Arturo Ripstein: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The American Cinematheque is proud to welcome the prolific grandmaster of Mexican independent cinema, Arturo Ripstein for the U.S. premiere of the new Director’s Cut and 4K restoration of DEEP CRIMSON, along with his wife and longtime collaborator, screenwriter Paz Alicia Garcíadiego.

One of the most vital, persistent and original filmmakers, Arturo Ripstein is often hailed as the Godfather of independent Mexican cinema. Born and bred into cinema, Ripstein grew up on sets observing film production and apprenticing with his father, Alfredo Ripstein, a producer and key figure of the Cine de Oro era, financing countless artistic endeavors. Along with his father, Ripstein also developed a close intellectual and spiritual mentorship with Luis Buñuel who would influence the signature black humor central to his cinema.

Fearless and subversive, the films of Arturo Ripstein artfully transform popular genres, starting with his debut feature film in 1965, TIME TO DIE, a western that questions the urgency and moral code of a cowboy avenging a violent death. Fascinated by secret nightmares and dark fantasies, major works like DEEP CRIMSON, THE CASTLE OF PURITY, and THE PLACE WITHOUT LIMITS, invite the viewer to peer into the farthest edges of the mind and soul with curious morbidity, anguish and absurdity while deftly delivering blows against the intolerant patriarchy and machismo so pervasive in Mexican society. Exploring his paternal Jewish ancestry, Ripstein’s THE HOLY INQUISITION, one of the few films about Jewish people in Mexico, painstakingly investigates the antisemitism of the Spanish inquisition and prejudices of a deeply Catholic Mexican culture.

Following a tradition of adapting high-profile Latin American literary works, THE REALM OF FORTUNE from Juan Rulfo’s El Gallo de Oro, marks the beginning of a long and remarkable collaboration with the talented screenwriter Paz Alicia Garcíadiego. Her talent for adapting literary works and transforming popular vernacular language into cinematic stories lends a new dimension to Ripstein’s work. Since then, the two have worked together to create grotesque dramas filled with desperate stabs at happiness and agonizing twists of fate like BLEAK STREET, DIVINE, and THE DEVIL BETWEEN THE LEGS.

Directly influencing contemporary Mexican filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Carlos Reygadas, Arturo Ripstein serves as a crucial link between Mexico’s influential studio era and a new generation of Mexican auteur directors. Containing the best and brightest of classical Mexican film culture while transforming it, his films present a fusion of beauty and brutality, compassion and violence with a profound melancholia convinced that every sinner in their grim, tender and horrifying truth is worth saving.