Los tres garcia

Los Tres Garcia is a film that situates itself in the Golden Age of the Mexican national cinema when its release was in 1947. The film is part of the classic Mexican film industry do to its incorporation of the ranchera comedy and its contribution to the consolidation in the industry. Ismael Rodriquez was successful on producing a film that gave the viewer the chance to understand the traditionalMexican society of the 1940’s. The attempt to portray the traditional Mexico was the breach towards producing films that created the idea of the nation as an imagined community. It is a film that incorporated iconic landscapes, characters that incarnated the authentic Mexican values, and cultural symbols that exentuated the national values. As Andrew Higson writes on his article “The LimitingImagination of National Cinema” in reference to defining the idea nation as imagined communties, “Those who inhabit nations with a stong sense of self-identity are encouraged to imagine themselves as members of a coherent, organic community, rooted in the geographical space, with well-established idegeneous traditions.”. In fact that is what differentiates this film from the ones of the present day,being that the Golden Age of the Mexican national cinema created an idealized, romanticized and imaginary Mexico. Through the use of singing, charro costumes, alcohol, family disputes, and love affairs just to metion some of the cultural codes; the film was creating a national identity through the experience of belonging to a community, traditions, rituals and characteristic modes of discourse.It is not suprising that the “classical” or “Golden Age” cinema of the 1940’s in Mexico be undertood as primarily a discrete national phenomena. As Ana M. Lopez reaffirms on her article “Crossing Nations and Genres” by saying that, “Although..the effect of the presence of Hollywood and other imports upon local markets and production, the classical cinemas have nevertheless been analyzed ascircumscribed primarily by state cinema policies and national cultural characteristics”. As we can see on the film, the use of national cultural characteristics is evident all through out the film. The scenes of the rural landscape, the portayal of iconic charros on their horse singing through the streets, and the panoramic view of a calm and peaceful town situated on the imagined Mexico are some of themarks of national identity. Thus, Los Tres Garcia is a film that not only attempts to represent the Mexico of its time but one that can also serve under the plan of the state interest to foster a national cinema. The state increasing protectionism was another factor that contributed to the growth of the Mexican film industry during the 1940’s according to Charles Ramírez Berg on his book “Cinemaof Solitude”. He also describes how the state agenda was evident when the formation of a film bank, “banco cinematografico” was formed in 1942 in order to facilitate the financing of film production.
Ismael Rodriguez also gave the characters the chance to incorporate on its own the Mexican society of the 40’s. The presence of a host of stars like Pedro Infante, Abel Salazar, and Victor ManuelMendoza gaved the chance of the three main characters of the film to incarnate authentic Mexican values. Through those lenses we can see the Mexican bourgeois in Victor Manuel Mendoza playing the role of Luis Manuel Garcia. Luis Manuel is the rich cousin who has a pedantic attitude, is a loan shark and has an academic education. Abel Salazar whose character is Jose Luis Garcia, is the poor cousinthat without anything but his honor and proud, represents the working and oppressed class. Jose Luis is a disoriented character with a complexity of inferiority. Among his various quotes through out the film he says one that represents him well, “Si el amber the tira el orgullo te levanta” (If hunger throws you down, pride picks you up). The last one is Luis Antonio Garcia(Pedro Infante) who is...