Gabriel Figueroa

Gabriel Figueroa is one of Mexico's greatest artists. Indeed, some have called him the "fourth muralist", after the three great ones, Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco. Figueroa was friendly with all three, and the cinematographer admittedly borrowed pictorial elements from the muralists, and, surprisingly, the painters admitted they borrowed from the filmmaker as well. As Figueroa's son revealed in an interview: "Whenever my father was invited to one of his exhibits, he would come in and Siqueiros would tell him, 'Now you come and see what I stole from you.' And my father would say 'Oh no. I come to see what I can steal from you.' Composition-wise and theme-wise.... The only time that my father recognized openly that he took a composition out of a painting, from a muralist, it was Orozco's. It was a water color that Orozco made of a funeral of Velorio. This water color is called The Requiem. And my father, in a picture called Flor Sylvestre with Dolores del Río, took this very same composition and interpreted it. So it happened that the day that the film was screened for the first time, Dolores del Río invited all her friends, and among her friends was Orozco. It happened that Orozco sat right next to my father. And when the scene came on, Orozco jumped out of his seat. My father said 'Maestro, I am an honest thief. I took that from one of your water colors'. Orozco said 'Of course, the depth and the volume you have in this composition is something that I didn't get in my water color. You must show me how you work so that I can see the magic of this scene.'"

Like the muralists, Figueroa's subject was Mexico itself, which he lit and photographed as the biggest, greatest movie star in the world. He made her landscapes gorgeous and, yes, even glamorous with a shimmering texture that rivaled the erotic; but also harsh, lonely, and sometimes cruel. But he was not merely a landscape photographer; he also explored the topographies of the human face, the luscious openess of smiles, the weight of centuries of sadness behind a poor woman's gaze, the grisly and grimmest gravity of a bad man's grin. Like the muralists, Figueroa took elements that seemed classically Mexican and made them universal.

There are many places where you can see some of the best of Figueroa's work. Here are a few: his official site, run by his son Gabriel Figueroa Flores, Jr., complete with a gallery of Quicktime video; a Spanish language site with plenty of images from the films and production shots as well; another Spanish language site with images and video; some erotic photgraphy by Figueroa (very tasteful, mind you); also, the odd apocryphal story that Figueroa had a hand in the creation of The Creature from the Black Lagoon; more trivia: he also helped shoot Johnny Weismuller's last Tarzan movie (along with Raul Martinez Solares, who photographed many of the Mexican horror and wrestling films from the '50s through the '70s)

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