Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Internet resource(s)
- A Brief History of Filmmaking in Puerto RicoFilmmaking in Puerto Rico is considered by some to have started in 1898 when the United States invaded the island and American soldiers recorded what they saw on film. ...
- Cinema of Puerto Rico
The history of the Cinema industry in Puerto Rico predates Hollywood, being conceived after the first industries emerged in some locations of the United States, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, France, Great Britain and Germany.[1] During the US invasion of the island in 1898, American soldiers brought cameras to record what they saw. ...
Introduction
Puerto Rico has been a territory of the US since 1898, and records suggest that scenes of US troops arriving on the island were filmed at the beginning of the 20th century, while the earliest films screened in Puerto Rico were brought there in 1900 by a French representative of Pathé. By 1909 there were permanent cinemas in urban areas, and between 1910 and 1912 Juan E. Viguié Cajas filmed actualities of local scenes in Ponce. Un drama en Puerto Rico/A Drama in Puerto Rico (Rafael Colorado, 1915) is thought to be Puerto Rico’s earliest fiction film. Since the silent era, as in the case of Ralph Ince’s Amor tropical/Tropical Love (1921), Puerto Rico has figured in Hollywood films as an exotic backdrop for tropical romance—a theme which is also apparent in locally made films such as Viguié Cajas’s early talkie, Romance Tropical (1934), recently restored by the film archive at UCLA. In the 1940s, as part of a US-led modernization programme, the División de Educación a la Comunidad (DIVEDCO) was set up: under its auspices local filmmakers were trained, and more than a hundred documentaries promoting Puerto Rican life were made. Despite DIVEDCO’s efforts, however, prevailing economic conditions prevented the growth of a feature film industry, and the island continued to be used as a cheap location for runaway foreign productions: Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971) is one of many examples.
In the 1970s local opposition to US cultural and economic influence produced a national documentary movement and a body of militant films, including Angelitos negros/Little Black Angels (Mike Cuesta, 1980). The late 1970s saw the beginnings of local feature film production, an early success being Dios los cría/…And God Created Them (Jacobo Morales, 1979). Critical documentary filmmaking was sustained through the 1980s alongside socially responsible commercial film production, a key figure being Marcos Zurinaga, whose films include La gran fiesta/The Gala Ball (1986). In the 1990s, Puerto Rico once again became a favoured location for US productions: Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997), for example, was made on the island. Increased sponsorship for local arts and culture and the founding of two annual film festivals boosted local production, and Morales’s Lo que le pasó a Santiago/What Happened to Santiago (1989) was a domestic and international success (in 2012, Morales himself starred in the box-office hit Broche de oro (Raúl Marchand Sánchez)). In a climate of international co-production deals, Zurinaga’s English-language The Disappearance of García Lorca (US/Puerto Rico/Spain/France, 1997; aka Death in Granada) was a major production that attracted distribution by the US multinational Columbia. Since 2011, tax incentives have boosted all types of audiovisual production on the island. See also Caribbean, film in the.
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Puerto Rico, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 Oct. 2022
In the library's collections/Searching the online catalog
You can start your search here with these subject headings below:
- motion pictures puerto ricoCall number range PN 1993.5 .P9 on Baker Stack Level 4
Introductory reading(s)
Cine puertorriqueño: filmografía, fuentes y referencias by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P9 G44 1997ISBN: 9781881703129- Dominio de la imagen: hacia una industria de cine en Puerto Rico byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P9 R56 2000ISBN: 9781881703204
Early Puerto Rican cinema and nation building: national sentiments, transnational realities, 1897-1940 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P9 G365 2019ISBN: 9781684481170,iEarly Puerto Rican Cinema and Nation Building focuses on the processes of Puerto Rican national identity formation as seen through the historical development of cinema on the island between 1897 and 1940. Anchoring her work in archival sources in film technology, economy, and education, Naida García-Crespo argues that Puerto Rico's position as a stateless nation allows for a fresh understanding of national cinema based on perceptions of productive cultural contributions rather than on citizenship or state structures. ...
Selected book title(s)
La noticia paga: cine, propaganda y política pública en Puerto Rico, 1950-1970 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 4947 .M68 S84 2019ISBN: 9781944352189Study on the use of advertising time in the movie theaters in Puerto Rico to present political propaganda in the years 1950-1970. Shows how the government with help of the film companies constructed an image of Puerto Rico as modern and a shining example of democracy in Latin America.- Nacimiento del cine puertorriqueño: los primeros 40 años de la cinematografía puertorriqueña byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P9 N23 2007ISBN: 9780977361274Publication Date: 1. ed.
Revolving-door life writing: literature and cinema of Puerto Rican women by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9783825373474Hauptbeschreibung Revolving-Door Life Writing is about selected Puerto Rican female (im)migrant authors and filmmakers on the East Coast of the United States. The focus of this study lies on the hybrid and partly transnational cultural identities of these life writers. ...
Other library resource(s)
Latina/o Americans in film and television from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Latino Americans, also termed Hispanics, as individuals with ancestry in the US Southwest, Mexico, Puerto Rico, or Latin American countries, are widely diverse, even while their cinematic and televisual representations have often flattened differences in their construction of an imagined, universal Latin-ness, or Latinidad. This representational history has its roots in social history and particularly the historical oppression of Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans also historically have been the largest US Latino group.- Latin American cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by ISBN: 9780199791286How might the term “Latin American Cinema” be defined? The term is not exempt from controversy any more than the concept of Latin America itself, which was first imagined by the French Michel Chevalier in the mid-19th century and later coined by the Colombian José María Torres Caicedo. The question of whether a cinema that is specifically Latin American exists and, furthermore, whether it is productive to conduct research from this broad perspective often appears in prologues to Latin American film studies. ...
Finding scholarly articles and journals
You can find scholarly literature for film and television studies in a variety of journals. However, if you want to do targeted searching, you can use a subject specific database such as Film & Television Literature Index. You can also use the search box at the top of the page.
Add Media history digital library, screen studies collections, film & television literature index and entertainment industry magazine collection
HAPI online by Call Number: Electronic resourceHAPI is a source for worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States, with coverage from 1970 to the present.
Film & television literature indexCall Number: Electronic resourceThis index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie title(s)
Find more Puerto Rican film titles in the library's collections.
Ladrones y mentirosos by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7809Follows the story of three different families affected by the giant underground illegal economy that emerged and continues to grow since Puerto Rico became the main port of entry for cocaine into the U.S. east coast. Together, the three stories represent the struggle of all Puerto Ricans to survive the ever-rising wave of corruption and crime that has infiltrated every level of Puerto Rican society.
Mala mala by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19548This film explores intimate moments, performances, friendships and activism of trans identifying people, drag queens and other who defy typical gender identities in Puerto Rico.
Sudor amargo by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6170Set in a Puerto Rico fish-cleaning factory, the film focuses on a group of female workers struggling to hold onto their jobs as massive layoffs and heated protests swirl around them. The volatile atmosphere culminates when their boss is found murdered one morning. As the investigation goes on and each of the women is questioned, the strain puts their friendship to the ultimate test.
¡Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tu lo sepas! = I'm Boricua, just so you know! by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10089ISBN: 9781594443039Rosie Perez explores the complex history between Puerto Rico and the United States. It begins with the vibrant celebration of the Puerto Rican Day Parade and lingers with Perez's deeply personal perspective. The themes of family, language, and racism are put into historical perspective as the film uncovers the side of Puerto Rico absent from U.S. history books.
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
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