- Principal Distributing Corporation, 1933.
Eisenstein had spent many frustrating months in Hollywood, ending with a failed attempt to adapt Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy.” With backing from avowed socialist Upton Sinclair, Eisenstein left Hollywood to create what would have been his epic about life in Mexico, “Que viva México.” The film was intended to be an episodic study of Mexico’s durable ethnography and symbols against the backdrop of its colonial history from the ancient Mayans to the 1910 revolution.
Cinematographer Euduard Tisse shot the film in 1931 and 1932, intending to divide the narrative into four segments (which he called “novels”), “Sandunga,” “Fiesta,” “Maguey,” and “Soldadera.” Upon completion of filming, Eisenstein sent the footage to Hollywood for processing, but political and economic barriers prevented him from returning even to edit the film.
In the wake of Eisenstein’s forced departure, two films utilizing the film footage were made with Upton Sinclair’s permission: “Thunder over Mexico” (1933, edited by Sol Lesser) and “Time in the Sun” (1940, edited by Mary Seton). Upton Sinclair subsequently deposited the unedited materials of the film in the 1950s with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Jay Leyda’s subsequent work to make the footage accessible has resulted in the footage having been preserved for nearly 80 years for future study and reconstruction.
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