In Excess: Sergei Eisentein's Mexico - Cineclub

Figure 14. Sergei M. Eisenstein and Eduard Tisse shooting “Sandunga,” Tehuantepec,
January–March 1931. Olivier Debroise collection, Mexico City.
and ornate. By bringing the aesthetic artifi ciality—pure form—to the
fore, which works counter to the claims of historical authenticity of the
image, this baroque overabundance of detail transforms ¡Que Viva Mexico!
from a near-documentary or a fi ction fi lm into a historical spectacle, as
discussed by Philip Rosen, in which the decorative historical detail overwhelms
and counterbalances the narrative itself. “In historical spectacle,
a proliferation of detail seems to exceed the reality-effect, and in so doing
becomes something like a virtuoso performance of the profi lmic.
From the perspective of the ‘serious’ historical fi lm, historical spectacle
unbalances the interplay between a ‘true story’ and a recognizably
‘historical’ mise-en-scène by emphasizing the underlying ambivalences
of the latter in respect to referenciality.” 16 The same visual details that
are normally added to function as construction of verisimilitude in their
overabundance achieve the opposite effect, underlining the theatricality
and artifi ciality of the image, far exceeding the narrative necessity.
While this tension between the plot (the structure) of the fi lm and its
“proof ” of verisimilitude is crucial to the dual nature of the spectatorial
investment in the cinematic process, the overabundance of tokens of
historical authenticity results in a different kind of fi lmmaking: fi lm as
pure spectacle. Since the late 1960s fi lm as spectacle has traditionally
been associated in fi lm theory with the fetishistic nature of mainstream
“sandunga” : 67