Introduction. The Place of The Hour of the Furnaces in World Cinema (and in the Political World)

CAMPO, JAVIER Y PÉREZ BLANCO, HUMBERTO

A Trail of Fire for a Political Cinema. The Hour of the Furnaces fifty years later

Intellect

Lugar: Bristol; Año: 2018; p. 1 - 22

This highly significant film has influenced profoundly different cinematographies worldwide because it brought together a work of political reflection with aesthetic experimentation because, as Robert Stam notes "while revolutionary aesthetics without revolutionary politics is often futile, revolutionary politics without revolutionary aesthetics is equally retrograde" (Stam 1998, 284) this is why The Hour of the Furnaces continues to be a seminal contribution to revolutionary cinema. The title of the film refers to a verse by José Martí: "es la hora de los hornos y no se ha de ver más que la luz (is the hour of the furnaces and only the light shall be seen"), in reference to the fires that sailors saw when arriving to the American coast. Che Guevara quoted this verse in his seminal work about the "foco revolutionary" (foquism) "to create one, two, three, many Vietnams"           But the film pushes us to talk of the present time too and that explains its currency today fifty years after its premiere at the Pesaro Film Festival in Italy. It is not just a fancy thought on our part to justify this book. Again, those who study film are who note the validity of a continuous search for referents and influences from the film in films from all over the world. Nicole Brenez in Sight and Sound a few years ago signalled "the film as a central reference for cinematic activism" There are other recent contributions that made a similar argument such as those of Paul Schroeder, Michael Chanan and Patricia Aufderheide (and not including the studies coming out of Latin America about the film). What is important to highlight here is that The Hour of the Furnaces is still the source of much talk. At fifty, it still shows signs of vitality.