# Carlos Ruiz Chapellín

Carlos Ruiz Chapellín (1865–August 1912) was a Venezuelan showman, filmmaker and performer.
Though film was a relatively brief intermission in his business as a showman and theatre producer, he is remembered for creating slapstick comedy films in the late 19th century. As one of the first filmmakers in Venezuela, he unusually created films which had attempts at narrative stories, rather than actuality, and showed his and other films in lower-class venues at a time when the technology was otherwise considered upper class.
In theatre, he produced comedic zarzuelas during the time of development of modern Venezuelan theatre, with his work receiving displays of support from the president. Both his shows and films were noted for their Venezuelan identity and relevance to the common people of his country.

## Theatre career and later life

Ruiz Chapellín's first business was in putting on popular shows, a pursuit he never gave up through his filmmaking efforts. In 1896, the Spanish Children's Zarzuela Company presented El rey que rabió [es] in Venezuela, which was particularly influential and provoked Ruiz Chapellín to create his own zarzuela company. The shows he put on could be more comedic, like sainetes, and Venezuelan in character.
After Ruiz Chapellín's film exploits between 1897 and 1899, he continued in his production business. In 1903, Ruiz Chapellín and his brother Adolfo created another youth theatre company, which performed Juan José and the Luis Arnau Palomar [es] zarzuela Los Reyes Magos. The next year, the company performed El rey que rabió. The performance was watched by Cipriano Castro, president and general of Venezuela, who afterwards offered to build them a theatre in a show of official support. In the early years of the 20th century, the brothers' traveling shows were often dedicated to Castro, who also attended their premiere of Un percance en Macuto, a zarzuela written by Ruiz Chapellín and Pedro Elías Gutiérrez. Around the same time, Ruiz Chapellín was based at the Teatro Municipal of Caracas, where he "was involved with the beginnings of Venezuelan theatre" along with musician Vicente Martucci (later one of the founders of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra).
One of the child stars Ruiz Chapellín discovered performing in small local theatre was Rafael Guinand, who would go on to write the play El rompimiento, the adaptation of which was the first sound and feature-length Venezuelan film. Guinand starred in a Ruiz Chapellín brothers production of Juan José, which was accompanied by Gutiérrez, at the Teatro Municipal [es] in Barquisimeto before it was officially opened. Ruiz Chapellín became a devoted writer in his later life, and was editor of the newspaper Las Tijeras. He died in August 1912, and is interred at the Southern General Cemetery in Caracas.

## Filmmaking

In 1897, shortly after it opened, Ruiz Chapellín rented the Circo Metropolitano, where he would show zarzuelas and circus variety shows. He also planned to go into the film business after the release of the first Venezuelan films in Maracaibo in January 1897, forming a partnership with Ricardo Rouffet to create their own films. He also hired a man, W. O. Wolcopt from the United States, as part of this venture. Wolcopt brought a Projectoscope [fr] from New York, which was displayed in the Circo from 26 June to 14 July 1897. Ruiz Chapellín and Wolcopt may have shown a film called Disputa entre Andracistas y Rojistas, which showed a fight between supporters of that year's political candidates Ignacio Andrade and Juan Pablo Rojas Paúl; the nature of the film suggests a Venezuelan author, but there are few records of it. After the show, Wolcopt traveled the country for four months with the Projectoscope before returning to Caracas.
Ruiz Chapellín then hired Gabriel Veyre to show his Cinematograph at the Circo after seeing him project another film at the Fortuna Hall in Caracas. Ruiz Chapellín and Veyre had a dispute, with Ruiz Chapellín claiming Veyre was in breach of contract and sent a letter saying so to Veyre's mother; Veyre fled the country to Colombia, but his Cinematograph, which could both record and project film, may have been used to make Ruiz Chapellín's films. In February and March 1898, Ruiz Chapellín also had a partnership with the Compañía Acrobática Universal to show films in Caracas.
Azuaga García described Ruiz Chapellín's choice to hold film showings in a circus as "gaudy", as the previous screenings were held in spectacular theatres and halls, but also suggests it was Ruiz Chapellín's attempt to "truly bring cinema to the popular classes". Sueiro Villanueva discussed how, in Venezuela at the time, the arts were housed in social spaces exclusive to the upper classes that participated in them, specifically mentioning the estado Sarría – the setting of one of Ruiz Chapellín's films – as an area that was derided; Ruiz Chapellín attempted to change this, by screening in a lower-class space, and by presenting the areas and issues relevant to its occupants' lives in this film.
Elisa Martínez de Badra reviewed the cinema of early Venezuela in brief by suggesting that the partnership of Ruiz Chapellín and Wolcopt, along with the first Venezuelan films shown in January 1897, can be considered early examples of attempts at narrative cinema.

### Films

Ruiz Chapellín and Rouffet are considered the creators of the films Una paliza en el estado Sarría (English: A fight in the estado Sarría) and Carlos Ruiz peleando con un cochero (English: Carlos Ruiz fighting with a coachman), slapstick comedy films in which they also starred. They were premiered at the Circo Metropolitano de Caracas on 26 November 1897. In November 1897, advertisements in Caracas started promoting "the new Projectoscope", claiming it played in color, and "criollo views", referring to this pair of films. They also claimed that they would be the first Venezuelan-made films to play in the capital. The films may have been advertised to the French as showing "real things" from life in the Caracas area, despite a level of fiction. Details on neither Rouffet nor the films were published in the local press, suggesting that they were critically overlooked, a contrast to press coverage of early films in Maracaibo.
Una paliza... was shown before its pair, Carlos Ruiz peleando..., but less is known of it. The "estado Sarría" of the title refers to a location in La Candelaria, Caracas, a neighborhood nicknamed this after a hippodrome in the area that was demolished in 1896, itself named for landowner Julio F. Sarría. In Carlos Ruiz peleando..., Ruiz Chapellín as a character gets into a stagecoach heist and a fight with its coachman; Azuaga García noted that the devised situation makes this film an early attempt at narrative staging, which could be considered proto-Western.
Sueiro Villanueva proposed that Rouffet was the active director of the films (with Ruiz Chapellín starring and functioning more like a producer), but also proposes that someone else altogether could have handled the camera, acting as director but staying absent from the public screenings.
Ruiz Chapellín then made the 1899 film Joropo de negros en el Orinoco, a joropo film featuring native peoples of the Orinoco. This was likely screened in Caracas in May, when it was highlighted in a local newspaper. It was the second short film to feature traditional joropo music, starting a trend that persisted into Venezuelan-produced films of the sound era. Vásquez wrote that the use of joropo in film was as a style both reflecting the culture of, and popular among, the Venezuelan people.