares. El clima es seco y hay mucho viento. Hay que ponerse un caso rojo para acercarse a ver el hoyo.... "más grande del mundo". Saboreo el gusto picante del nitrato que se pega en los dientes. Termina el recorrido con una letanía en dólares.

[Imagen: Video Still de Copper Room-Screen II. Connie Mendoza. 2008]

2008/06/06

Copper Man 1

El hombre de cobre está situado en una zona de tránsito de vehículos cerca de la fundición. Este protohombre es una imagen idealizada del trabajador de la mina.

Los que andan a su alrededor sólo llevan cubiertos los pulmones. La idealización se inicia cuando el cobre empieza a petrificar las venas y el sudor frío cubre el cuerpo.

Los cuerpos petrificados se entierran de pie en el desierto formando dibujos misteriosos que sólo pueden verse desde una imagen de un satélite.






[Imagen: Video Still de Copper Room-Screen II. Connie Mendoza. 2008]

2008/06/05

La educación que no queremos

Federación de Estudiantes de Chile
1. Aumento sustancial del Aporte Fiscal Directo a las Universidades del Estado. Fin al autofinanciamiento, a los convenios de desempeño y a cualquier otro mecanismo de financiamiento que implique endeudamiento.
2. Retiro del parlamento de la LGE, fin al a la LOCE, reemplazo por un proyecto de ley que surja desde los actores involucrados en educación y de la ciudadanía. Proponemos un plebiscito Educacional para definir la propuesta de Educación pública para el siglo XXI.
3. Fin al lucro en educación básica, media y universitaria.
4. Triestamentalidad efectiva en todas las unidades educacionales.
5. Transporte y Tarjeta Nacional Estudiantil (en los términos definidos en el petitorio CONFECH).
6. Que se garantice constitucionalmente el derecho a la Educación.

Eje universidad
1. Solución al problema del Proyecto Bicentenario. Fin a la contraparte y redefinición de las prioridades.
2. Aumento de los presupuestos anuales de las unidades académicas implicadas en la Iniciativa Bicentenario a partir de una redistribución interna. Esto, como base para garantizar la sustentabilidad permanente del proyecto.

3. Detención de la implementación de la reforma de pregrado hasta su re discusión, tanto de sus contenidos como de sus objetivos, en una comisión biestamental con 50% de participación estudiantil. Revisión de la reforma en las facultades donde ya se implementó (por esta misma comisión).