Social Violence, Political Conflict, and Latin American Film

Abstract

This article examines the political role of documentary film in Chile between 1970 and 1973. Based on a careful study of two influential films, Pedro Chaskel and Hector Ríos's Venceremos and Patricio Guzman's The Battle of Chile, the author argues that documentary filmmakers engaged, analyzed, and sought to inform the political trajectory of Allende's peaceful road to socialism, highlighting the revolutionary potential of film while experimenting with aesthetic and formal languages appropriate to the political context of the time. Turning their attention to the ways in which everyday experience was politicized, and paying special attention to the political struggle played out in city streets, these filmmakers were able to explore the relationship between political change, social inequality, and everyday and state violence. These films are, in short, important documents for the writing of a cultural history of political change in the late twentieth century.