The Golden Age of Mexican cinema (1936-1959) produced great films that established a national identity through movies such as Macario (1961), by Roberto Gavaldón, and Salón México (1949), by Antonio Díaz Conde. The film, Macario, follows the story of a man named Macario, a peasant who struggles to survive along with his family due to poverty. The Death gives Macario the ability to tell who will die and how to cure those who are sick after Macario shares with him one of his meals. Salón México is about Mercedes, a woman who works in a cabaret in order to keep her sister, Beatriz, at a private school. One time, Mercedes participates in a dancing contest along with Paco and after he refuses to give her part of the money prize, she steals the money from him.
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The Mexican Revolution did not change much the relationship between the church and the state. Consequently, the Cristero War, an uprising between 1926 and 1929 in which people defended their Catholic beliefs from the government’s efforts for secularism, demonstrated that the lower-class Mexican community were the most attached to their religious beliefs. As more revolutionaries became elitist, many admitted their conservatism. This lead to cinematic efforts for “National Unity” and homogeneity of lo Mexicano (Mraz 107) that produced films influenced by religious elements (Evans 5-20). Therefore, I will argue that the visual and the content-based depiction of religion in Macario and Salón México are part of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema’s nationalist project to establish a common religion by portraying it as a non-present power, a daily-life ritual, and assimilating it with pre-colonial traditions. This is important because, since the Golden Age was significant for the Mexican identity, it can lead to comprehend why México has the largest population of
The Mexican Revolution did not change much the relationship between the church and the state. Consequently, the Cristero War, an uprising between 1926 and 1929 in which people defended their Catholic beliefs from the government’s efforts for secularism, demonstrated that the lower-class Mexican community were the most attached to their religious beliefs. As more revolutionaries became elitist, many admitted their conservatism. This lead to cinematic efforts for “National Unity” and homogeneity of lo Mexicano (Mraz 107) that produced films influenced by religious elements (Evans 5-20). Therefore, I will argue that the visual and the content-based depiction of religion in Macario and Salón México are part of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema’s nationalist project to establish a common religion by portraying it as a non-present power, a daily-life ritual, and assimilating it with pre-colonial traditions. This is important because, since the Golden Age was significant for the Mexican identity, it can lead to comprehend why México has the largest population of