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The Kneeling Goddess
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Wikipedia article
'The Kneeling Goddess' (Spanish: 'La diosa arrodillada') is a 1947 Mexican Melodrama film directed by Roberto Gavaldn and starring Mara Flix, Arturo de Crdova and Rosario Granados. It was shot at the Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, with sets designed by the art director Manuel Fontanals.
Plot
Married businessman Antonio (Arturo de Crdova) is carrying on an affair with Raquel (Mara Flix), who wants him to divorce his wife Elena (Rosario Granados). Instead of breaking off his affair with Raquel, he purchases for Elena as an anniversary gift a statue the titular Kneeling Goddess which, unbeknownst to him, features Raquel as the model. Obsessed with Raquel, Antonio reinitiates the affair and appears to agree with Raquel to divorce Elena. When Elena dies in mysterious circumstances and Antonio marries Raquel, not everything is as it appears.
Cast
* Mara Flix as Raquel Serrano
* Arturo de Crdova as Antonio Ituarte
* Rosario Granados as Elena
* Fortunio Bonanova as Nacho Gutirrez
* Carlos Martnez Baena as Esteban
* Rafael Alcayde as Demetrio
* Eduardo Casado as Licenciado Jimnez
* Luis Mussot as Dr. Vidaurri
* Carlos Villaras as Juez
* Natalia Gentil Arcos as Mara
* Paco Martnez as Villarreal
* Rogelio Fernndez as Marinero
* Alfredo Varela padre as Juez registro civil
* Jos Arratia
* Adolfo Ballano Bueno
* Fernando Casanova as Empleado juzgado
* Ana Mara Hernndez as Invitada a fiesta
* Miguel ngel Lpez as Joven mensajero
* Jos Muoz as Detective polica
* Juan Orraca as Detective
* Manuel Pozos as Jos
* Flix Samper as Asociado en mesa redonda
* Juan Villegas as Empleado de Antonio
Production
Filming began on 10 February 1947 at the Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City.
There were reports that one of the film's screenwriters, Jos Revueltas, had been ordered, supposedly by director Roberto Gavaldn, to enlarge the role of Rosario Granados to make it as important as that of Mara Flix. Revueltas vehemently denied this in a letter addressed to the editor of one of the magazines that had published said allegation, and according to Emilio Garca Riera, "Revueltas defended his integrity in the letter with good reason, but the film is by itself evidence in his favor: [Rosario] Granados has a role that is in effect secondary, that allows to show off much less than that of Mara Flix."
However, what Revueltas said in his letter, regarding the fact that he and other filmmakers had received "the trust" of the film's producers to fulfill their vision, was contested by Revueltas himself in an interview 30 years later with Paco Ignacio Taibo I, where he affirmed that the plot, the adaptation and the script were beyond his control and that of all those involved. Revueltas affirmed: "[] there were many of us collaborators and we all put a little here and a little there. [] After we had finished the script, Tito Davison put his hand on it again and things changed again. These kinds of disasters happen in cinema; some correct others and in the end no one remembers what they wrote. On the other hand, directors have their own ideas and ask that these appear in the script. Edmundo Bez said that some scriptwriters were like tailors, that we made the suit tailored to this star or the other. I thought we were not so much tailors as cobblers []".
The explicit nature (for the time) of certain love scenes generated controversy. Revueltas said that apart from the problems with the script, "[Besides that] there was the censorship: it was the stupidest thing in the world. A censorship of idiots, with which it could not be argued." Several civil organizations criticized the film, claiming that it violated morality. In response to the scandal, the film's producers placed the statue used in the film in the lobby of the Chapultepec cinema, as an attraction factor for spectators. This caused one of the organizations protesting the film, the 'Comit Pro Dignificacin del Vestuario Femenino' (CPDVF, "Committee for the Dignification of Women's Clothing"), to steal the statue.
The explicit nature of the film's romantic scenes also affected Flix's relationship with his then-husband, composer Agustn Lara, to the point that 'calaveras literarias' ("skull literature", mocking short poems made in Day of the Dead) and cartoons mocked Felix and Lara's crumbling relationship referring to the film.
Reception
'Cinmas d'Amrique Latine' called it a "masterpiece of melodrama in which the heroine displays an eroticism out of the ordinary." However, in his book 'Mara Flix: 47 pasos por el cine', Paco Ignacio Taibo I, while referring to the film as a "very curious screwball", claimed that it "got lost in a convoluted plot", highlighting the fact that De Crdova's and Flix's character are lovers, only for his character to try to kill her at a certain point.
In 'Mujeres de luz y sombra en el cine mexicano: la construccin de una imagen (19391952)', Julia Tuon wrote: "It is a consistent proposal that contributes with a corpus that is inscribed within a social system of ideas and mentalities that follow a rhythm within the story with its characters."
References
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