American Cinematographer - July 1991 - 36

Tisse's Unfinished Treasure:

Que Viva Mexico
by Julian "Bud" Lesser

"We regard it as one of our greatest treasures/'
said Eileen Bowser, speaking not ago at the Museum
of Modem Art. She was referring to Que Viva Mexico!,
the film that cinematographer Eduard Tisse could not
finish.
The Sergei Eisenstein-directed Que Viva
Mexico! was shut down during its 1932 Hollywood-

border to Switzerland, to France, and even to Mexico
and the United States.
It was his camera - not politics, not power,
not

nepotism - that gave Tisse such privilege in his
police-state homeland. With his own hand-crank
cameras-which he serviced himself-Tisse created
masterful images of his people in films like The

financed pro¬
duction
and
remains

Potemkin, Ten

uncompleted.

the World and
Deathless Garri¬

Battleship
Days That Shook

Nevertheless,

portions
of
negative
yielded a one-

son.

hour condensa¬
tion and six
short subjects,

the

plus

a
version

fledgling

communist

state, these films
were
instantly
recognized

pre¬

worldwide
works of art.

pared by the
for

film schools.
Tisse has

as

Today So¬
viet filmmak¬
ers
travel abroad more or
less as they

also earned ac¬
colades from
the
troubled
business man¬

Hunter

please, favored
by Gorbachev's
liberal policies;

Kimbrough.

Russo-Ameri-

"Our

camera¬

can

man,

Eduard

Tisse,

was one

ager

of Que

Viva,

co-produc¬

tions

are even

possible. Yet
films bearing

of the finest
I
ever

men

Tisse's

knew," Kim¬
brough assert¬

remain

name
un¬

ed recently as
he recounted
fourteen

matched in box
office power. Of
the six Soviet
features receiv¬

months spent

ing the most

with Tisse

on

the awkward Mexican location.
Tisse (tee-say) was one of the

few Soviet citi¬

permitted to travel abroad from the 1920s to the
1950s, the Stalin years. The USSR had sealed virtually
all its citizens in, yet Tisse was passed through the
zens

34

sus¬

picions about

study

museum

Despite

East-West

Tisse's

American

Cinematographer

playing time in
European and American theaters from the 1920s to
date, four were shot by Eduard Tisse.
Tisse was a combat cameraman who mas¬
tered features. Bom in Libau, Latvia in 1897, Eduard

Kazimirovich Tisse attended

July 1991

an

art

academy where,

KHCimouclbneorcututerigtrhensy

Phot s



American Cinematographer - July 1991

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 1991

American Cinematographer - July 1991 - 1
American Cinematographer - July 1991 - 2
American Cinematographer - July 1991 - 3
American Cinematographer - July 1991 - 4
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