The Hungarian Student, 1958 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
1958-10-01 / 1. szám
Movies, in my opinion, are more of a business proposition than a cultural achievement. About eighty percent of the films are imported from the United States, and are, unfortunately, rather bad. About half the remaining twenty percent is made up of Mexican movies which are either excellent or fifth-rate. Mexico’s last great movie was “Tizoc,” the story of a Mexican family, with Maria Felix in the leading role. But for every great film there are ten whose only purpose seems to be to show a very attractive young actress undressing as completely and as often as possible. The remaining films come from all over the world. Even Soviet films are shown occasionally. The last Hungarian film to reach Mexico was the unforgettable “Somewhere in Europe,” which has been repeated on television four times in the past ten months by popular demand. Mexico is a world leader in the field of fine arts. Its three great twentieth century masters of nationalistic, monumental paintings, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, are known and admired the world over. Personally, I like Orozco best, and I hope to publish a paper in Hungarian on his paintings. But there are also many hundreds of excellent painters whose work would be good enough to be exhibited in the great cities of the world, who live—and starve—in Mexico. I prefer the abstractionists and surrealists (but this may be a reaction against my experience with the art policy back home), and for months now I have been working on a literary interpretation of the work of Leonora Carrington, an Irish woman and surrealist painter now living in Mexico. The Mexican sculptors are good too, but not nearly as fine as the painters. There is no doubt, however, that architecture is the Mexican form of artistic expression which has reached its highest peak and has achieved the greatest international recognition. There is also great activity in the field of music. The Opera chorus is good, but has a hard job competing with the exellent soloists. There is a philharmonic orchestra, and it is interesting that among the better musical groups is the Lehner Quartet, composed of four Hungarians. There are some excellent Mexican composers, of whom the most outstanding is Carlos Chavez, composer of “Sinfonia de un Chino en Paris” (Symphony of a Chinaman in Paris). This is a monumental work and expresses its title so vividly that a little Hungarian girl, listening to it on the radio, recognized Paris, where she recently spent a few weeks on her way from Vienna to Mexico. Musical education in Mexico is not as good as it might be, even though both the State and private sources spend a great deal of money on it. The musical taste of the masses is unsophisticated, and the mariachi, the Mexican folk-music, is the really popular musical form. However, one of the many radio stations broadcasts only serious music, such as operas and symphonies, all day long, and the car radios of five out of ten cabdrivers are tuned to this station all day. In speaking of intellectual life, I must also mention the religious situation. In Europe and the United States, Mexico is considered a Catholic country. Church sources, however, state that only about one third of Mexico’s population of thirty-five million, only twelve million, are practicing Catholics. The Catholicism of the Mexican people is interwoven closely with the religious elements and practices of the pre-Columbian era. American Protestant missionaries have gained a great deal of ground during the past thirty years; today there are five million Mexican Protestants, while a generation ago there were none. Some Otomi Indians join the Moravian Brothers, or a Mexican sergeant may refuse military service because he has joined the Jehova’s Witnesses and is therefore imprisoned. Many Protestant denominations and many kinds of sects flourish. The State itself takes a strictly lay attitude and is indifferent to all religious matters. Religion is not taught in schools and there are no schools of theology at the universities. Catholic priests, monks and nuns are forbidden to weal their habits in the streets, but nuns can be recognized by their uniform-like, long-skirted attire, although they wear nylon stockings and set their hair. All Government offices forbid any kind of religious propaganda within their own jurisdiction. Freemasonry is very strong in this country. When still in Vienna, I met a Mexican Embassy official at the Mason’s Lodge, who told me that Mexico’s history from the mideighteenth century on is identical with the history of the Gran Logia del Valle de Mexico, and I realize more and more that he did not 10 the Hungarian student
