''Redes'' is a Mexican film, released in 1936, about the fishing community of Alvarado on the Gulf Coast of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

, near the city of

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

. The film's title comes from the Spanish word ''redes'' ("nets") in reference to

fishing nets A fishing net is a Net (device), net used for fishing. Nets are devices made from fibers woven in a grid-like structure. Some fishing nets are also called fish traps, for example #Fyke nets, fyke nets. Fishing nets are usually meshes formed by ...

. The English-language edition's title is ''The Wave'' (apparently referring to imagery at the end of the film). ''Redes'' was made with a mainly non-professional cast and has been seen as anticipating

Italian neorealism Italian neorealism ( it, Neorealismo), also known as the Golden Age, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class. They are filmed on location, frequently with non-professional actors. They pri ...

. It concerns the struggle of poor fishermen to overcome exploitation.

Production

Paul Strand Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century ...

began work on the project, which was originally conceived as a documentary, in 1933. He had come to Mexico at the invitation of the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, who had a government job promoting the arts under the socialist education minister

Narciso Bassols Narciso Bassols García (October 22, 1897 – July 24, 1959) was a Mexican lawyer, socialist politician, ambassador to France, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, and professor of law at the National University of Mexico. He co-founde ...

. The film developed into a work of fiction with a scenario by Strand and Agustín Chávez, nephew of the composer. Towards the end of 1933, Henwar Rodakiewicz, a friend of Strand's from the Camera Club of New York, arrived to assist in the production. Rodakiewicz determined that the scenario was ragged and incoherent.Letter, Henwar Rodakiewicz to Ned Scott, November 8, 1933:http://www.thenedscottarchive.com/redesfilm/redes-film-letters.html Before returning to the US for a few months, he wrote a

shooting script A shooting script is the version of a screenplay used during the production of a motion picture. Shooting scripts are distinct from spec scripts in that they make use of scene numbers (along with certain other formatting conventions described be ...

for the film and made arrangements for his friend, Fred Zinnemann, to travel to Alvarado to take on the role of director. Zinnemann did not speak Spanish, while his co-director

Emilio Gómez Muriel Emilio Gómez Muriel was a prolific Mexican film director, active between the 1930s and the 1970s. He is known for melodramas,, accessed via JSTOR (subscription required) but one of his first films was ''Redes'' (release: 1936), an attempt at s ...

worked directly with the actors. The crew included still photographer Ned Scott. Filming was done on location in Alvarado, and the sound was added later. Strand had left-wing views and was influenced by Eisenstein (whose ''

Battleship Potemkin '' Battleship Potemkin'' (russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», ''Bronenosets Potyomkin''), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent drama film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by S ...

'' includes imagery of waves). Zinnemann cited

Robert Flaherty Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, '' Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputati ...

as an influence. The production was affected by political developments in 1934. Bassols resigned as minister of education in May and Carlos Chávez was replaced. Work on ''Redes'' continued under Chávez' successor, Antonio Castro Leal. However, Strand was warned that funding could not be guaranteed beyond the end of the year, when a new president was due to take office. He left Mexico early in 1935 with the film still unreleased.

Film music

The Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, who had not previously written film music, was commissioned to provide the score in 1934. Revueltas was a protégé of Carlos Chávez, who had appointed him as assistant conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico: however, the two men fell out around the time of the commission (possibly because Chávez had expected to write the music). Revueltas visited Alvarado during the shooting, and composed quickly. The score is considered a classic of film music. As the music rarely overlaps with dialogue, it has been possible to show the film with live orchestral accompaniment. ''Redes'' is one of the few pieces of Mexican film music to have entered the concert repertory. Revueltas made an orchestral suite from the ''Redes'' score, which he premiered in 1936. However, in concert performance the music is usually heard in an arrangement by

Erich Kleiber Erich Kleiber (5 August 1890 – 27 January 1956) was an Austrian, later Argentine, conductor, known for his interpretations of the classics and as an advocate of new music. Kleiber was born in Vienna, and after studying at the Prague Conservato ...

, made in the 1940s after the composer's death. Kleiber's version is in two parts and lasts about 16 minutes.

Release

Despite the problems making the film, it appears to have been more or less finished in 1935. More editing was done before its release in Mexico in 1936. The film was released in France and the US in 1937. It was restored in 2009 by the

World Cinema Foundation The World Cinema Project (WCP), formerly World Cinema Foundation, is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and restoration of neglected world cinema, founded by Martin Scorsese. History Founded in 2007 as the World Cinema Founda ...

Critical reception

The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

film reviewer was dismissive of the quality of the narrative, but acknowledged the merits of the photography and music.

Frank S. Nugent Frank Stanley Nugent (May 27, 1908 – December 29, 1965) was an American screenwriter, journalist, and film reviewer, who wrote 21 film scripts, 11 for director John Ford. He wrote almost a thousand reviews for ''The New York Times'' before lea ...

(April 21, 1937)
The Wave (1937)
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' ''The New York Times'' also published an article by

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

praising Revueltas' music. Copland said that for the Mexican Government to choose Revueltas to supply the music for ''The Wave'' is very much like the U.S.S.R. asking Shostakovich to supply sound for its best pictures.

References

External links

*
Redes

Redes Film
The Ned Scott Archive *
Redes Film History
The Ned Scott Archive *
Redes Production Stills
The Ned Scott Archive *
Redes Letters
The Ned Scott Archive *
Redes Published Literature
The Ned Scott Archive
''Redes: El cine mexicano''
an essay by Charles Ramírez Berg at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

{{Paul Strand Mexican drama films Films directed by Emilio Gómez Muriel Films directed by Fred Zinnemann Mexican black-and-white films Social realism in film 1936 films 1930s Spanish-language films