The Journal of Film Music
127
Volume 2, Numbers 2-4, Winter 2009 Pages 127-44
ISSN 1087-7142 Copyright © 2010
The International Film Music Society, Inc.
Silvestre Revueltas’s Redes: Composing for Film or
Filming for Music?
Roberto Kolb-Neuhaus
O
n May 12, 1936 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
in Mexico City, Silvestre Revueltas directed
the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in a concert
version of the music he had recently composed for
the film Redes which would premiere just two months
later, on July 9 at Mexico City’s Cine Principal. Of nine
film scores composed by Revueltas, two—Redes (1934–
1935) and Música para charlar (1938)1— were also
conceived as concert music in the form of symphonic
poems. Of the two, Redes is of greater interest, not
only due to its musical qualities, but also because of its
historic significance within the particular confluence
of aesthetic and political references of the time,
which were highly significant in the history of art in
Mexico.2 The idea of filming a brief documentary about
fishermen in Veracruz as a pilot project for a socially
oriented cinema program sponsored by the Mexican
government was born in May 1933. Carlos Chavéz, at
the time the head of the Fine Arts Department, had
appointed American Paul Strand, head of the Cinema
Commission, to make the film. Strand was an excellent
photographer but had little experience in film. Perhaps
this is why he invited Viennese filmmaker Fred
Zinnemann to co-direct, Henwar Rodakiewicz to write
the script and Gunther von Fritsch to edit the film.
Mexicans who participated as apprentices included
Agustín Velásquez Chávez, Julio Bracho and Emilio
Gómez Muriel.
1 A score dated July 8, 1938, originally written for a government propaganda
film on the construction of a railroad that was to cross the Altar Desert to
link the Baja California peninsula with the rest of Mexico. Under the name
“Música para charlar” (Chit-Chat Music), it was premiered by the composer
in a special concert on December 15, 1938 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in
Mexico City, performed by an ad-hoc orchestra named “Orquesta Sinfónica
de Mexicanos” (Symphony Orchestra of Mexicans) for the occasion. Like
Redes, this film score was also later reworked by Erich Kleiber into a concert
suite. Perhaps unaware of the title the composer had given it, Kleiber called
his suite “Paisajes” (Landscapes).
2 See Roberto Kolb, “Redes. La versión de concierto de Silvestre Revueltas,” in
Pauta 87-88 (July–December 2003): 38-53.
doi: 10.1558/jfm.v2i2-4.
Redes intended to offer a critical vision of Mexico,
an alternative to the one propagated by the prolific
commercial cinema of the day. As García Riera
reports, “the spirit of the left, which tended to merge
glorification of nationalism and indigenism with
‘social content’ and low-budget productions, led to the
funding of Redes through a government department,
the Ministry of Education . . . . Redes above all, but
also Janitzio (Carlos Navarro, 1934) and Humanidad (a
documentary by Adolfo Best Maugard, 1934) would
be cited as the best examples of a cinema that paid
more attention to national and social interests than
to the box office.”3 It was, in fact, Russian cinema,
particularly that of Sergei Eisenstein, that was then
setting the standard for state-produced, socially
inspired, educational cinema realized in “dramatic
and aesthetic form.”4 In other words, cinema that
was simultaneously understood both as art and as a
tool for awakening the consciousness of the workers.5
This is suggested, for example, by Diego Rivera’s
contrasting of the vulgarity of Mexican commercial
cinema with the ideal of “realism” as expressed in
Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October
(1927). Stimulated by European primitivism, but
nurtured by the local muralists, it was paradoxically
Eisenstein who would give Mexico a cinematic image
of itself. Even though his Mexican adventure ¡Que
viva México! was never finished, it would exert a
powerful influence on local film making. For sardonic
3 García Riera, Emilio, Historia documental del cine mexicano, (Guadalajara,
University of Guadalajara, Jalisco State Government, Instituto Mexicano de
Cinematografía, Conaculta, 1992, Vol. 1): 120.
4 Paul Strand in a letter to Ignacio García Téllez, February 28, 1935. In
Carlos Chávez. Epistolario selecto (Selected letters of Carlos Chávez), selection,
introduction, notes and bibliography by Gloria Carmona, (Mexico City:
Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989): 199.
5 To confirm the importance of socially oriented film among the educated
classes in Mexico, one only needs to note the program for the first Mexican
cinema club, founded in 1931, the same year the first commercial sound film
was produced in Mexico (Santa by Antonio Moreno). The artistic character
and political bias in the majority of the films shown is notable—Mother by
Pudovkin, for example—but even more so in the films that were soon to be
screened: Eisenstein’s October, Thunder over Mexico (one of several films
derived from the Russian director’s sequences originally shot for ¡Que Viva
México! ) and Strike, among other conspicuously leftist films. Strand was
familiar with this body of work and did not conceal his admiration for it.
128    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
García Riera, Redes is its most immediate and clearest
example: “[Eisenstein’s] influence tended to translate
into a visual rhetoric which exalted the static and
merely photogenic, frequently portraying motionless
indigenous faces, in grave and ostensibly meaningful
poses and set in an elaborate compositional play of
nopales and magueyes (cactuses) under the beautiful
clouds of the Mexican sky, achieved by means of
powerful filters.”6 As we shall see, this description fits
Strand’s photography perfectly, provided Indians are
replaced by the mestizo fishermen of Alvarado, and
cactuses by tropical huts and palm trees. Add to this
the powerful political motivation of the muralists and
of composers such as Revueltas and we have Redes.
The filming of Redes, originally entitled Pescados,7
began at an inauspicious time. President Abelardo
Rodríguez’s term of office was almost over, a
circumstance which threatened both the political and
financial continuity of the project. In fact, the political
transition caused a number of changes in government
which had a direct effect on the film’s production.
Carlos Chavéz had to step down as head of Bellas
Artes, frustrating his plan to write the film score
himself. His successor, Antonio Castro Leal, assigned
the task to Silvestre Revueltas, which caused friction
among all concerned.8 Doubtless feeling pressured by
the imminent change of government, Castro Leal gave
Strand a deadline to complete the film, telling him he
could not guarantee funding after December 16, 1934.
Haste, not to mention countless financial and technical
problems, made the film’s editing, scoring and
sound production frustratingly haphazard. In a letter
addressed on February 28 of 1935 to the new Secretary
of Education, Ignacio García Tellez, Strand reports,
. . . The sound recording was never completed because
it was impossible, and because of the totally inefficient
organization of the task which at the time was not
under my control but under that of Velásquez Chávez.
Several rushed, under-rehearsed attempts were made
to record the music in a studio crowded with pieces
of the sets. Rodríguez, the person in charge of sound
recording, was not under contract, so we had to be
content with whatever time he could spare us. This
was usually in the evening or at night, after he had
been working all day. As a result, our recordings were
considered poor by the Hollywood laboratory, but
usable . . . 9
6 García Riera, Emilio, México visto por el cine extranjero, Guadalajara: Era, Vol.
III (1987): 195 (my translation).
7 The title was a play on words, as pescados can mean both “fishes” and
“fished.” Redes means “nets.” The film was distributed in the U.S. as The
Wave.
8 This is fully documented in the correspondence between Carlos Chávez and
Paul Strand, and between these men and the government officials involved.
9 Carlos Chávez, 203 (my translation). All letters from Strand to Chávez are in
English, and can be found in the Chávez Archive at the Archivo General de la
Nación, in Mexico City.
In spite of everything, Strand and his team,
including Revueltas, were able to finish the task in the
time allotted. The fate of these rushed efforts, though,
is uncertain. To date no copy has been found of this
first film version.
The project was put on hold following the change
of government. Strand was removed as head of the
Cinema Commission, and when he stopped receiving
paychecks he had to return to the United States, as
did Zinnemann and Rodakiewicz. One year later,
however, in late 1935 or early 1936, the project was
taken up again with the aim of fixing its problems and
distributing the film. Apparently it was Gómez Muriel
who took charge. Revueltas decided to completely
rewrite the music for the new version, now to be
called Redes. Strand, Zinnemann and Rodakiewicz
had no part in the second attempt at making the film,
and therefore no say in the final result, leading to
understandable frustration:
I respectfully request you to consider not only the
injustice committed against me by allowing these
incompetent, unscrupulous persons to complete a work
which they did not create; they cannot know exactly
what needs to be done . . . I request you to restore this
opportunity to me and my associates.10
Understandably, Strand’s reaction to the new
version was not one of wholehearted approval. He
wrote Chávez after having seen it at a private screening
in New York: “The synchronization of the dialogue
appears to have been well done. The printing, poorly
done and dirty. The music, mediocre in general. The
credits, untruthful.”11 A few lines later, though, he took
a softer stand: “Overall, I am not ashamed of Redes;
with all its melodrama and other weaknesses, it is
honest, and in many ways beautiful. I think that if it
can reach the audience for whom it was actually made,
namely the workers and peasants of Mexico, it will be
of use to them.”12
The patent tension which permeates these letters
is easily explainable by the uncomfortable position
Strand was left in after Chávez—his good friend,
10 Carlos Chávez, 205.
11 Apparently it was Strand’s Mexican assistant Gomez Muriel who
supervised the edition of the known version of Redes, judging by the
suspicious credit as co-director he assigns himself here: “Dirección: Emilio
Gómez Muriel y Paul Strand”.
12 Carlos Chávez, 238. For more details on the history of the making of
Redes, the account by Emilio Gómez Muriel, cited in García Riera, Historia
documental del cine mexicano (Guadalajara: University of Guadalajara, Jalisco
State Government, Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, Conaculta, 1992),
Vol. 1: 119–20 and 127–31, and the account by Paul Strand in his letter to
García Téllez (Carlos Chávez, 199–205) are recommended. While considerably
less detailed, Fred Zinnemann’s lighthearted account of the making of the
movie, included in his autobiography, offers a different view, in contrast with
Strand’s somewhat embittered perspective (Fred Zinnemann, A Life in the
Movies: An Autobiography. New York: Scribner, 1992, 30–37).

unconditional supporter, and brains behind the
original project—was removed from the production
team. From his copious correspondence with Chávez
during and after the filming one can infer that Strand
experienced his own continued participation, as well as
his collaboration with Silvestre Revueltas (at the time
he was still Chávez’s assistant director at the Orquesta
Sinfónica de México) as a betrayal of the man who had
invited him to Mexico. Chávez had not only sponsored
one of Strand’s best-known photo exhibits13 but, as
mentioned before, also employed him in the State’s
art division, an unusual and daring appointment
considering Strand’s status as a foreigner.
The Double Semiosis
However, another source of tension lies behind
Strand’s letter, and it leads us directly to the subject
explored in this article. In October of 1934, while
Strand was still shooting scenes for Redes, he wrote a
revealing letter to Silvestre Revueltas:
Dear Sylvestre [sic]:
I was happy to receive your letter – and the good news
that you have already written considerable music that
you liked and that you were beginning to orchestrate
it. That’s fine. Best of all the interest in the film and
the impulse it gives you to want to make music – I have
no doubt you will do something swell – I feel however,
that regardless of much work in Mexico, it will be
necessary for you to come here early in October – to
see the sequences you have not yet seen – there will be
a number by that time relatively complete. – That you
have been able to work out a general musical structure
for the whole film is indeed a great start, but I feel
certain that the moods, rhythm and tone of each sequence
must in the final analysis govern the musical content within
the structure you have worked out [my italics].14
Revueltas had, in fact, done a great deal more
than Strand suggests: he had completed a first version
of the music, 85 pages of continuous music scored
for large orchestra, very likely conceived not only for
the film but also for concert performance, as was his
later version (December, 1935).15 It evidences the
composer’s desire to write music that was equally
effective by itself as it was in conjunction with the
moving image and more, in fact, as we shall see:
a music that aspired to embody temporal, spatial
and actorial functions more commonly assigned to
13 One-man show at the Sala de Arte in the Ministry of Education building,
Mexico City, February, 1933.
14 The original of this letter is contained in the Revueltas archive, in care of
the composer’s daughter Eugenia Revueltas, and is reproduced here thanks
to her kind permission (punctuation as in the original).
15 The manuscripts of both versions have survived and are in the care of
Revueltas’s heir, his daughter Eugenia.
KOLB-NEUHAUS    129
figurative discourse. This yearning—a film for music
rather than a music for film—is confirmed in the
scenes which also correspond to Revueltas’s concert
suite, composed for the final cut of Redes, so bitterly
repudiated by Strand.16 Strikingly, the images in these
scenes seem to have been cut to the music rather than
the other way around, recalling the procedure which
would be used by Prokofiev and Eisenstein some years
later in Alexander Nevsky (1938). As in Redes, in Nevsky,
music ruled by edited film material alternates with
music inspired by preliminary shots,17 with Eisenstein
adapting his visuals to the pace and structure of a
previously, more freely composed music.18 Indeed,
in the scenes that coincide with his concert version,
Revueltas’s manuscript reveals continuous musical
writing, the coherent, self-sufficient musical structure
of a symphonic poem in three movements.19 It is only
through indications regarding visual action and timing
in the score that a link to the film is established.
The scenes that will concern us here constitute a
series of “photo-musical tableaux,” perhaps echoing
what Eisenstein had in mind when he spoke of the
“vertical” synchronization of musical and photographic
segments or phases. As for Strand’s images, they fit
the musical structure comfortably because they are
essentially photography in movement. Like Eisenstein,
Strand was enamoured of the beauty of Mexico’s
people and landscapes. Large sections of Redes relegate
dramatic content to the picturesque, and even those
intending to serve a plot are heavily burdened by
Strand’s fascination with the exotic. Cutting such
descriptive material to the music score represented no
hardship whatsoever. The scenes that we will analyze
here reflect the priorities of a photographer and a
composer, not those of a film director or a screenplay
writer. Symptomatically, words are used sparsely: the
musical action is interrupted only twice and briefly, to
16 The concert suite has recently been reconstructed and recorded. See Redes:
versión original de concierto de Silvestre Revueltas, José Luis Castillo (critical
revision), Roberto Kolb (reconstruction), Mexico, UNAM, 2008 and the
recording by Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad de Guanajuato, conducted
by Castillo (QP 123, Quindecim Recordings, 2004). A critical edition of
this reconstruction will be published by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México in 2008. To avoid confusion, it should be mentioned that the more
familiar concert version of Redes was compiled by Erich Kleiber and only
coincides in part with Revueltas’s own concert version. This suite (1943) was
published by Southern Music Publications Co. & Peer Musikverlag in 1971.
17 Eduardo Contreras Soto reports that Revueltas was apparently given
a Moviola, allowing him to view and time an edited version of the film.
However, he does not quote his source, nor does he specify whether this
circumstance applied to Pescados and/or Redes. See Heterofonía 111–112 (July
1994 – June 1995): 5–14.
18 Eisenstein describes this procedure in detail in The Film Sense (first
American edition, 1942). See Sergio M. Eisenstein, El sentido del cine, (Buenos
Aires: Lautaro, 1941) 148–49.
19 It is not suggested here, of course, that Revueltas was the first to propose
music as autonomous to cinematic discourse. Consider in this regard
Maurice Jaubert’s experiments in his collaboration with Jean Vigo in the
early thirties. See Annette Insdorf, “Maurice Jaubert and François Truffaut:
Musical Continuities from L’Atalante to L’Histoire D’Adèle, Yale French Studies
60, Cinema/Sound (1980): 204–18.
130    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
convey an epigrammatic message or a brief dialogue,
somewhat clumsily uttered by non-professional actors.
Music determines the general pace and structure with
which image and words are to fit in these scenes, and,
as we shall see, it constitutes an autonomous text that
aspires to lend meaning to both image and words.
Whether successful or not in communicating such
meaning, it remains a fact that the score’s notorious
expressive and compositional resources are affected
by the composer’s perhaps quixotic desire to challenge
the traditional hierarchy, which ascribes figurative
discourses more signifying power than the purely
symbolic and presumably asemantic musical discourse.
Trying to unravel this particular signifying process
should be as helpful in revealing the source of energy
of a very powerful score, as in making an argument for
the writing of non-subservient film music.
In order to relate extramusical (semantic) meaning
implicit in images and dramatic action to musical
discourse (the semiotic level),20 the composer resorts
to a variety of signifying strategies, which range
from the basic mimesis between kinetic and musical
gestures (“Mickey Mousing”) through indexical
relationships such as the use of popular dance music
to suggest a celebratory atmosphere, to sophisticated
symbolic constructs, which, however, require shared
codes between composer and listener in order to
achieve communication. I am leaning here on Charles
Sanders Peirce’s three main categories of signs—icons,
which resemble their objects of representation, indexes,
which point to them based on a shared existential or
metonymic kinship, and symbols, which communicate
meaning based on norms or conventions shared by
sender and receiver. All three types of meaning-making
(semiosis) are used profusely in our score. Take, for
example, the upward-crawling chromatic gesture (8.1-
3)21 that resolves into a static texture of strings with
repeated horn calls (9.2-6) that mimics the casting of
a fishing net and how it lands on the water’s surface
(iconic representation of a physical movement), or
the brilliant huapango22 melody played by the trumpet
(14) when the fishermen of Alvarado gather around
their boats to celebrate the abundant takings of
20 I rely here on Emile Benveniste, who refers to the semantic order as
pertaining to the world of enunciation and discourse, whereas the semiotic
order refers to the text independently of references to its context (Emil
Benveniste, “The Semiology of Language,” Semiotica (special supplement,
1981).
21 The number before the dot refers to Revueltas’s rehearsal numbers in the
film manuscript, the numbers after the dot to the measures as counted from
the rehearsal numbers.
22 Huapango literally means “festivity,” although it is (incorrectly) used by
Revueltas and many others to refer to the son, a musical genre typical to the
Huasteca area and extending to most of the coastal towns, such as Alvarado,
where Redes was filmed. The term is not actually used in the later version
(1935) but appears in the corresponding music in the original 1934 score,
which is marked Tempo de huapango.
a particularly lucky fishing expedition (Mexican
audiences immediately associate this folk music genre
with the coastal population of Veracruz). Symbolic
musical constructs have no iconic or indexical link to
their object of representation, and are therefore not
restricted by the pace of image and/or dramatic action.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this representational
indirectness that such symbolic constructs are usually
the most productive in a compositional sense. They
tend to lead to a more autonomous and richer musical
text, whereas musical imitations of bodily movements
do not usually carry well as musically generative
material and quotations of folk music usually limit the
role of film music to the synchronic, supporting role of
illustration. As we shall see, it is indeed the symbolic
discourse which accounts principally for both the
semantic and musical wealth of Redes.
Painting, Filming and Scoring Death
Two scenes that are crucial to the content and
structure of Redes are particularly eloquent in this
last respect. They allude visually, verbally and
musically to the topic of death, as can be inferred
when linking musical gesture with corresponding
representations in the film. This correlation allows the
precise identification of meaningful sound constructs
(musical signs), and elucidates their textual dynamic
(a process in which semantic representation merges
with musical semiosis). We might be speaking here of
a strategic merging of intra- and extramusical semiosis
as a compositional strategy: Revueltas draws from
a semantic scenario—dramatic action expressed in
images and words—a music which is meant to not only
mark, but inform and even enter into dialogue with that
very scenario.
Since analyzing this type of transdiscursive
composition in the full score would be well beyond the
scope of this article, we shall focus on the previously
mentioned “death” scenes. As shall be seen, these
resonate richly in two other artistically and politically
relevant constructs of death, a mural by David Alfaro
Siqueiros and in its filmic “quotation” by Sergei
Eisenstein, both of which constitute meaningful
precedents in the making of Redes. As I have written
about them in depth elsewhere,23 I will touch upon
them only in passing here.
Eisenstein visited Mexico in 1931 with the
intention of filming his vision of the country in a film
that was to be called ¡Que Viva México! The enthusiastic
23 See Roberto Kolb, “Four Ways of Describing Death: Painting, Filming,
Narrating and Scoring Mexican Funeral Scenes,” in Eisler-Studien. Beiträge zu
einer kritischen Musikwissenschaft (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2008).

collaboration of Mexican painters during his prolonged
stay—over a year long—opened his eyes to the
country’s culture. Artists who offered their guidance
and friendship included, among others, Rivera, Frida
Kahlo and Siqueiros. To show his gratitude, but
especially to acknowledge the definitive influence of
their art and conceptions on him, Eisenstein decided
to dedicate each part of his film to a different Mexican
artist and incorporate details of their art in his film.
In fact the film’s references to Mexican muralism in
¡Que Viva México! are so plentiful24 that it can safely be
said that it is a fascinating experiment in transartistic
reference used as creative strategy.
One such “filmic quotation” in ¡Que Viva México!
is Siqueiros’s unfinished mural Entierro del obrero
sacrificado (Burial of a Worker) (see Figures 1 & 2).
Eisenstein reproduces the mural’s funeral scene in a
way that is almost identical to the painted original.
Film here seems to be merely painting set in motion
(see Figure 3). It is much more, however: the painting
of Siqueiros’s mural was interrupted25 as the painter’s
protests against the repressive regime of Plutarco Elías
Calles led to the cancellation of his contract in 1928
and later, indirectly, to jail. By including Entierro del
obrero sacrificado in his film, Eisenstein was seeking its
completion and survival. Ironically, ¡Que Viva México!
suffered a similar fate. Absurd accusations, censure,
intrigue, defamation and destructive interference by
the Mexican and Soviet governments eventually forced
Eisenstein to abandon his ambitious project.26
Whether intentionally or not, the photographer
Paul Strand—an avid Eisenstein connoisseur and
admirer—picked up the thread left by the Russian
filmmaker. Repeating Siqueiros’s and Eisenstein’s
depictions of death as sacrifice, Redes shows a
fisherman who gives his life for the betterment of his
community.27 His death is preceded by the needless
24 For an excellent study of Mexican murals in Viva México, see Eduardo de
la Vega Alfaro, Del muro a la pantalla: S.M. Eisenstein y el arte pictórico de México
(Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, Gobierno del Estado de México,
Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, 1997).
25 For a detailed account of this episode, see Alicia Azuela, “El Machete
y Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice in Mexico,” Art Journal
(Spring 1993): 3.
26 For a detailed narrative of the story behind the production of the film,
see Harry M. Geduld and Ronald Gottesman, eds., Sergei Eisenstein and Upton
Sinclair: The Making and Unmaking of ¡Que Viva México! (Bloomington and
London: Indiana University Press, 1970).
27 In a way, the idea of Redes had already come to Eisenstein when he saw
Siqueiros’s unfinished mural: death as a necessary sacrifice for a better future
and childhood as a symbol of this. It is suggested in the outline of Soldadera,
one of the episodes of ¡Que Viva México! that never came to be:
“Adelita is the name of the song and this song is the leitmotif of [Pancha] the
Soldadera.
...
– Say, Soldadera . . .
“Where art thou going, woman?”
She turnes pensive, smiles enigmatically, shrugs her shoulders, as if ignorant
of what to answer, parts her hands in the broad gesture women are apt to
make when saying:
– “Who knows?” (¿Quién sabe…?)
KOLB-NEUHAUS    131
death of his own son, the tragedy that triggers the
film’s plot.
The boy has died because Miro, the film’s hero,
could not afford his medical treatment. Miro leads a
revolt of the fishermen against the merchant who buys
their fish at a very low price. The merchant hires a
professional politician to divide the protesters, leading
to the violent confrontation which costs Miro his life.
This death, however, unites the fishermen and they
organize a great cortege of fishing boats to carry Miro’s
body to the city in a defiant act of unity.
From Death to New Life
Thus, two different concepts of death seem to
be represented: death as the interruption of life,
associated with pain and injustice, and death as a
necessary sacrifice but the precursor to new life,
evoking more positive feelings. These two existential
modes are very clearly differentiated in the musical
text, as is the transition from one to the other. Words
and images easily represent these two interpretations
of death, but music can only do so symbolically. At
first hearing, one might identify a set of leitmotifs
associated with each of these representations.
However, it will become evident that a traditional
approach, linking the characters or moods suggested
by dialogues and images to melodic motifs and their
musical development, will not suffice in this case.
Instead, we will call on a broader concept: musical
gesture, because it not only incorporates the richness
of leitmotif technique, but because it also considers
qualities which transcend it, and which are particularly
...
The angry voice of the sentinel calls to her.
“What have you there under your shawl?”
And lifting her rebozo, Pancha answers quietly:
“Who knows, señor, it may be a girl or it may be a boy …”
The troops start off noisily. In the packed cars the soldiers are singing
Adelita! And on the roofs, the soldaderas with their kitchen [utensils] and
children are squatted like crows.
...
Under the clothes hung out near the lanterns to dry, under soldier’s
underwear waved by the wind, near the blazing bonfire, Pancha is sitting
with her newborn baby.
...
Again the racket of machine guns…
...
This time Juan does not come back.
And when the fight is over amidst its smoking ruins Pancha finds the body of
her husband…
She gathers a pile of rocks, makes him a primitive tombstone, weaves him a
cross of reeds…
She takes his gun, his cartridge belt, his baby, and follows the slowly
advancing, tired army.
...
Towards Revolution.
Towards a New Life! …”
(Eisenstein’s synopsis of “Soldadera” is quoted in Inga Karetnikova and Leon
Steinmetz, Mexico According to Eisenstein, (University of New Mexico Press,
1991), 130-32.
132    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Figure 1: David Alfaro Siqueiros, detail of Entierro del obrero sacrificado, 1923–1924. Unfinished
mural at the Colegio de San Ildefonso (originally the National Preparatory School), Mexico City (©
Colegio de San Ildefonso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).

Figure 2: Detail of Entierro del obrero sacrificado


eloquent in symbolically correlating semantic and
musical contents.
In his theory of musical semiotics, Eero Tarasti
quotes the concepts of Swiss music psychologist
Ernst Kurth in support of his own conviction that the
“essence of melody does not consist in the succession
of tones, but in the transitions between them:”
The experience of movement felt in a melody is not
only a kind of subsidiary psychological phenomenon:
rather, it leads us to the very origin of the melodic
element. This element, which is felt as a force
streaming through the tones, and the sensual intensity
of the sound itself both refer to the basic powers in the
musical formation, namely to the energies which we
experience as psychic tensions (Kurth 1922: 3).28
This important insight is echoed also in Robert
Hatten’s concept of musical gesture, defined by
him in very general terms as “significant energetic
shaping through time.” “Gesture,” Hatten maintains,
“transcends the formal aspect of melodic motifs
and themes radically . . . grounded in human affect
and its communication [it] ‘go[es] beyond’ the score
to embody the intricate shaping and character of
movements that have direct biological and social
significance for human beings . . . [it] entails a
wide range of gestural competencies, including
[a] correlation with other sensory, motor, and
affective realms of human experience.”29 Revueltas’s
complex gestures and their sophisticated rhetorical
manipulations in his approach to the subject of
death are a textbook example of how energy between
the notes of a melody can be used to generate both
expressive and semantic meaning.
Let us start by taking a look at the first funeral
scene, which depicts the burial of the hero’s child (see
Figure 4). In this scene, all sounds of the concrete
world—walking, talking—are purposefully silenced
in deference to the music.30 Images alternate freely
between the procession, the burial and the expressions
of pain on the faces of the mother and father, but the
resulting sequence is all contained in the music’s well-
rounded structure.
28 Quoted in Eero Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 99.
29 Robert Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
2004), 95.
30 Later scenes in which dialogue and music coincide prove that the lack
of diegetic sound in this scene was not due to technical limitations. Other
descriptive scenes, such as the “Segunda pesca” (the “second fishing
expedition”), another photo-musical tableau portraying fishermen at sea,
also silence the voices of men in favor of the music. Such contradictions
only go to show the prevailing ambiguity between the various concepts—
documentary, drama, visual art—which interact confusingly in this film.
They also explain the legendary disagreements between the makers of the
film throughout the shooting and thereafter
KOLB-NEUHAUS    133
The score here avoids any form of mimesis
between visual and musical gesture, or of stylistic
appropriateness: the walking pace of the people has
nothing in common with the rhythm of the music;
there is no funeral march; the surprising image of a
smiling child flying a kite while another is laid to rest
forms a disturbing antithesis to the painful melody
(the music presumably uses expressive contradiction
to suggest the injustice of a futile death or the fate
that may await other children). All this underlines the
music’s contribution to the production of meaning,
usually dependent on image and plot alone. We
perceive a basic psychological congruence with the
dramatic content, but the score moves at its own pace,
creates its own space, and speaks through the voice of
its own (musical) actors.
The second funeral scene shows Miro’s own
death (see Figure 5). There are revealing differences
with respect to the child’s funeral: Miro’s body is not
taken to the cemetery, and is not buried. Instead, the
fishermen, now united, place him in one of the fishing
boats, reinstating him as their leader. The death of
their hero shall not be in vain: together they row
towards the town, do what is necessary to reverse their
misery, and take their fate into their own hands. No
explanatory words to this effect are uttered, however.
The meaning of the scene relies solely on the power of
musical symbolism, correlated with the content of the
images.
Reflecting the opposition between the dramatic
representations of death as the end of life and death
as premise of new life, the differences between the
two musical texts clearly expose and distinguish the
main signifying elements in both, as well as revealing
the expressive and semantic purpose of the rhetorical
changes they undergo.31 Let us take a closer look at
this process.
At least three independent gestures act in concert,
articulating meanings related to the burial of a child
in the first funeral’s music. First of all, we hear in
the strings what sounds like the representation of a
heartbeat, the basis of biological and emotional life:
soft note pairs, in which the second note is an echo of
the first. The eloquence of such a bio-cultural reference
relies on more than just pitch: the composer is very
precise in suggesting the kinetic source—low pitch,
piano, decrescendo, portato (see Example 1, ms. 1.1-14).32
31 As we shall see, certain musical gestures compared with the second are
privative; others reappear in the second, but show a radically different,
perhaps even opposed, design. See privative vs. equipollent oppositions in
Hatten, 34-35.
32 We are reminded here that, as suggested by Hatten, “gestures may be
comprised of any of the elements of music, although they are not reducible
to them; they are perceptually synthetic gestalts with emergent meaning, not
simply ‘rhythmic shapes.’ The elements synthesized in a musical gesture
include specific timbres, articulations, dynamics, tempi, pacing, and their
134    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Figure 3: Shot from the Prologue of ¡Viva México! Yucatán, 1931 (© Kino International, New York)

Figure 4: First funeral scene (© Dirección General de Actividades Cinematográficas, UNAM)

Figure 5: Miro’s body is loaded onto the fishing boats and rowed into town (© Dirección General
de Actividades Cinematográficas, UNAM)

Example 1: Beginning of the first funeral scene
Secondly, we hear a melodic gesture marked molto
espressivo ma semplice, in which the volume ascends, but
only to return immediately to its point of departure,
as if coming to life only briefly. In light of the dramatic
context, this construct can safely be assumed to
represent “death” or, similarly, “beginning and
ending life” (ms. 1.2-12). This idea is also represented
coordination with various syntactic levels (e.g., voice-leading, metric
placement, phrase structure).” (Hatten, 94)
KOLB-NEUHAUS    135
harmonically: the gesture departing from, but soon
returning to its original tonality, without venturing
far from it (D minor, ms. 1.2-15). Thirdly, we hear
a very familiar stylistic type, pianissimo espressivo, in
the violins: the pianto figure which has played such a
major role in the representation of lament throughout
Western music (ms. 1. 3 & 5).
Repeated notes imply non-directionality and can
be interpreted as a symbol of immobility (stasis), a
136    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
staying forever in one place (as in death). The “death”
gesture, which ascends only to return immediately
to its starting point, is another way of articulating
the idea of non-movement and non-directionality. In
light of the semantic context of the film, the repeated
slow pulses and the brief, cyclical death motif are
probably intended as representations of stasis.33 In
conjunction with the emotional marker of the pianto
figure, these constructions of stasis effectively convey
the idea of finality in death well. As we can see, the
representation of death is a result, not of a single
leitmotiv, but of three compounded gestures that
interact strategically. The changes effected by the
composer on these gestures will be crucial in decoding
the meaning of the second funeral scene (see Example
2). Following the plot and the images, the second
funeral scene pursues consequence rather than finality.
Meaningfully, two of the three signs, the pianto and the
death gesture, will not reappear. Although this music
is built upon the same heartbeat-like pulse that had
sustained the music of the child’s burial, the chord
pairs are no longer repeated, and the static melodic
Example 2: Rowing scene (fourth and last section of the film score)
line of the ostinato is broken. The second note of each
pair now breaks away upwards, at first in intervals of
a second, then gradually in increasingly wider ones,
reinforced by longing crescendi. The harmonic change
now generates tension and therefore implied motion.
Clearly the idea of stasis has been abandoned. The
substitution of the repeated note pairs for an ascending
and crescendo melodic line suggest the opposite kinetic
meaning: rising, moving on, striving. Revueltas achieves
this meaning brilliantly by associating this gesture
33 The romantic tonal Fortspinnung of both the melodic and the ground
motifs, repeated again and again, does nothing more than insist on the idea
of immobility. In this sense it is also static.
with the movement of the oars that lead the fishermen
to their new, self-achieved destiny (see Examples 134
and 2).
In the second funeral scene, the “death” gesture
is replaced by a motif in the trumpet line (Gesture
1c), which draws our attention because despite the
promising start, it refuses to evolve melodically,
harmonically or metrically, giving us the sense that “it
does not go anywhere,” that it “falls apart.”
We have heard it before; it is no less than the
opening gesture of Redes. In that first appearance,
though, it resolves into a florid sound-painting of the
waves shown behind the film’s credits35 (Gesture 1a).
Soon after, we encounter this gesture again, in a
scene where the hero casts his net with an expression
of hope on his face (see Figure 6). As he draws the net
back in, empty but for a single fish, his look turns dark.
Just at this moment, unlike its first exposition where
the gesture seemed to create expectation (fanfare-
like ascending fifth interval, molto crescendo, fortissimo
associated with the images of a sea full of promise),
the composer now lets the melody slowly descend and
Gesture 1c
34 This and all subsequent musical examples are drawn directly from the
original manuscript of the film-score (1935) and reproduced here by kind
permission of Eugenia Revueltas. (A DVD version of this score will become
available to researchers in 2009, contained in the Biblioteca Facsimilar Digital
Silvestre Revueltas, Roberto Kolb and Eugenia Revueltas, eds., UNAM). The
score was reduced for reasons of space. Erich Kleiber derived a suite from
this score in 1943, which was published by Southern Music Publications Co.
& Peer Musikverlag in 1971.
35 This is obviously a clear example of iconic sound-painting.

Gesture 1a
Figure 6: Miro’s fishing scene (© Dirección General de Actividades Cinematográficas, UNAM)
“collapse”(descending triplets, pianissimo, but senza
sordino). In consonance with the fisherman’s frustrated
expectation, the melody abandons any development
and resolution. The following downbeat, the space
of finality and affirmation in the Western Canon,
is left void. The meaning of this gesture is not only
corroborated by the dramatic action, but also by the
composer’s annotation in the film score: “desilusión,
arroja pesc[ado]” (Disappointment, throws away fish).
(Gesture 1b)36
Fascinatingly, this brief gesture representing
an unfulfilled “promise” will now become the very
substance and motor of change, dictating musical
and semantic action in the second funeral scene.
As we said earlier, this motif is brought back once
more in Miro’s funeral scene. Because of its previous
36 The trumpet gesture is actually a composite of two other gestures. It is
formed on the one hand by an ascending 5th interval (originally fortissimo, now
pp), which is practically a stylistic type, culturally associated with fanfares,
and in this context evoking images such as “to call,” “attention,” “prepare,”
all creating expectation. On the other hand it shows a gesture which
frustrates this expectation by means of a melodic and harmonic descent
to the point of origin, the upbeat of the motif and by avoiding a resolution
on the downbeat. More than emphasis, the accents on the descending line
(significantly slower than the semi-quavers in the original gesture) seem to
suggest the idea of “stumbling”.
KOLB-NEUHAUS    137
association with the fisherman’s misfortune, it is
charged with tension and a sense of foreboding. But
now, as the screen shows more and more boats joining
Miro’s, the trumpet motif, originally symbolizing
a desilusión, finds itself gradually transformed and
serving the opposite meaning: as we shall be able to
observe the “crumbling” inconclusive gesture is turned
into one of solid and regular rhythmicity, increasing
note density, speed and volume, self-replicating, and
moving insistently towards resolution (see Table I).37
Before we continue analyzing the musical and
semantic transformations of the “disappointment”
gesture, it is necessary to introduce a new gesture,
used by Revueltas to give support to this process of
metamorphosis. Unlike the gestures already discussed,
this one is not associated with a particular dramatic
action or actor, as might be typically expected of
a leitmotif. More than a representational purpose,
it serves a structuring function. Seemingly not
assigned to the trumpet by coincidence, it is a theme
37 Regarding the textual development possibilities of gesture, Hatten
suggests that it “may encompass, and help express, rhetorical action, as in
a sudden reversal, a collapse, an interruption, or a denial of implication.
Rhetorical gestures disrupt or deflect the ongoing musical discourse,
contributing to a contrasting dramatic trajectory.” (Hatten, 95).
138    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Gesture 1b

Table I: Rhetorical Transformations of Gesture 1

Outset of the film Unsuccessful fishing Outset of the
(credits) attempt second funeral scene
Association with Sea and waves, the Empty fishing-net, dark Listener recalls association
livelihood of fishermen expression on Miro’s face with empty fishing-net
image
Paratexts “Disappointment; throws
away fish”
Rhetoric Melodically, harmonically Melodically, harmonically Melodically, harmonically
and metrically conclusive and metrically inconclusive and metrically inconclusive
of melodic
discourse
Rhetoric of p - molto crescendo – ff pp - con sordino, ma marcato pp, ma marcato
enunciation
Temporal Lento quarter note = 60 più mosso quarter note = Andante (più lento quarter
più mosso 88 note = 48)
articulation
Actoriality Single utterance, used Single, isolated utterance First of a series of isolated
as generative gesture for (associated with Miro utterances, repeated in
the whole introductory fishing by himself) different instruments
section (credits) (first manifestation of
actorial multipliticy)

which reinforces the already familiar idea of aborted
onward motion, observed both in the “death” and
“disappointment” gestures. In the second funeral
scene it prepares or is combined with the various
transformations of the “disappointment” gesture.
Although strategically varied every time, its double
purpose—insisting on the idea of a frustrated
expectation while paradoxically building the tension
which will eventually allow resolution—can be
clearly recognized in its gestural construction.
Different strategies are used to serve this apparently
contradictory enterprise. Expectation is created by
increasingly ascending melodies and dynamics,
strengthened orchestration, increased duration of the
gesture, and the addition of subgestures of “insistence”
such as repeated, accented notes, which provide more
density. Expectation is frustrated by avoiding melodic,
harmonic and metric resolutions or by means of an
unexpected melodic descent (Gestures 2a, b, c and d).
Let us return now to our “disappointment” gesture
and its gradual metamorphosis into a gesture which
reverses this meaning. It appears several times in its
 KOLB-NEUHAUS    139

Gesture 2a

Gesture 2b

Gesture 2c

Gesture 2d
140    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
manifestation of “disappointment” (mm 14.1, 15.1,
16.1-2 and 16.3-4),38 played by different instruments.
What seems noteworthy here is not only the gradual
increment in dynamics (perhaps expected), but more
so the indications of articulation, which embody
the ambiguity of a motif which serves contradictory
expressive purposes: pp ma senza sordino, pp ma marcato,
mf ma marcato.
The next important transformation of the gesture
occurs at rehearsal no. 17. We now encounter only
the second subgesture of the motif (Gesture 1d), but
Gesture 1d
instead of the “crumbling” triplets, the figure is slowed
down to emphatic, martial eighth notes, rhythmically
(and semantically) correlated with the “oar” motif,
which, as mentioned earlier, constitutes the ground
and key driving force behind the entire second funeral
scene.
The transformation of expressive purposes also
takes place outside the gesture. At first a single
utterance associated with the solitary image of the
fisherman, it is now multiplied, suggesting a symbolic
reference to the collectivity of fishermen portrayed in
the final scene, where increasing numbers of boats join
up in their revolutionary quest. Revueltas had explored
this idea already in Esquinas (1931), where a melody
representing the lament of a lonely street inhabitant
is gradually turned into a war song, involving a
multiplicity of music-semantic actors.39 As in Esquinas,
the idea of actorial multiplication is symbolized here
by way of a multiplication of instrumental voices,
38 The section analyzed here is roughly equivalent to Erich Kleiber’s suite,
starting on the Andante at rehearsal number 18 of the Peer and Southern
Edition.
39 See Roberto Kolb, El vanguardismo de Silvestre Revueltas: Una perspectiva
semiótica (PhD diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2006).
presented in stretto form, with the brass answering the
woodwinds antiphonally, as an echo (17.3-5).
The same strategy of multiplication can be
observed in the next transformation of the gesture. But
here the stretto—in light of the dramatic action it would
be a representation of urgency and premonition—is
further compressed, the speed of the gesture doubled
(now a figure of sixteenth notes). Furthermore, the
previous avoidance of a metric resolution is gradually
abandoned in favour of emphatically accented gestures
and resolutions on a downbeat (Gesture 1e).
The crumbing effect, naturally a descending figure,
is symbolically reversed in the last metamorphosis
of the gesture. This idea of musical (and semantic)
inversion is dynamically reinforced by a crescendo
from pp to ff . Thus “collapse” becomes something akin
to “uprising,” as is also suggested by the martial and
celebratory atmosphere into which this last gesture is
placed (Gesture 1f).
Three different gestures are now correlated into
a single, meaningful texture, a powerful negation of
stasis, of death as finality: the driving “oar” motif,
the “disappointment” gesture now transformed into
an empowering one, and the brass theme building
expectation and finally unleashing the closing
statement of Redes. It appears to be the “death”
motif, which is now stated as glorious affirmation
(major tonality, tutti fortissimo, marcato, piatti tremolo
and a final blow on the tam-tam). All its rhetorical
attributes reversed, it has become a representation of
hope rather than defeat, of death that gives life (see
Example 3). The hero’s death has been vindicated and
turned into new energy. The film ends with a wave
that comes crashing down, no doubt Strand’s tribute
to his admired Russian model, who had symbolized
revolutionary anger in just this way in the final scene
of Potemkin.40
Thus we have witnessed the metamorphosis of the
semantic—two concepts of death—into the musical:
dramatic gesture is here correlated symbolically with
musical gestures, political drama is embodied as
musical tension, in short, compositional strategy is
drawn from dramatic and visual content, not merely
to reflect it, but to interact dialogically with it, and to
produce meaning through such a dialogue.
40 Greenough mentions other relevant aspects of Eisenstein’s influence on
Strand (Greenough, 14): “He exploited S. Eisenstein’s concept of montage
to great advantage. He used a montage of action, that is, multiple shots that
break a scene down into component parts, in order to increase visual and
emotional tension, and he used a montage of objects, abrupt cuts from one
object to another, to imply a relationship or establish a sense of conflict. In
addition, The Wave consciously echoed Eisenstein’s Potemkin in several places:
it has been noted that Strand broke down a fishing scene into one hundred
shots, the same number used to construct the scene at the Odessa steps.”.
 KOLB-NEUHAUS    141

Gesture 1e

Gesture 1f
142    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 3
 KOLB-NEUHAUS    143

Epilogue
Considering Revueltas’s and Strand’s argument
regarding the role of music, the reader will be asking
him/herself how the conflict played out, once the
photographer and his foreign crew had left the country
and the cutting of the film came to rest solely in the
hands of the Mexican apprentices. Since the original
film, Pescados, is lost, a definitive answer to this query
cannot be given. However, because the scores of both
versions, Pescados and Redes, survived, a comparison
lies at hand. Such an exercise, inevitably speculative,
at least regarding dramatic content, is nevertheless
strongly suggestive. Like Redes, Pescados shows the
continuous writing of a symphonic suite, and, very
roughly, also the structure of Revueltas’s concert suite
in three movements—“Introducción,” “Funeral” and
“Fiesta del trabajo” (Celebration of labour). However,
this initial impression is quite misleading. In Pescados,
the music for the credits is oddly followed by the
episode that ends the film in the case of Redes (the
beginning of Miro’s funeral music). This is followed
by the brief gesture of frustration which in Redes
precedes Miro’s brief statement regarding the injustice
done to a child that has to die because his father
cannot afford a doctor (one of two brief interventions
in which dialogue “interrupts” the music in the
initial scenes of Redes). This gesture is followed by
a music characterized by a patent lack of substance
and direction, suggesting a prevalence of dramatic
action. Only now have we reached the funeral scene.
But rather than leading directly into the Fiesta del
trabajo as is the case in Redes, we are presented once
again with the abovementioned dramatic gesture of
frustration. This leads into a recitative-style melody in
the celli and double basses, which had merely bridged
two sequences in Redes and was cut out of the concert
version. Only now do we reach Fiesta del trabajo, but,
unlike its compact appearance in Redes, it is here
merely “discoursive;” an endlessly meandering melody
without structural or harmonic boundaries, clearly a
supporting music for a very extended visual scene.
Naturally we cannot reconstruct the dramatic and
visual content of Pescados on the basis of the old score,
but we can affirm without fear of error that its music
was determined to a great extent by plot, both in its
actorial and visual expression. The “Mexican” version
most definitely neutralized dramatic content and
sequence in favour of a musical structure. Strand’s fury
is hardly surprising. We, however, gained a beautiful,
emancipated score.
144    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

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