Borges Film – Hombre de la esquina rosada

Hombre de la esquina rosada
Man on the Pink Corner (Streetcorner Man)

1962, Argentina, B&W, 70 minutes

Crew
Directed by René Múgica.
Screenplay by Joaquin Gomez Bas, Isaac Aisemberg, and Carlos Aden.
Photography by Alberto Etchebchere.
Music by Tito Ribero.

Cast
Francisco Petrone — Francisco Real, “El Corralero”
Susana Campos — La Lujanera
Jacinto Herrera — Rosendo Juárez, “El Pegador”
Walter Vidarte — El Oriental
Berta Ortegosa — Julia
Jorge de la Riestra — Eleodoro, “El Turco”
Adolfo Linvel — Nicanor

Synopsis

The year is 1910, and Argentina is celebrating its Centennial. Among the busy streets of Buenos Aires, a paroled prisoner named Francisco Real kills an unknown assailant. Discovering that the victim once wronged his friend Nicolás Fuentes, Real begins a quest of vengeance that leads him into the heart of a violent love triangle.

Comments

The Argentine writer and filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky writes about Hombre de la esquina rosada in his 1980 book, Borges In/And/On Film:

In his 1954 prologue to a new edition of Universal History of Infamy, Borges wrote that “The Man on the Pink Corner” (or “Streetcorner Man” as Norman Thomas di Giovanni and Borges later translated it in The Universal History of Infamy, New York, 1972) “has enjoyed a singular, somewhat mysterious success.” The “belabored composition,” which Borges also referred to in that preface, seems to have been governed solely by his interest in staging a tableau of purely verbal local color, in pursuing an imaginary philology, even of playing with a first-person narrative whose authority is called into question at the end by the sudden appearance of a second speaker: that same “Borges” to whom the story has been deceptively addressed. That such a frankly artificial story could have appeared to many critics as Borges’s rare venture into realism reveals a misconception similar to the error of confusing “Emma Zunz,” that game based on the nature of narrative probability, with a sort of combined detective story and slice of life. “Streetcorner Man” is the Borges story preferred by those readers least interested in his writing. It is possible to discover in it a certain folkloric picturesqueness, a surprise ending, a hasty marriage of passion and death that guarantee the tale’s effectiveness. Frequently, nothing more has been discovered in it.

The film based on that story, however, discovers other possibilities. Made in 1962 by Argentina Sono Film to increase that company’s prestige, the film tried to reconcile the name of a famous writer (who by that time occupied a position of honor in the ecclesia visibilis of Argentine letters very different from the one he held when Días de odio was made) with some opportunities for spectacle. The adapters pushed back the time of the action to May 25, 1910, so that all the excitement of the nation’s centennial would dominate the slim plot. Street dancing, folk races, tugs of war, and greased poles are some of the “numbers” that enliven the film. More importantly, the studied brevity of the dialogue as well as the ability on the part of René Múgica to link episodes with their setting confer a highly professional stamp on the enterprise. According to the categories that still retained some usefulness when these films were made, Días de odio was looked at as a pure example of “author’s cinema,” while Hombre de la esquina rosada offered an equally clear example of a genre film.

As for Múgica, he approached the film according to his own ideas. In Francesco Real he saw “a character with an enormous capacity for tragedy…a very typical person in my country. For a long time they have lived with the tragic destiny of killing without even knowing their victims. They have had to kill people they met only a little while before. They have had to endure this tragedy until they themselves are killed or until they are destroyed… I tried to say through them that machismo is worthless, that a man’s values cannot be based on that conception of life. Neither can love be reduced to that” (quoted by José Luis Egea, Nuestro cine 14, Madrid, November 1962).

The purpose behind Múgica’s criticism corresponded to the intention of those U.S. film makers who set out to dissect genres, like the western, or types, like the gangster, from within, so as to expose their ideological base. What severely limits this aspect of Múgica’s film is not so much the acceptance of another set of rhetorical conventions (in the acting, dramatic situation, and lighting) as the tendency to replace those archetypes with figures from classical tragedy, eliminating the very individuals who embody them and whom the director recalls in his statements. This same tendency prevailed in Múgicas’s next film—El reñidero (1963)—where, following the pattern of a successful play by Sergio de Cecco, he transcribed situations out of Sophocles, using the local color of a turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires neighborhood.

—Edgardo Cozarinsky

Borges’ Comments

In 1979, Borges gave a radio interview with Radio National de España in which he discussed the movie:

De todas las adaptaciones cinematográficas de mi obra, sólo hubo una buena: el mal cuento “Hombre de la esquina rosada” inspiró un excelente film con el mismo título, dirigido por René Múgica. Era éste un film admirable, muy superior al relato endeble en el cual se inspiró. Lo demás que se ha hecho prefiero callarlo. (…) Luego hubo una película titulada Los otros (Les autres [1974], de Hugo Santiago). Eso se hizo en francés. No recuerdo el nombre del director. Se estrenó en París, donde fracasó. Yo no la vi nunca. También hicieron otras películas de las cuales no quiero acordarme. (…) Aunque participé en alguno de los guiones, luego todo aquel trabajo fue transformado de tal manera—quizá mejorado—que yo no lo reconocí al ver el producto final. Por ejemplo, en uno de aquellos films habían invertido el orden cronológico del relato: empezaban por el medio, luego iban al final, y para terminar, volvían al principio. Todo eso sin que yo tuviera nada que ver . Por eso siempre les digo a los cineastas que hagan lo que quieran con mis argumentos. Yo prefiero que no pongan mi nombre para no hacerme responsable de nada. Aun así, ellos insisten en poner mi nombre y luego yo resulto responsable de la ofensa.

Rendered into somewhat passable English through Google Translate, with a few tweaks added for clarity:

Of all the film adaptations of my work, there was only one that was any good: my bad story “Man on the Pink Corner” inspired an excellent film with the same title, directed by René Múgica. This was an admirable film, far superior to the flimsy tale in the which was inspired. The rest that have been done, I prefer to remain silent (…) Then there was a film entitled The Others (Les autres [1974], by Hugo Santiago ). That was done in French. I don’t remember the name of the director. It premiered in Paris, where it failed. I never saw it. They also made other films that I don’t want to remember. (…) Although I participated in one of the scripts, all my work was transformed in such a way—perhaps improved—that I didn’t recognize it when I saw the final product; for example, in one of those films they reversed the chronological order of the story: they started in the middle, then went to the end, and finally, they returned to the beginning. I had nothing to do with it. That’s why I always tell filmmakers to do whatever they want with my work. I prefer not to put my name on films, so as not to be responsible for anything. Even so, they insist on using my name, and then I am responsible for the offense.

Additional Information

Hombre de la esquina rosada
You can watch excerpts from the film on YouTube. [Spanish]

IMDB Page
The Internet Movie Database features a profile of Hombre de la esquina rosada.

Wikipedia Page
Wikipedia hosts a page on Hombre de la esquina rosada.

Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 25 August 2024
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