Lupe (1965)
By Juan Medina
The Film-Makers' Cooperative, the largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world founded by Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Ken Jacobs, Andy Warhol, and Stan Brakhage, has released two films on VOD by the experimental Puerto Rican filmmaker José Rodríguez-Soltero: Lupe (1965) and Dialogue with Che (1968).
An elusive and unfortunately forgotten figure of not only Puerto Rican cinema, but also North and Latin American avant-garde cinema movements, Rodríguez-Soltero was an integral part of the New York underground scene during the 1960s and early 1970s. However, as scholar Dorian Lugo rightfully points out in an article about the filmmaker, Rodríguez-Soltero’s production is "more often read about than seen." Even though his work has been rediscovered and included with increasing frequency in programs and retrospectives of experimental cinema since the early 2000s, the truth is that the possibilities of the public to access it have been limited to a few specialized theaters, film archives, and museums.
Lupe, for many Rodríguez-Soltero's greatest work, is loosely based on the life of the Mexican actress Lupe Velez (also known in Hollywood as “The Mexican Spitfire”), taking us from her poor beginnings to her rise to stardom and later her tragic suicide. Mario Montez, who stars in the film, was a Puerto Rican performance artist, actor and drag queen, who would also appear frequently in films by Warhol and Jack Smith.
In Lupe, José Rodríguez-Soltero treats his materials with a certain technical informality, which does not prevent the film from having visually stunning moments. Its saturated colors, its amazing superimpositions, its camp, tropical and excessive imagery, its experimentation with certain stereotypes of feminine and queer, and of course, its soundtrack, which includes everything from Cuban boleros to American pop music, all contribute to the conformation of this underground cinema classic.
Dialogue with Che (1968)
Dialogue with Che is part of the more self-reflective current of cinema, the type of cinema that draws attention to filmmaking’s own mechanisms of representation and that finds in Jean-Luc Godard one of its most renowned exponents. The Venezuelan artist Rolando Peña stars in the film; he, at times, plays Ernesto “Che” Guevara during his last hours of life, but he, above all, reflects on the farce that this exercise represents. In this way, the film oscillates between the “reenactment” understood as the only way to access that historical moment and the awareness of its limitations.
But Rodríguez-Soltero's position regarding one of the most polarizing figures of the 20th century seems to be equally ambiguous. While Peña overflows in words of admiration for “Che” Guevara and reflects on his limitations to personify such a "Man", we listen to José behind the camera answering with an ironic tone to the hyperboles and the philosophical inquiries of his actor. In a sense, it is as if between the haughtiness of myth and the banalities of ordinary man, Rodríguez-Soltero chose both.
This film recently received a preservation grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, and for the first time since 1968 it is shown on a double screen through The Film-Makers' Cooperative. Both films will be available indefinitely to rent on the cooperative's Vimeo VOD channel, as part of the organization's effort to make its catalog as accessible as possible to film enthusiasts, researchers, and academics around the world.
Thanks to Professor Dorian Lugo and MM Serra, Executive Director of The Film-Makers’ Coop.
