The Murals of East Los Angeles: (A Museum Without Walls)
Featuring many of the same public artworks elegiacally showcased in Agnès Varda’s Mur murs four years later, Rivera’s short documentary points a markedly Chicanx lens toward the artists creating largescale murals in Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights neighborhood. Featuring interviews with and artwork by Latinx artists Carlos Almaraz, Judy Baca, Richard Ruiz, and Eduardo Ortiz, this meticulous film proffers appreciation for this culture’s experiences and expressions in the decade following the Chicano Moratorium and the subsequent increased empowerment of Los Angeles’s Latinx community.
Mur murs
One of the finest examples of a documentary that aesthetically complements its subject, Varda’s prismatic monumentalization of the largescale public artworks that cover the walls and buildings of the Southland is peppered with gorgeous 16mm photography and a dash of Varda’s characteristic wit. Shot in the late ’70s upon her return to the West Coast after completing One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), Mur murs features artworks spanning from Venice to Watts by many of the Chicanx artists from Rivera’s documentary, as well as artist Kent Twitchell, muralist Richard Wyatt Jr., and the late street artist Terry Schoonhoven.
The Murals of East Los Angeles: (A Museum Without Walls)
DIRECTED BY: Humberto R. Rivera. WITH: Richard Ruiz, Humberto Rivera, David Botello, Eduardo Ortiz, Judy Baca. 1977. 37 min. USA. Color. English, Spanish. DCP. Courtesy of USC HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive.
Mur murs
DIRECTED BY: Agnès Varda. WRITTEN BY: Agnès Varda. WITH: Juliet Berto, Agnès Varda, Judy Baca, Terry Schoonhoven. 1981. 85 min. USA. Color. English, French. DCP. Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with Ciné-Tamaris and The Film Foundation. Restoration funding provided by the Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and The Film Foundation.
