Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

attention, but none has yet to attain the level of
Bemberg’s originality.
Leopoldo Torre-Nilsson (1924–1978) was one of
the first Argentine directors to attract international recognition.
He represented the transition in the 1960s
from the heavily Hollywood-inspired work of the pre-
Perón Golden Age of elegant drawing room and boudoir
(‘‘white telephone’’) films, and the hack work during
Perón’s two presidencies, to an art cinema that was
strongly influenced by French intellectualism, Italian
neorealism, and a general leftist social realism without
ever imitating formulaic Soviet models. Moreover, Torre-
Nilssen collaborated extensively with his wife, the novelist
Beatriz Guido (1924–1988), to produce a body of
films on the decaying oligarchy—including La casa del
ángel (The House of the Angel, 1957)—that refocused
European social critique through a (proto)feminist lens
that was unique in Latin America. Unlike other directors
who abandoned Argentina for political reasons, Torre-
Nilsson remained in Argentina, where he continued to
make film versions of major works of Argentine literature
Argentina
Luis Puenza’s La historia oficial (The Official Story, 1985) was a breakthrough international hit. EVERETT COLLECTION.
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
until his death in 1978. Although his father, Leopoldo
Torre Ríos (1899–1960), was one of the founders of
Argentine filmmaking both of Torre-Nilsson’s sons,
Javier Torre (b. 1946) and Pablo Torre, are undistinguished
directors.
While Torre-Nilsson remained a resolutely narrative
filmmaker, other more experimental filmmakers brought
added recognition to the Argentine industry. Octavio
Getino (born in Spain in 1935) has received recognition
for documentaries that combine stunning photography
with highly charged political propaganda, such as the
famous La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces,
1968), co-directed by Fernando Solanas (b. 1936).
Adolfo Birri, who has played a major role in the Cuban
industry and the Cuban national film institute, has been
called the father of the so-called New Latin American
film, which is characterized by its political commitment
and its adoption of an aggressive anti-Hollywood style.
Terms such as ‘‘Third Cinema’’ (i.e., neither Hollywood
nor European art cinema) and ‘‘imperfect cinema’’
(because it cannot aspire to American and European
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