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La Hora de los Hornos

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from La hora de los hornos: Notas y testimonios sobre el neocolonialismo, la violencia y la liberación (The Hour of the Furnaces) (1968)
Created by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
Posted byKara Keeling

One of the foundational documentaries of Third Cinema, La Hora de Los Hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces) was released in 1968 by Argentinian filmmakers, Fernando Solanas and Octavia Getino.

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The Hour of the Furnaces as Open Text

by Kara Keeling

These are the first 4 minutes and 41 seconds of Solanas and Getino's 1968 film La Hora de los Hornos, The Hour of the Furnaces.

The Hour of the Furnaces can be understood as an essay film in documentary form.  It makes an argument using quotations, text on the screen, and other audiovisual components designed to persuade and affect its audience to a leftist political consciousness and action.

The film itself is a deft and urgent call for revolutionary action that works with and against the formal capacities of celluloid film.  Solanas and Getino sought to integrate an audience's capacity for revolution into the structure of the film itself by including pauses within the structure of the documentary when the projectionist could stop the film in order to allow for discussion among the audience members.  In this way, the film was to serve as a springboard for conversation, planning, and action.  It was created to be an open, "imperfect", text that would function as an interlocutor in a broader dialogue about neocolonialism, American imperialism, and the possibilities for national liberation.

Copyright 2010, by the Contributing Authors. Cite/attribute Resource. KaraKeeling. (2010, July 26). The Hour of the Furnaces as Open Text. Retrieved February 07, 2012, from Critical Commons Web site: http://criticalcommons.org/Members/KaraKeeling/commentaries/the-hour-of-the-furnaces-as-open-text. This work is licensed under a No Copyright; No Rights Reserved.