Filming the revolution : North American conema and Mexico, 1911-1917 / Margarita De Orellana ; translated by John King

"First published as La mirada circular : el cine norteamericano de la Revolución Mexicana, 1911-1917 ... c1991"--T.p. verso.

Includes filmography (p. [130]-193) and bibliographical references (p. [194]-203).

Forward/ Kevin Brownlow -- Preface / Friedrich Katz -- An imaginary trip through "Barbarous Mexico"-- The changing image of Pancho Villa -- The Mexican Revolution in feature films -- Annexe: Foreign cameramen who filmed the Mexican Revolution.

On January 3, 1914 Pancho Villa became Hollywood's first Mexican superstar. In signing an exclusive movie contract, Villa agreed to keep other film companies from his battlefield, to fight in daylight wherever possible, and to reconstruct battles if the footage needed reshooting.Through memoir and newspaper reports, Margarita De Orellana looks at the documentary film-makers who went down to cover events in Mexico. Feature film-makers in Hollywood portrayed the border as the dividing line between order and chaos, in the process developing a series of lasting Mexican stereotypes-the greaser, the bandit, the beautiful sentilde;orita, the exotic Aztec. Filming Pancho reveals how Mexico was constructed in the American imagination and how movies reinforced and justified both American expansionism and racial and social prejudice

Translated from the Spanish.