The work of Mexican director Roberto Gavaldón spans the cultural divide at the center of Mexican national cinema, embracing both rural sagas of peasant life (the genre made internationally famous by Gavaldón’s contemporary, Emilio Fernández) and urban dramas centered on moneyed professionals (as in the cosmopolitan work of Julio Bracho). Whether they wear a sombrero (like Pedro Armendáríz in Rosauro Castro) or a fedora (like Arturo de Córdova in En la palma de tu mano), Gavaldón’s protagonists are marked by ungovernable passions and gnawing self-doubt, as they move through an unstable world toward a frequently unkind fate.

A brilliant technician, Gavaldón developed a distinctive visual style—based on bold back-lighting and intricately subdivided spaces—that suggests the film noir stylings of Hollywood directors like Anthony Mann and Joseph H. Lewis. With the assistance of such regular collaborators as the cinematographer Alex Phillips, the writer and political activist José Revueltas, and the composer Raúl Lavista, Gavaldón created a dense and coherent body of work that is only now being rediscovered, thanks largely to the ongoing restoration work of Mexico’s two major film archives, the Cineteca Nacional and the Filmoteca de la UNAM, to whom we are grateful for making this program possible.

This is the first of three film series that celebrate Mexican cinema and is presented with the generous support of Televisa Foundation-Univision.

On selected dates, there will be music in the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby curated by LA-based ranchera punk artist and singer-songwriter San Cha. Music playlists curated by artists Doris Muñoz, Cesar Saez, Joel Jerome, and Maurice de la Falaise will play in the theater before all screenings in the series.

Series community partnership provided by El Cine, Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today by Hola Mexico, and the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles.

Programmed by Bernardo Rondeau

Notes courtesy of Dave Kehr, Curator, Museum of Modern Art

Roberto Gavaldón

Past Screenings in Series