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Un clebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa
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Wikipedia article
'Un clebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa' (English: 'A celebrated specialist pulling teeth at the grand Hotel Europa') was the first Venezuelan film. It was screened at the Baralt Theatre in Maracaibo, Zulia on 28 January 1897 as the second in a film block of four;The first film in the block was the French 'Les Champs-lyses'. the block also featured another film from Maracaibo ('Muchachos bandose en la laguna de Maracaibo': English: 'Children bathing at the lagoon of Maracaibo'). Little is known about the film's production, and scholars are uncertain of the identity of its director.
No complete copies of the original film survive. During the 2010s, a reconstruction of the film was produced in Venezuela with preserved photographs from the original. In the film, a dental surgeon at the Hotel Europa in Maracaibo pulls a man's teeth. Although the subject matter could make it an early horror film, scholars agree that the film was an actuality film.
A contemporary reviewer criticized the screening for its inappropriate projection speed and theatre lighting, but gave praise to the film.
Film content
As suggested by its title, the film depicts a "celebrated" surgeon pulling a patient's teeth at the Hotel Europa in Maracaibo. The story was described by the film historian Ana Lpez as "a somewhat precarious dental extraction". Jess Ricardo Azuaga Garca described the film as being stylistically similar to Lumire films (possibly emulating them), saying that it illustrates "one of those more or less everyday activities that the French film pioneers used to show in their films". Azuaga Garca notes that this was to be unusual for early Venezuelan film, and cites only three examples.The first of these three is 'Un clebre especialista...'. The other two are 'La salida de la Misa de San Francisco', an 1899 film by Filippi Domini and Giuseppe Prateri, and 'Domingos Caraqueos', made by Lucas Manzano and Enrique Zimmermann in 1918.
Although no copies of the film were preserved, the Venezuelan Association of Film Exhibitors produced a part-reconstruction of 'Un celebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa' (English: 'A celebrated specialist pulling teeth at the grand Hotel Europa') and 'Muchachos bandose en la laguna de Maracaibo' (English: 'Children bathing in the lagoon of Maracaibo') in January 2017 for the 120th anniversary of their premieres. The Association collected frames from the 1890s which had been stored in the Zulia Photographic Archive, restoring and adding color to the images to recreate the approximate look of the films. Abdel Gerere wrote and produced the restoration, which was directed by Emiliano Fara. A 1991 DVD history of Venezuelan cinema referred to the film; the DVD included an image of the extraction and one of the Hotel Europa.The images relating to the film were included on disc 3.
The identity of the dentist featured in the film is not known. The 'Diccionario General de Zulia' identifies Vicente Toledo as the only well-known dentist in late 19th century Venezuela. The 1897 'Commercial Directory of American Republics' cites two registered dentists in Maracaibo: Elias A. Capriles and Gaspar Elias Gonzlez. Gonzlez was the inaugural president of the Fraternidad Odontolgica del Zulia (English: Zulian Organization of Dentistry) in 1916. The Hotel Europa, which features in the film, was sold and remodeled as the Hotel Zulia in 1913; it was ultimately demolished in 1956, and the site used to build the Maracaibo Municipal Council building.
File:ZPA image of dental extraction 1890s Zulia.png|alt=Black and white photograph of a small, regular, room, a window to the left with a dental chair facing this direction. The dentist stands behind the chair to the right, with dental paraphernalia occupying many surfaces: an oxygen tank is front and center, a tall table is laid with tools in front of a wardrobe in the rear of the image, and a drawer is hung by the window with more tools. |A still of dental extraction used in the reconstructed film
File:The Hotel Europa in Maracaibo, c. 1897.jpg|alt=Black and white photograph showing the Hotel Europa in Maracaibo around the time the film was shot. The hotel is on the left with a group of people standing in front of it. A horse and carriage are seen on the road in the middle of the picture, and several men are standing on the right. |The Hotel Europa in Maracaibo, around the time the film was made
Screening
The film screening of 'Un clebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa' took place on 28 January 1897 at 7:00 pm at the Teatro Baralt in Maracaibo, where the first films shown in the country (imported American short films) had been screened. Another Venezuelan film, 'Muchachos bandose en la laguna de Maracaibo', was also shown; this film depicted people bathing at Lake Maracaibo and views of the city. Two French films made by the Lumire brothers were also screened. One of these, shown last of the four, was the famous 'L'Arrive d'un train en gare de La Ciotat'. According to film historian Peter Rist, these films were projected on this occasion by Gabriel Veyre, a film director and projectionist for the Lumire company. Rodolfo Izaguirre has suggested that in addition to the Venezuelan and French films, American films by Thomas Edison were shown as well. The films were screened after a performance of Gaetano Donizetti's opera, 'La favorita'.
A contemporary review in 'El Cronista' noted that the films seemed to have been made well, but their screening was poorly executed. The reviewer noted that the projection speed of the films was initially irregular and the theatre lighting was too bright for films."The drawing of the tape suffered from some irregularity and the light that it gave on the frame did not seem well disposed: this way the figures were erased or confused pitifully [though] the pictures of the cinematographer seemed good, very particularly that of the children bathing in the lake, which was loudly applauded."
** Spanish: "El descorrer de la cinta adoleca de alguna irregularidad y que la luz que daba sobre el bastidor no pareci bien dispuesta: as se borraban o confundan lastimosamente las figuras (aunque) los cuadros del Cinematgrafo parecieron buenos, muy particularmente el de los muchachos bandose en el lago, que fue ruidosamente aplaudido."
Production and director
The director of the film is unknown; scholars and researchers have suggested that the most likely people to be the director would be Manuel Trujillo Durn, a photographer from Maracaibo, or Veyre, the French traveling filmmaker. Film scholar, lecturer and Trujillo biographer Alexis Fernndez discussed the production of the first films in a 2013 television interview, agreeing that there is no tangible evidence indicating who the director was.
For many years, film scholarship believed Trujillo had brought the Vitascope to Venezuela. Sources have also suggested that Trujillo, with or without his brother Guillermo,Guillermo was a nationally-recognized poet and politician, whom assisted Manuel with his business ventures. made the early films. Though it was determined that Trujillo did not introduce the Vitascope,A business partner, Luis Manuel Mndez, is credited with this. the associated belief that he made the first films has persisted in some parts of Venezuela. By 2018, it was generally accepted in local and national Venezuelan media that Trujillo did not make the film.
The likelihood of Trujillo being the director has been a subject of debate among Venezuelan film scholars. Those who dispute it refer to evidence that shows Trujillo probably did not have a camera with the capability to make films, and the fact that he was in Tchira at the time of the screening. On the other side, proponents of Trujillo as director note his proximity to the introduction of Venezuelan film and his relationship with American camera companies. Veteran Venezuelan film critic Rodolfo Izaguirre says that the films are "presumed" to be made by him, and Venezuelan film histories that support Trujillo note that "it is said" he was the director. Outside of analysis, an article in the newspaper 'ltimas Noticias' about National Film Day events in January 2019 celebrated Trujillo for making and projecting the film himself and outfitting the Baralt Theatre so the films could be shown.
Proposing another director in 2018, Jess ngel Semprn Parra and Luis Guillermo Hernndez wrote that the French camera operator and filmmaker Veyre was more likely to have made the film. They come to this view by noting that, while Trujillo left Maracaibo 'en route' to Colombia in early January 1897, Veyre and his associate C. F. Bernard arrived in Venezuela in January 1897 as part of their filmmaking tour of Latin America and the Caribbean. In a 2014 profile of Veyre, Venezuelan film professor Arturo Serrano wrote that he made no films in Venezuela.
Modern critical views
Ana Lpez suggests that 'Un clebre especialista...' may be not only the first Venezuelan film, but may also contain "the earliest views shot in Latin America", though Evangelina Soltero Snchez suggests earlier dates for films produced elsewhere in South America.
Lpez writes that the subject of dental surgery, similar to "a few" other early Latin American films, created "a veneer of scientific objectivity [that] perfectly rationalized its more thrilling appeals" and gave a contemporary audience justification for watching a film when they were otherwise considered spectacles. However, Lpez notes that the prevailing scholarly narrative that many Latin American films had science-related themes is inaccurate; she cites four films related to science, only one of which was produced after 1900. She suggests that films produced in Latin America were influenced by the upcoming 1900 Paris Exposition, where they might be shown.
In his book, 'Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History', Paul A. Schroeder Rodrguez describes early Latin American films as generally reflective of "the air of self-sufficiency of the early pioneers, as if they were looking at themselves and liked what they saw" and cited 'Un clebre especialista...' as an example that "speak[s] for [itself]". Stephen M. Hart provides an insight into the cool welcome given the film in his book, saying that whilst it fit the mold of the 'actualit' a short film demonstrating actual events audiences were quickly numbed by seeing many of these in succession and began "craving more interesting material than [...] a dentist's antics".
Michelle Leigh Farrell discusses 20th-century Venezuelan cinema in her 2011 paper, noting its lack of presence and marginal influence in South America despite Venezuela having produced some of the first Latin American films. Farrell believes that this early success influenced the Venezuelan government to capitalize on the early films, monopolizing the industry with poorly-managed production companies which made newsreels and films supporting the government. Michael Chanan suggests that although Venezuela was typical of Latin American nations (many of which did not continue their early production of entertainment films), there may be a rich trove of hidden independent films such as the works of Edgar J. Anzola which have been missing for decades.
Elisa Martnez de Badra compares the film to its few predecessors, writing that the Edison films shown in Maracaibo in 1896 were "theatrical spectacle" but 'Un clebre especialista...' was not; she describes it as "new media". Martnez adds that the form of 'Un clebre especialista...' and 'Muchachos bandose...' is one of two factors that contributed to the development of a narrative approach in Venezuelan cinema.The other factor she mentions is the partnership of Carlos Ruiz Chapelln and W. O. Wolcopt, who created early films that could be considered slapstick comedy.
Examining 'The House at the End of Time' as the first Venezuelan horror film, Robert Gmez suggests that 'Un clebre especialista...' may actually hold this position: "It's not for no reason that the figure of the dentist exists in lots of B-movies and art films as the character that uses his office to torture victims. Think 'Marathon Man'." Gmez adds that although the unknown director was not making a genre film, "one can not ignore the reaction of the spectator, who probably saw in it, as is natural, a terrifying story in the same way that many spectators reacted to 'L'Arrive d'un train en gare de La Ciotat' by the Lumire brothers".
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