The Pampas of Victoria Ocampo, between Orson Welles and Vittorio De Sica

entre Orson Welles y Vittorio De Sica

Abstract

In 1930, Victoria Ocampo had planned for Sergei Eisenstein to film a “documentary poem about the Pampas”. But as the decade progressed and, later, with the beginning of World War II, the Group Sur became increasingly intolerant of communism and aligned itself with the pan-Americanism promoted by the United States. Ocampo did not forget that film project, which she considered necessary to correct the flaws of Argentine cinema; but she now sought a director less ideologically committed to carry it out. In American social realism and Italian neorealism, she believed she had found possible models, but all her efforts ended in failure. This essay analyzes the transformations undergone by Ocampo’s documentary poem.