page_title: Golden Age of Mexican cinema
section_title: Filmmakers
hierarchical_section_title: Golden Age of Mexican cinema / The Golden Age / Filmmakers
caption_attribution_description: Luis Buñuel
context_page_description: The Golden Age of Mexican cinema is a period in the history of the Cinema of Mexico between 1933 and 1964 when the Mexican film industry reached high levels of production, quality and economic success of its films, besides having gained recognition internationally. The Mexican film industry became the center of commercial films in Latin America.
  The Golden Age began symbolically with the film Let's Go with Pancho Villa, directed by Fernando de Fuentes. In 1939, during World War II, the film industry in the US and Europe declined, because the materials previously destined for film production now were for the new arms industry. Many countries began to focus on making films about war, leaving an opportunity for Mexico to produce commercial films for the Mexican and Latin American markets. This cultural environment favored the emergence of a new generation of directors and actors considered to date, icons in Mexico and in Hispanic countries and Spanish-speaking audiences.
  Mexican cinema of the Golden Age is also credited with proppelling Norteño music into Chilean popular culture.
context_section_description: Among the major filmmakers who contributed to consolidate the Mexican cinema in its Golden Age include the following:
  Miguel Contreras Torres: Was one of the pioneers of Mexican cinema, where he started working in 1926. The only Mexican director who managed to make the transition from silent to talkies. The complete filmography of Contreras Torres speaks of a man interested in exalting nationalism and patriotism, from cinema. In essence, they are basically three thematic lines that built his career: national history, religious themes and manners. Although not the only, indeed, in the Mexican case, Contreras Torres which penetrates with greater emphasis on the exaltation of the historical facts of his country. The filmography of Miguel Contreras Torres, in this brief and incomplete review, spanned more than 45 years in which he participated in more than 50 films.
  Fernando de Fuentes: Pioneer of talkies and director of three classic Mexican films: El compadre Mendoza (1933), Vámonos con Pancho Villa (1936) and Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936), Fernando de Fuentes is one of the most famous and least understood figures of Mexican film industry. Comments about his career almost always point out as an author who decided to stop being to become an efficient producer of grossing films, his films artificially dividing into two periods characterized by the presence or absence of aesthetic pretensions. Vámonos con Pancho Villa his masterpiece, was misunderstood for decades. The film was released three months after Allá en el Rancho Grande and only stayed one week in theaters. Success and failure occurred at the same time. Fernando de Fuentes was actually the first Mexican director who understood the nature of talkies and successfully took advantage of all the possibilities of this medium.
  Alejandro Galindo: During the Golden Age, the rising urban Mexico had in Alejandro Galindo one of its most faithful film chroniclers. Possessing a special talent to recreate the behaviors and the popular speech of the Mexico City, Galindo was a director capable of creating his own universe from characters and situations representative of modern Mexico. From Campeón sin corona (1945) Alejandro Galindo initiated the most important stage of his career, in which the actor David Silva was instrumental. Boxers, taxi drivers, bus drivers from vendors vacuum cleaners, the new Mexican middle class was found on the screen known characters in their environment. Una familia de tantas (1948) represented the peak of this period in which Galindo creative genius combined with a successful business sense.
  Emilio Fernández: One of the most important, influential and recognized filmmakers in this stage of Mexican cinema. Emilio was the creator of a Mexican film folk and indigenous type that contributed to the cultural and artistic discovery that Mexico lived in the 1940s, possessing an impeccable and unique aesthetic (achieved largely thanks to his principal photographer Gabriel Figueroa). Emilio Fernández bequeathed a filmography totaling around 129 jobs, countless beautiful images, hundreds of evocations of a Mexico that was planned, customs and identity, defended at all costs. A path that was recognized on several occasions with Silver Ariel, the Colón de Oro in Huelva, Spain, and a chair with his name on the Moscow Film School, among many other international awards. Emilio Fernandez was not only known for his visceral character, but also to achieve integration of a film crew that caught the attention of Hollywood and Europe. Gabriel Figueroa as a photographer, Mauricio Magdaleno as a screenwriter and the actors Pedro Armendariz, Dolores del Río, Columba Domínguez and María Félix, directed several productions who they promoted customs and national values associated to the Mexican Revolution.
  Roberto Gavaldón: Roberto Gavaldón represents one of the most extraordinary cases of ambivalent appreciation that recorded the history of Mexican cinema. His admirers include the refined quality of his images, his impeccable handling the camera and his inclination towards dark
caption: Luis Buñuel
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