Mexican Revolution

Some countries are so ancient that their origins are lost in the mists of time. Other nations came of age with the whole world watching their epic convulsions, cameras and recorders in hand. A new photography exhibition, "A Nation Emerges: The Mexican Revolution Revealed," organized by the Getty Research Institute at downtown's Central Library and running through June 3, documents one of the bloodiest and most stirring of these historic rites of passage. Drawing on the Getty institute's bulky archival holdings, "A Nation Emerges" traces the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 from its beginnings, when the country chafed under the iron heel of dictator-president Porfirio Díaz, through endless political twists and battlefield turns as the uprising devolved into a brutal civil war among rival factions and shaky alliances (not to mention U.S. military intervention)

Some countries are so ancient that their origins are lost in the mists of time. Other nations came of age with the whole world watching their epic convulsions, cameras and recorders in hand. A new photography exhibition, "A Nation Emerges: The Mexican Revolution Revealed," organized by the Getty Research Institute at downtown's Central Library and running through June 3, documents one of the bloodiest and most stirring of these historic rites of passage. Drawing on the Getty institute's bulky archival holdings, "A Nation Emerges" traces the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 from its beginnings, when the country chafed under the iron heel of dictator-president Porfirio Díaz, through endless political twists and battlefield turns as the uprising devolved into a brutal civil war among rival factions and shaky alliances (not to mention U.S. military intervention)

The Vietnam conflict has been called the first television war, beaming visions of battlefield carnage directly into America's living rooms. But the first cinematic war likely was the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920, a multiphased, internecine conflict that left at least 1 million people dead. And its biggest "star" was Pancho Villa, the daring, strategically brilliant leader of the guerrilla army that helped seize control of the country's northern and border territories for the rebels.

Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, a renowned historian of Mexico and Latin America whose books included in-depth studies of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions, has died. He was 88. Ruiz, an emeritus professor of history at UC San Diego, died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe of complications from a recent fall and a battle with cancer, said his daughter Olivia Ruiz. Ruiz, who joined the history department at UC San Diego in 1970 and chaired the department in the early '70s, was the author of 15 books, including "Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People," "Cuba: The Making of a Revolution," "The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905-1924" and "On the Rim of Mexico: Encounters of the Rich and Poor."

If you stand in a central spot in "The World of Agustin Victor Casasola, Mexico: 1900-1938," an exhibition of documentary photographs at UCLA's Frederick S. Wight Gallery, you get a capsule view of the Mexican photojournalist's expansive vision. Facing you is a photo mural of pre-revolution Mexican dignitaries, formally dressed and lined up for an official portrait.

German List Arzubide, 100, poet who chronicled the bloody Mexican Revolution of 1910-20. Born in Puebla, capital of the Mexican state of Puebla, on May 31, 1898, List said on his 100th birthday: "I want to die smiling, as I will soon do, since I don't want to continue abusing life, especially when the doctors have taken all the fun away by forbidding me alcohol and women." His poetry, now little known, was very popular during the revolution in which more than 1 million people were killed.

Scenes of the Mexican Revolution by photojournalist Augustin Victor Casasola can be seen at two local galleries this month: The Plaza de la Raza and UCLA's Frederick S. Wight Gallery. "The World of Augustin Victor Casasola: Mexico 1900-1938," opening Tuesday at UCLA, offers a broad representation of Casasola's work through more than 140 photographs.

On Sundays in the old days, the whole family gathered at the Southern California chicken ranch to hear the old man tell tales of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. They sat around the fire, children and grandchildren of Rosario Zarate Torres, once a teenage recruit of Pancho Villa. The old man's memory of the social upheaval was phenomenal--dates, places, full names.

While the consul general of Mexico was paying tribute last month in Los Angeles to the fallen heroes of the Mexican Revolution, an elderly man approached the microphone with the aid of a cane. The audience almost stopped listening as their eyes shifted from the speaker to the white-haired, bronze-skinned man who paused beside a statue of Pancho Villa, the famed general who commanded the revolutionary forces in northern Mexico. The small-framed man with the piercing brown eyes was Tomas D.

He was a brilliant military leader and hero of the people. Or he was a menacing, murdering bandit. The judgment depends on who does the assessing. But by all accounts Pancho Villa was the best known and most visible leader of the Mexican Revolution, which spanned the first decades of this century. "Whether he was good or bad depends on who you talk to," said Dona Alicia Villa, 72, youngest daughter of the revolutionary. Even her mother had mixed feelings, she said.

Carlos Reygadas admits that when he first heard the concept behind the new movie "Revolución" — a compilation of 10 short films by 10 different Mexican directors — he felt "a little reluctant" to join in. Omnibus movies, he knew, often add up to less than the sum of their parts. And the theme of this particular film came spring-loaded with significance: the legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Furthermore, the movie's release would be timed to coincide with this year's heavily hyped centennial celebrations taking place on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Vietnam conflict has been called the first television war, beaming visions of battlefield carnage directly into America's living rooms. But the first cinematic war likely was the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920, a multiphased, internecine conflict that left at least 1 million people dead. And its biggest "star" was Pancho Villa, the daring, strategically brilliant leader of the guerrilla army that helped seize control of the country's northern and border territories for the rebels.

The famous rebel poses in full regalia, his right hand gripping an Old West carbine, his left steadying a sword that dangles from the waist. You recognize the bushy mustache, broad sombrero, crisscrossed bandoleers. It's an icon of Mexican history: a black-and-white photograph of Emiliano Zapata believed taken in 1911, a year after the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Published in a Mexican newspaper two years later and reproduced since then in history textbooks and on postcards, T-shirts and shopping bags, the Zapata image is almost as famous as that of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Regarding Yvonne Villarreal's fine Nov. 30 article ["Revelatory Heroes of a Revolution"], these various artworks about the Mexican Revolution held many of the images still used by Mexican outlaws today; the skull with crossed bones or cutlasses; skeletons; devils; an hourglass and so on. To "strike your colors," then and now, was a way to show the world your standard and banner. In both cases the message is clear: "Mess with us at your own peril." Evan Dale Santos Adelanto

A framed poster of Leo Carrillo starring as Mexican caballero Francisco "Pancho" Villa in the 1950 film "Pancho Villa Returns" rests, in all its pristine splendor, on a cobalt wall. Tag lines such as "The man who made history with cyclonic fury!" and "The Robin Hood of Mexico" are splashed across the bill, luring potential viewers to witness Villa as a paragon of virtue. But this is not a theater revisiting the golden age of Mexican cinema.

A COMBINED 16 Oscar nominations have put the spotlight on Mexican film artists. The most celebrated are Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose "Babel" received seven nominations, including for best director and best movie; Guillermo del Toro, who directed and wrote "Pan's Labyrinth," which received six nominations; and Alfonso Cuaron, whose "Children of Men" got three Oscar nods. But it is not the first time that Mexican talent has enjoyed widespread acclaim in the United States.

"The Old Gringo" is a novel by Carlos Fuentes, a movie by Argentine director Luis Puenzo--starring Jane Fonda and Gregory Peck--and an occasion to dwell on the way Mexico tells its story to Americans. The film, which opened in the United States this past week, has already sparked a new and lively version of the age-old debate in Mexico about what is wrong with American, supposedly stereotypical portrayals of the nation and its people.

Rebel leader Subcommander Marcos on Thursday took his campaign for indigenous rights into the heartland of the Mexican Revolution, placing a floral wreath on the spot where peasant hero Emiliano Zapata was assassinated 82 years ago. On the 13th day of a 2,100-mile trek from his base in the southern state of Chiapas to the nation's capital, Marcos pointedly followed Zapata's famous trail in the central state of Morelos.

IN the wake of a long revolution against dictatorship, Mexican artists vowed in the 1920s to create works that would instruct and enrich the masses. They even signed a manifesto proclaiming, "We repudiate so-called easel painting and every kind of art favored by ultra-intellectual circles." Out of this mood came the great murals of modern Mexico, especially the monumental works of Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

A Mexican bishop who worked clandestinely in order to elude execution and a French-born nun who was a missionary in the 19th century American wilderness were elevated to sainthood Sunday in a regal ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI. Thousands of pilgrims from Mexican villages, U.S. cities and elsewhere crowded into St. Peter's Square to salute the naming of four Roman Catholic saints, the second canonization that Benedict has performed in his 18-month papacy.