Paul Leduc (film director)
| Paul Leduc | |
|---|---|
| Born |
11 March 1942 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Education | Universidade Nacional Autônoma de México (the National Autonomous University of Mexico) |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1968 – present |
| Children | Daughter - Valentina Leduc Navarro |
Paul Leduc (born 11 March 1942) is a film director. He was born in Mexico City, Mexico.
One of Leduc's most acclaimed works is Frida, naturaleza viva (1983 - marketed as Frida in the U.S.), a tribute to the indomitable spirit and determination of the painter Frida Kahlo.
Paul Leduc studied architecture and theatre, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; attended a French film school, Institut des hautes etudes cinematographiques (IDHEHC). His film career began in a university department of film studies. His first films were documentaries. Leduc like other filmmakers of his time were seeking for answers to create a form of cinema capable of “affirming our culture and our language. Daring the encounter with our originality-and with reality, the profound relationship with what happens to us and what entertains, afflicts or liberates us.”
Leduc was able to launch his career due to a unique situation. During the reign of President Luis Echeverria (1970–76) the Mexican government actively intervened as a producer of cinema. Under this new policy the government paid for the amplification of Reed: Insurgent Mexico to 35mm. This is the only time the Mexican government intervened in one of Leduc films. For the rest of his career he funded his films independently, through universities and unions, and with collective efforts. Leduc's works reflect a person’s concern for certainty. Etnocidio: notas sobre el Mezquital is a powerful documentary on the extermination of the native peoples in Latin America. This documentary shows how the Otomi Indians of the Mezquital region in Mexico to relate their experiences with “civilized” society. The creation of the film was through a collaborative effort, the “script” was written by Roger Bartra, Mexico’s top leading rural sociologist. This film was based on Bartra years of research in the Mezquital region.
Reed: Insurgent Mexico is one of Leduc's most accomplished fiction in film, and was the first really distinctive work of the "New Cinema" movement in Mexico. The film was produced on a very small budget with a 16mm camera. Purposely undramatic, Reed interprets the Mexican revolution (1910–17) in a way that had not been seen since Fernando De Fuentes's masterpieces of (1933–35). This film provides the viewer with a beautiful sepia tone which help reproduce the environment of historic revolutionary setting. A Mexican critic, Jorge Ayala Blanco, described Reed as "raging against, incinerating, and annihilating the spider web that had been knitted over the once-living image of the revolution, while briefly illuminating the nocturnal ruins of our temporal and cultural distance from the men who participated in that upheaval." The film is a dramatization of John Reed's famous account of the Mexican revolution, Insurgent Mexico, with Reed as the main character.
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Wikipedia