Leen, Catherine
(2014)
The Sound of Silence:
The corrido as Counterculture
in Felipe Cazals’ Canoa.
Modern Languages Open, 1 (2).
pp. 1-16.
ISSN 2052-5397
Abstract
As a national film industry emerged at the turn of the twentieth century
in Mexico, filmmakers were quick to capitalise on the huge popularity of
traditional music.1 Decades later, the soundtrack to the tumultuous events in
Mexico in the late 1960s and 1970s continued to reference traditional music,
but it also increasingly looked to global youth culture. Songs by U.S. or local
rock musicians became a notable feature of films produced in Mexico at
this time, with rock music often functioning as a shorthand that differentiated
a hip, younger generation from their conservative elders. This article
is concerned with Felipe Cazals’ Canoa (1975), which centres on the clash
between the youth of the 1960s and an older, repressive, generation, yet it
uses traditional Mexican music, particularly the ballad known as the corrido,
rather than a more contemporary rock or pop soundtrack. Cazals’ formal
experiments in this film have attracted much critical commentary, as will be
discussed later, but his use of music to critique a repressive government and
call into question an idyllic representation of the nation has received little
attention. This article will consider Cazals’ unconventional use of music in
this and other films to provide a radical alternative to the formulaic use of
music in earlier Mexican films and to suggest how music can be much more
than an accompaniment to images and dialogue.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Corrido; Counterculture; Felipe Cazals; Canoa; Music; Mexico; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures > Spanish |
| Item ID: |
6025 |
| Depositing User: |
Catherine Leen
|
| Date Deposited: |
13 Apr 2015 15:37 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Modern Languages Open |
| Publisher: |
Liverpool University Press |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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