page_title: Venezuelan cinema in the 1890s
section_title: Influence and themes
hierarchical_section_title: Venezuelan cinema in the 1890s / Influence and themes
caption_attribution_description: English: ZPA image of boys bathing in lake maracaibo 1890s used in reconstruction of film Muchachos bañandose en la laguna de Maracaibo
context_page_description: Venezuela was introduced to cinema as a for-profit industry in the 1890s, when the medium became international. There were at least eight national films made in the decade, by three groups of filmmakers — one of the groups was based in Maracaibo and one was based in Caracas. The first film screening in the nation may have taken place as early as 1894, but is generally reported as 1896, with this later date being the first scheduled public screening.
context_section_description: The films available for Venezuelans to view when the technology arrived were "predominantly foreign", with this described as "a factor of tremendous significance" in terms of the development of national film.:103:20-21 Hart looks at the French influence on the development of cinema in Venezuela; though the Lumières' representatives did not arrive in Venezuela until after the country had been exposed to many U.S. films through Méndez' Vitascope business,:42-44 Hart sees the Maracaibo-produced first films as being of the actualité genre.:13 Azuaga García describes Un célebre especialista... as "everyday", and Muchachos bañándose... as "like a view or postcard", both styles he believes are influenced by Lumière films.:29 Paul A. Schroeder Rodríguez of Amherst College agrees, denominating the Latin American body of films in this time as vistas,:22 a term literally meaning "views" and indeed used by some of the filmmakers themselves. Schroeder defines these vistas as actualités with the key element of their creators being prone to "experimentation", he claims because of their inexperience in the art.:22
  Farrell asserts that the Venezuelan film industry has been "struggl[ing] against cultural imperialism [...] since the arrival of film", and has always tried to create its own identity.:19-20 Along the lines of this innovative spirit, Elisa Martínez de Badra of the Universidad Católica Andres Bello posits the argument that Ruiz and W. O. Wolcopt's partnership producing slapstick films and the "staging" of Un célebre especialista... and Muchachos bañándose... were early examples of narrative and narrative-approaching films and influenced the development of films in the region to have fictional narratives early on.:67 Though Tom Gunning of the University of Chicago identifies early Latin American cinema as spectacle, a marker of the U.S. school of filmmaking,:103 Mártinez de Badra specifically separates the first Venezuelan films from those produced by Edison.:67
  A distinctly Latin American identity is further argued for by film historian Ana M. López; she also refers to the films as vistas, but notes the different context of the production. She argues that the everyday images of French actualité films would have been more thrilling and shocking for a Venezuelan audience, as they were foreign both geographically and culturally, so the Latin American productions modeled on them were culturally imbued with their own locations, traditions, and developments.:103-104 Venezuela does have some differences from its neighbors, though. One is that while López lists many of them replicating L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat with films featuring their own new public transportation, Venezuela cannot be counted among them.:104 Another is its inclusion in a different catalogue of thematically-linked early Latin American films in López' article; though there were a few "scientific" films, showing medical practices and including Un célebre especialista..., created to establish a more positive reputation for the medium of cinema, López writes that this practice was not as common as scholarship may see it to have been.:108-109
  Regarding the question of influence and identity, Paranaguá chooses a different ground. He refers to a "tripolar circulation" of cinema inspiration, with Latin America at one point of a triangle that connects to both the United States and Europe.:20
caption: Boys enjoying a swim in Lake Maracaibo, a photo used in Muchachos bañándose...; the postcard-like imagery in the film is a reason for critics to believe the film was influenced by French actualité films[5]:29
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