Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

====Photography, motion pictures, and propaganda====
[[File:Svoboda 02.jpg|thumb|left|Child soldier<ref>Photograph by Antonio Gómes Delgado ''El Negro'', Casasola Archive, Mexico</ref>]]

The Mexican Revolution was extensively photographed as well as filmed, so that there is a large, contemporaneous visual record. "The Mexican Revolution and photography were intertwined."<ref>Chilcote, Ronald H. "Introduction" ''Mexico at the Hour of Combat'', p. 9.</ref> There was a large foreign viewership for still and moving images of the Revolution. The photographic record is by no means complete since much of the violence took place in relatively remote places, but it was a media event covered by photographers, [[Photojournalism|photojournalists]], and professional cinematographers. Those behind the lens were hampered by the large, heavy cameras that impeded capturing action images, but no longer was written text enough, with photographs illustrating and verifying the written word.

The revolution "depended heavily, from its inception, on visual representations and, in particular, on photographs."<ref>Debroise, Olivier. ''Mexican Suite'', p. 177.</ref> The large number of Mexican and foreign photographers followed the action and stoked public interest in it. Among the foreign photographers were [[Jimmy Hare]], [[Aultman Studio|Otis A. Aultman]], Homer Scott, and Walter Horne. Images appeared in newspapers and magazines, as well as postcards.<ref>Vanderwood, Paul J. and Frank N. Samponaro. ''Border Fury: A Picture Postcard Record of Mexico's Revolution and U.S. War Preparedness'', 1910–1917. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1988.</ref> Horne was associated with the Mexican War Postcard Company.<ref>Debroise, ''Mexican Suite'', p. 178.</ref>

[[File:Francisco Villa.gif|thumb|upright=1.1|Iconic image of Villa in [[Ojinaga]], a publicity still taken by Mutual Film Corporation photographer John Davidson Wheelan in January 1914<ref>[[John Mraz]], ''Photographing the Mexican Revolution'', Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012, pp. 246–247. Inv. #287647. [[Casasola Archive]]. SINAFO-Fototeca Nacional de INAH.</ref>]]

Most prominent of the documentary film makers were Salvador Toscano and [[Jesús H. Abitía]], and some 80 cameramen from the U.S. filmed as freelancers or employed by film companies. The footage has been edited and reconstructed into documentary films, ''Memories of a Mexican'' (Carmen Toscano de Moreno 1950) and ''Epics of the Mexican Revolution'' (Gustavo Carrera).<ref>Pick, ''Constructing the Image of the Mexican Revolution'', p. 2</ref> Principal leaders of the Revolution were well aware of the propaganda element of documentary film making, and Pancho Villa contracted with an American film company to record for viewers in the U.S. his leadership on the battlefield. The film has been lost, but the story of the film making was interpreted in the [[HBO]] scripted film ''[[And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself]]''.<ref>Pick, ''Constructing the Image of the Revolution'', pp. 41–54</ref> The largest collection of still photographs of the Revolution is the [[Casasola Archive]], named for photographer [[Agustín Casasola]] (1874–1938), with nearly 500,000 images held by the [[:es:Fototeca Nacional (México)|Fototeca Nacional]] in [[Pachuca]]. A multivolume history of the Revolution, ''Historia Gráfica de la Revolución Mexicana, 1900–1960'' contains hundreds of images from the era, along with explanatory text.<ref>Casasola, Gustavo. ''Historia Gráfica de la Revolución Mexicana, 1900–1960''. 5 vols. Mexico: Editorial F. Tillas, S.A. 1967.</ref>