#Patricio Guzmán

[loneberry]

September 11, 1973: On the 50th Anniversary of the Coup in Chile 

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état in Chile, when a fascist junta led by dictator Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. For those of us who are on the left, the story should be familiar by now: Allende had charted a ‘Chilean way to socialism' ("La vía chilena al socialismo") quite distinct from the Soviet Union and communist China, a peaceful path to socialism that was fundamentally anti-authoritarian, combining worker power with respect for civil liberties, freedom of the press, and a principled commitment to democratic process. For leftists who had become disillusioned with the Soviet drift into authoritarianism, Chile was a bright spot on an otherwise gloomy Cold War map.

What happened in Chile was one of the darkest chapters in the history of US interventionism. In August 1970, Henry Kissinger, who was then Nixon’s national security adviser, commissioned a study on the consequences of a possible Allende victory in the upcoming Chilean presidential election. Kissinger, Nixon, and the CIA—all under the spell of Cold War derangement syndrome—determined the US should pursue a policy of blocking the ascent of Allende, lest a socialist Chile generate a “domino effect” in the region. 

When Allende won the presidency, the US did everything in their power to destroy his government: they meddled in Chilean elections, leveraged their control of the international financial system to destroy the economy of Chile (which they also did through an economic boycott), and sowed social chaos through sponsoring terrorism and a shutdown of the transportation sector, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. Particularly infuriating to the Americans was Allende’s nationalization of the copper mining industry, which was around 70% of Chile’s economy at the time and was controlled by US mining companies like Anaconda, Kennecott and the Cerro Corporation. When the CIA’s campaign of sabotage failed to destroy the socialist experiment in Chile, they resorted to assisting general Augusto Pinochet's plot to overthrow the democratically elected government. What followed was a gruesome campaign of repression against workers, leftists, poets, activists, students, and ordinary Chileans—stadiums were turned into concentration camps where supporters of Allende’s Popular Unity government were tortured and murdered. During Pinochet’s 17-year reign of terror, 3,200 people were executed and 40,000 people were detained, tortured, or disappeared, 1,469 of whom remain unaccounted for. Chile was then used as a laboratory for neoliberal economic policies, where the Chicago boys and their ilk tested out their terrible ideas on a population forced to live under a military dictatorship.

It shatters my heart, thinking about this history. I feel a personal attachment to Chile, not only because my partner is Chilean (his father left during the dictatorship), but because I’ve always considered Chile to be a world capital of poetry and anti-authoritarian leftism. The filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky asks, “In how many countries does a real poetic atmosphere exist? Without a doubt, ancient China was a land of poetry. But I think, in the 1950s in Chile, we lived poetically like in no other country in the world.” (Poetry left China long ago — oh how I wish I’d been around to witness the poetic flowering of the Tang era!) Chile has one of the greatest literary traditions of the twentieth century, producing such giants as Bolaño and Neruda, and more recently, Cecilia Vicuña and Raúl Zurita, among others. 

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the coup, the Harvard Film Archive has been  screening Patricio Guzmán’s magisterial trilogy, The Battle of Chile, along with a program of Chilean cinema. I watched part I and II the last two nights and will watch part III tonight. It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Guzmán’s work, and even quoted his beautiful film Nostalgia for the Light in the conclusion of my book Carceral Capitalism, when I wrote about the Chilean political prisoners who studied astronomy while incarcerated in the Atacama Desert. Bless Patricio Guzmán. This man has devoted his life and filmmaking career to the excavation of the Chilean soul. 

Parts I and II utterly destroyed me. I left the theater last night shaken to my core, my face covered in tears. 

The films are all the more remarkable when you consider it was made by a scrappy team of six people using film stock provided by the great documentarian Chris Marker. After the coup, four of the filmmakers were arrested. The footage was smuggled out of Chile and the exiled filmmakers completed the films in Cuba. Sadly, in 1974, the Pinochet regime disappeared cameraman Jorge Müller Silva, who is assumed dead. 

It’s one thing to know the macro-story of what happened in Chile and quite another to see the view from the ground: the footage of the upswell of support for radical transformation, the marches, the street battles, the internal debates on the left about how to stop the fascist creep, the descent into chaos, the face of the military officer as he aims his pistol at the Argentine cameraman Leonard Hendrickson during the failed putsch of June 1973 (an ominous prelude to the September coup), the audio recordings of Allende on the morning of September 11, the bombing of Palacio de La Moneda—the military is closing in. Allende is dead. The crumbling edifice of the presidential palace becomes the rubble of revolutionary dreams—the bombs, a dirge for what was never even given a chance to live.

[davidhudson]

Happy 83rd, Patricio Guzmán.

[cine-poeme]

“El botón de nácar” 2015

[hiddenbyleaves]

Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)

[rodreyes]

Still from Nostalgia for the Light, dir. Patricio Guzmán, 2010 (all images courtesy Cinema Tropical)

[ourlittlesister2015]

La cordillera de los sueños (2019), dir. Patricio Guzmán

[woodtoc]

3 movies i want to watch asap

Mi país imaginario, Patricio Guzmán

Neptune frost, Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams

Meeting the man : James Baldwin in Paris (short)

[nobuyukikakigi]

チューリヒへの旅より

チューリヒへの旅より：5月8日からごく短期間チューリヒを訪れた際に接したトーンハレ管弦楽団の演奏会、《フィデリオ》の公演、リートベルク美術館での展覧会や映画の上映などについて記しています。

前アルプスを望むチューリヒ湖の風景 広島では初夏のような蒸し暑い日が続いています。みなさまお元気でお過ご��でしょうか。去る5月8日から11日にかけて、ごく短期間ではありますが、スイスのチューリヒへ出かけました。クリストフ・フォン・ドホナーニが指揮するチューリヒのトーンハレ管弦楽団の演奏会を聴くのが主たる目的でしたが、それ以外にもオペラを観たり、美術館を訪れたり、旧知の友人と、前アルプスを望むチューリヒ湖畔でゆっくり語らったりすることができました。音楽に身を浸す喜びだけでなく、今後の研究へ向けた刺激も得ることもできました。この時季の緑はとても鮮やかで、眩いばかり。チューリヒ湖畔から前アルプスを望むと、冠雪の残る山並みと多彩な緑のコントラストも楽しめました。 5月9日と10日の2日間、トーンハレでこの響きの豊かな「楽堂」の名を冠したオーケストラの演奏会を聴きました。曲目は、ルドルフ・ブッフビ…

[haverwood]

El botón de nácar Patricio Guzmán Chile/France/Spain/Switzerland, 2015 ★★★ Netflix* just made three Patricio Guzmán documentaries available.

Sometimes Netflix is good.

*netflix latam, that is

[luciegarcon]

MON PAYS IMAGINAIRE

J'anime des séances de cinéma consacrées à Mon pays imaginaire de Patricio Guzmán, avec l'ADRC. Pour en savoir plus sur les modalités d'interventions : cliquer ici

[watchlisted]

The Pearl Button

on Kanopy

Seasoned filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, whose groundbreaking 1975 The Battle of Chile was a key event in the history of the documentary form, follows his astonishing recent work Nostalgia for the Light (2011) with a similar exploration of familiar themes such as memory and the historical past. The Pearl Button was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Script at 2015 Berlin Film Festival. —filmflaneuse.com

[kummatty]

love a gorgeous rock . how they witness and how they remember

[davidhudson]

Happy 82nd, Patricio Guzmán.

With cinematographer Jorge Müller shooting The Battle of Chile (1975).

[cine-poeme]

“El botón de nácar” 2015

[farmerbebop]

No one asked for this but here's McGoohan in space, before the aliens sent him back to his wife because he was such a nuisance without her.

References:

The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, 2013)

Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)

Solaris mon amour (Kuba Mikurda, 2023)

[marcmarcmomarc]

RWBY Spanish dub

Team RWBY

Ruby Rose: Valentina Souza

Weiss Schnee: Romina Marroquín Payró

Blake Belladonna: Alondra Hidalgo

Yang Xiao Long: Mireya Mendoza

Team JNPR

Jaune Arc: Óscar Flores

Nora Valkyrie: Analiz Sánchez, Regina Carrillo (young)

Pyrrha Nikos: Berenice Vega

Lie Ren: Alan Fernando Velázquez, Zoe Mora (young)

Team STRQ

Summer Rose: Ale Pilar

Taiyang Xiao Long: Arturo Mercado Jr.

Raven Branwen: Fernanda Robles

Qrow Branwen: Germán Fabregat

Beacon Academy

Professor Ozpin: Mario Arvizu

Glynda Goodwitch: Maru Guzmán

Peter Port: Francisco Colmenero

Bartholomew Oobleck: Beto Castillo

Salem’s Inner Circle

Salem: Irasema Terrazas

Cinder Fall: Dulce Guerrero

Roman Torchwick: Sergio Gutiérrez Coto

Emerald Sustrai: Alicia Vélez

Mercury Black: Erick Salinas

Neopolitan: Agustina Cirulnik

Dr. Arthur Watts: Armando Réndiz

Tyrian Callows: Miguel Ángel Ruiz

Hazel Rainart: Octavio Rojas

The Hound: Mario Castañeda

Leonardo Lionheart: Humberto Solórzano

Vernal: Rebeca Patiño

Tock: Simone Brook

Atlas Military

James Ironwood: Dafnis Fernández

Winter Schnee: Xóchitl Ugarte

Penny Polendina: Cristina Hernández

Caroline Cordovin: Magda Giner

Ruby’s Group

Oscar Pine: Luis Leonardo Suárez

Maria Calavera: Ángela Villanueva

Dr. Pietro Polendina: Gerardo Reyero

Team SSSNN

Sun Wukong: Alexis Ortega

Scarlet David: Alberto Bernal

Sage Ayana: Abraham Vega

Neptune Vasilias: Enzo Fortuny

Nolan Porfirio: Pepe Vilchis

Team CFVY

Coco Adel: Liliana Barba

Fox Alistair: Geezuz González

Velvet Scarlatina: Carla Castañeda

Yatsuhashi Daichi: Óscar Garibay

Ace-Ops

Clover Ebi: Raúl Anaya

Vine Zeki: Eduardo Giaccardi

Elm Ederne: Gabriela Guzmán

Harriet Bree: Karla Falcón

Marrow Amin: Ricardo Tejedo

Happy Huntresses

Robyn Hill: Erica Edwards

May Marigold: Ruth Toscano

Joanna Greenleaf: Yvette García

Fiona Thyme: Lupita Leal

The White Fang

Ghira Belladonna: Emilio Guerrero

Kali Belladonna: Rebeca Manríquez

Adam Taurus: Alejandro Orozco

Corsac Albain: Emmanuel Bernal

Fennec Albain: Eduardo Garza

Ilia Amitola: Monserrat Mendoza

Schnee Manor

Jacques Schnee: Arturo Mercado

Whitley Schnee: Moisés Iván Mora

Willow Schnee: Yolanda Vidal

Klein Sieben: Jesse Conde

Ancient Times

Ozma: Roberto Salguero/Ricardo Bautista

God of Light: José Luis Orozco

God of Darkness: Salvador Reyes

Jinn: Danann Huicochea

Ambrosius: Rubén Cerda

Xiong Family

Hei “Junior” Xiong: Eduardo Fonseca

Lil’ Miss Malachite: Leyla Rangel

Miltia and Melanie Malachite: Lourdes Arruti

Team CRDL

Cardin Winchester: Raúl Anaya

Russel Thrush: Yamil Atala

Team FNKI

Flynt Coal: José Ángel Torres

Neon Katt: Meli G

Arc Family

Saphron Cotta-Arc: Erika Ugalde

Terra Cotta-Arc: Carla Medina

The Ever After

Little/Somewhat: Angélica Villa

Curious Cat: Ángel Balam

Blacksmith: Carmen Sarahí

Jabberwalker: Víctor Hugo Aguilar

Jinxy: Jaime López

Red Prince: Pascual Meza

Herbalist: César Bono

Alyx: Julia Bilous

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse

Dr. Merlot: Sebastián Llapur

RWBY: Arrowfell

Amoncio Glass: Alfonso Grau

Hanlon Fifestone: Óscar Gómez

Bram Thornmane: Trujo

Olive Harper: Leslie Gil

Bianca Prisma: Cecilia Gómez

Roane Ashwood: Alicia Barragán

Ivy Thickety: Edurne Keel

Ruda Tilleroot: Jessica Ángeles

Minor characters introduced in Volume 1

Shopkeep: Eduardo Tejedo

Xiong Goons: Ricardo Mendoza “El Coyote, Carlo Vázquez

Cyril Ian: Víctor Ugarte

Lisa Lavender: Alondra Hidalgo

Police Officers: Daniel Lacy, Patricio Lago

Sailors: Marc Winslow, Noé Velázquez

White Fang Goon: David Bueno

Penny’s Driver: José Luis Miranda

Minor characters introduced in Volume 2

Tukson: Octavio Rojas

White Fang Lieutenant: Roberto Gutiérrez

“Deery”: Alicia Barragán

Perry: Arturo Castañeda

Councilman: Kevin Adrián

Minor characters introduced in Volume 3

Bolin Hori: José Antonio Macías

Nadir Shiko: Edson Matus

Brawnz Ni: Abraham Vega

Bartender: Carlos del Campo

Nebula Violette: Karla Falcón

Dew Gayl: Jessica Ángeles

Ciel Soleil: Camila Díaz Fraga

Amber: Ximena de Anda

Atlas Ship Captain: Víctor Hugo Aguilar

Minor characters introduced in Volume 4

Mayor: Alfredo Gabriel Basurto

Blacksmith: Jesús Ochoa

Dying Huntsman: Nando Estevané

Captain: Víctor Trujillo

News Reporters: Eduardo Fonseca, Sonia Casillas, César Costa

First Mate: Paulina García Casillas

Oscar’s Aunt: Kerygma Flores

Higanbana Waitress: Claudia Garzón

Businessman: José Luis Orozco

Businesswoman: Karina Altamirano

Henry Marigold: Emilio Treviño

Angry Businessman: Héctor Estrada

Trophy Wife: Ximena de Anda

Husband: Arturo Cataño

An Ren: Kerygma Flores

Kuroyuri Blacksmith: Alan Bravo

Boys: Luistio Comunica, Regina Blandón, Ana Layevska

Li Ren: Idzi Dutkiewicz

Mistral Pilot: Manuel Campuzano

Atlas Pilot: Hernán Bravo

Minor characters introduced in Volume 5

Mistral Pilot: Irene Jiménez

Menagerie Guards: Tatul Bernodat, Mark Pokora, Andrea Coto

Bartender: Víctor Covarrubias

Shay D. Mann: Esteban Desco

Sienna Khan: Lileana Chacón

Saber Rodentia: Ricardo Brust

Mata’s Mother: Gloria Obregón

Mata: Luis Fernando Orozco

Yuma: Bruno Coronel

Ramen Shop Owner: Ángel Mujica

Small Girl: Ivanna Corona

Trifa: Miriam Aceves

Mistral Police Captain: Rommy Mendoza

Minor characters introduced in Volume 6

Dee: Dan Osorio

Dudley: Alejandro Orozco

Mistral Woman: María Álcazar

Nubuck Guards: Raúl Solo

Red-Haired Woman: Rossy Aguirre

Terminal Soldier: Miguel Ángel Leal

Minor characters introduced in Volume 7

Drunk Mann: Raúl Aldana

Drinking Buddy: Héctor Emmanuel Gómez

Forest: Moisés Palacios

Fria: Isabel Martiñón

Councilman Sleet: Daniel del Roble

Councilwoman Camilla: Graciela Gámez

Minor characters introduced in Volume 8

Atlas Commander: Itatí Cantoral

Shovel Mom: Denisse Aragón

Disgruntled Grandmother: Diana Santos

Fiona’s Uncle: Gabriel Pingarrón

Crimson: José Luis Rivera

Madame: Rona Fletcher

Step-Sisters: Annie Rojas

Rhodes: Idzi Dutkiewicz

CCT Voice: Sonia Casillas

Minor characters introduced in Volume 9

Mouse Leader: Betzabé Jara

Townsperson: Kate del Castillo

Toy Soldiers: Ricardo Mendoza “El Coyote”, José Arenas, Ramón Bazet, Diego Becerril, Óscar Gómez

White Pawns: Cecilia Gómez, David Bueno, Enrique Cervantes, Ramón Bazet

Toy Guard: Roberto Carrillo

Hawker: Erick Selim

Teapot Lady: Maythe Guedes

Paper Pleasers: Iván Bastidas, Luis Carreño, Irwin Daayán, Gaby Cárdenas, Denisse Aragón