is a film project begun in 1930 by the Russian avant-garde director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) under contract to socialist author Upton Sinclair and other supporters in the United States.
The title ¡Que viva México!, originally proposed by Eisenstein in correspondence with Upton Sinclair during the last months of shooting, was first used for a version made by Grigori Alexandrov,[3] which was co-edited by Alexandrov and Esfir Tobak [4] and released in 1979, about a decade after the footage was sent to the USSR by the Museum of Modern Art in exchange for several Soviet films from the Gosfilmofond film archive.
[9] Film scholar Inga Karetnikova details this production as a classic example of avant-garde aesthetics, an exercise in form rather than documentary realism; but "indirectly", she argues, "he did recreate the Mexican atmosphere".
Above all, he saw in the Mexican revolution an instance of a "zealous idealism" that was also "close to Eisenstein, just as it was to the entire generation of Soviet avant-garde of the early 1920s".
[10] Some years later, in 1927, Eisenstein had the opportunity to meet the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who was visiting Moscow for the celebrations of the Russian revolution's tenth anniversary.
[12] There is no evidence that Eisenstein had any specific idea for a film about or set in Mexico before his actual arrival there in December 1930, although he began shooting almost immediately.
The Sinclairs had made it clear that they were expecting Eisenstein to concentrate on visual imagery, and anything by way of a plot would be secondary: they were looking for an artistic travelogue.
Only later still would this idea resolve itself into the concept of a six-part film encompassing the history of the nation, its people and its societal evolution to the present time.
Specific details and the contents of each section, and how to connect them, would evolve further over the ensuing months while Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse shot tens of thousands of feet of film.
[13] The modern film theorist Bordwell also claims that each episode would have its own distinct style, be "dedicated to a different Mexican artist", and would "also base itself on some primal element (stone, water, iron, fire, air)".
In Alexandrov and Tobak's 1979 version, which attempts to be as faithful as possible to Eisenstein's original vision, the film unfolds as follows: Set in the time of the Maya civilization in Yucatán.
Evidence indicates that Eisenstein secretly planned to compose this segment using satirical shots of fat priests, pompous generalissimos, girl scouts and football players, at least for the version to be shown in the U.S.S.R.