Abstract
In this chapter, I analyze Arturo Ripstein’s El Castillo de la pureza (1972). In this film, the state’s economic idealism and repressive nature are embodied in Gabriel’s brutal paternalism. This patriarch imprisons his family and manages his wife and children in order to maximize their efficiency in the family business: the production and sale of rat poison. Through a discussion of the films historical context, I will show how the portrayal of an isolated family, serves as a national allegory to skewer the PRI’s paternalistic grip over Mexican society.
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Notes
- 1.
Gilbert M. Joseph and Jürgen Buchenau, Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution: Social Upheaval and the Challenge of Rule Since the Late Nineteenth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 155–156.
- 2.
Charles Ramírez Berg, Cinema of Solitude (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1992), 161.
- 3.
Andrea Nobel, Mexican National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2005), 110.
- 4.
Ibid., 112.
- 5.
Joseph and Buchenau, Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution: Social Upheaval and the Challenge of Rule Since the Late Nineteenth Century, 2013, 156.
- 6.
For a positive reading of the Mexican Miracle see Enrique Cárdenas, La política económica en México (El Colegio de México, 1996), 69–71. For a more critical view of the effects the Mexican Miracle had on society and culture see Eric Zolov, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
- 7.
Zolov, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture, 5.
- 8.
Ibid., 8.
- 9.
“Al Presidente se le encomienda llevar el navío a puerto seguro y él es piloto y padre y capitán y dueño de los símiles. Sabe con detalle del sentido de sus acciones, ha meditado en su entrega confiada en las manos rugosas del porvenir. No está enojado ni podría estarlo: México actúa dentro de él y dirige sus pasiones, las ordena, las depura, las vuelve inflexibilidad de conducta. Con violencia y alharaca y héroes extraídos del forro de sus conciencias descastadas, los subversivos se proponen hacernos olvidar la verdad: somos una gran familia, el país que atravesó ‒entre sangre, sudor y lágrimas‒ por una gran revolución. Y a Díaz Ordaz le toca hacer que el país siga teniendo amor y respeto a las instituciones. A como dé lugar.” Carlos Monsiváis, El 68: La tradición de la resistencia (Mexico: Era, 2008), 58–59.
- 10.
See Manuel Gutiérrez Silva and Luis Duno Gottberg, “Fifty Years in Film I: Arturo Ripstein’s Early Years,” in this volume.
- 11.
Sergio De la Mora, “A Career in Perspective: An Interview with Arturo Ripstein.” Film Quarterly 52, no. 4 (Summer): 2–11.
- 12.
Eduardo De la Vega, “Origins, Development and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paulo Antonio Paranaguá, trans. Ana López (London: British Film Institute and IMCINE, 1995), 91–93.
- 13.
Tomás Pérez Turrent, “Crises and Renovations (1965–91),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paulo Antonio Paranaguá, trans. Ana López (London: British Film Institute and IMCINE, 1995), 94–115, 95.
- 14.
Ibid., 98.
- 15.
Ibid., 100.
- 16.
De la Vega, “Origins, Development and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64),” 85.
- 17.
Pérez Turrent, “Crises and Renovations (1965–91),” 101.
- 18.
Ibid., 101.
- 19.
“When I was a young man, being politically engaged was a major issue. My films are not derivative of a political situation or a political action. I’ve never tried to make a political issue more important than the narrative. I’ve always tried to make films about things that scare me or leave me in awe. Some of my contemporaries were engaged in political action. I’ve always thought that engaged writers prefer politics to writing and I’ve always preferred filmmaking to politics. We can say that every statement is political in its broadest sense, so in that way my films are politically oriented.” Quoted in de la Mora, “A Career in Perspective: An Interview with Arturo Ripstein,” 7–8.
- 20.
Pérez Turent, “Crises and Renovations (1965–91),” 101.
- 21.
“El hombre de recia voluntad moldea el mundo a su gusto” (Goethe). “Para guiar a los hombres es necesario volver la espalda a la humanidad” (Ellis). “Todos los hombres son hombres communes, los extraordinarios son los que están seguro de serlo” (Chesterton).
Work Cited
Berg, Charles Ramirez. Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study of Mexican Film, 1967–1983. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992.
Cárdenas, Enrique. La política económica en México, 1950–1994. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas, and Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996.
De la Mora, Sergio. “A Career in Perspective: An Interview with Arturo Ripstein.” Film Quarterly 52, no. 4 (Summer 1999): 2–11.
———. Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.
De la Vega Alfaro, Eduardo. “Origins, Development and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64).” In Mexican Cinema, edited by Paulo Antonio Paranaguá. Translated by Ana López. London: British Film Institute and IMCINE, 1995, 79–93.
Joseph, Gilbert M., and Jürgen Buchenau. Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution: Social Upheaval and the Challenge of Rule Since the Late Nineteenth Century. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.
Monsiváis, Carlos. El 68: La tradición de la resistencia. México, D.F.: Ediciones Era, 2008.
Noble, Andrea. Mexican National Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Pérez Turrent, Tomás. “Crises and Renovations (1965–91).” In Mexican Cinema, edited by Paulo Antonio Paranaguá. Translated by Ana López. London: British Film Institute and IMCINE, 1995, 94–115.
Sánchez Prado, Ignacio. “Alegorías sin pueblo: el cine Echeverrista y la crisis del contrato social de la cultura mexicana.” Chasqui 44, no. 2 (2015): 50–67.
———. Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema 1988–2012. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014.
Zolov, Eric. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
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Sisk, C.L. (2019). El castillo de la pureza (1972): A Closed Market Represented by a Closed Home. In: Gutiérrez Silva, M., Duno Gottberg, L. (eds) The Films of Arturo Ripstein. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22956-6_4
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