By RAY KELLY
A scholarly Spanish language paper examines Orson Welles’ inspiration for the fictional town of Los Robles as depicted in the classic 1958 film Touch of Evil. The authors argue Los Robles was not solely based on Tijuana as some have believed, but rather was an amalgamation of multiple Mexican locales.
Written by Miguel Ángel Lozano and Axel Eduardo Núñez Morales and illustrated by Luis Felipe López Pérez, Touch of Evil: la frontera imaginaria de Orson Welles (Touch of Evil: Orson Welles’ Imaginary Frontier) was first published in Amerika, a multidisciplinary humanities journal. The Spanish text can be found online at journals.openedition.org/amerika/14459
“(Orson Welles) creates a city that’s ‘true but unreal’,” Lozano, a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexico, told Wellesnet. “This is a particularly important topic for me, given the fact that I live in one of the cities that was the inspiration for Los Robles: Mexicali.”
He added, “Tijuana was only a secondary inspiration, as we argue in the paper.”
It has been widely reported that Welles had wanted to shoot Touch of Evil in Tijuana, but Universal Pictures objected to shooting in Mexico. The movie was instead filmed in Venice, California, which is located 145 miles north of Tijuana.
Lozano believes his research into the fictional Los Robles “could shed light about (Welles’) creative process.”
Wellesnet has translated into English the paper’s opening: “The film Touch of Evil (1958) by Orson Welles is often considered the last great American film noir and the inspiration for cinematic movements such as the French New Wave. The action of the film takes place in a fictional city called Los Robles, located on the Mexico/United States border. Although the actual filming location was Venice, California, some authors have speculated about the inspiration for this fictional city, and assume that it is the city of Tijuana. In this work we demonstrate through an intertextual analysis that the film is inspired by multiple locations.”
“Within the film we find references to the Jai Alai Palace and the Roble Cinema, both in Tijuana, as well as the Hotel del Norte and Agustín Melgar Street in Mexicali. By analyzing these iconic locations, we discern the reason why Welles decided to include them as representative of the border, what their relevance is and how they were represented in the film contrasted with reality. The findings demonstrate that Los Robles is a heterogeneous amalgam of border icons that create a panorama at the service of the film’s message and that capture the essence of the relationship between Mexico and the United States at the time of its making.”
The paper concludes: “Touch of Evil is a border statement. Orson Welles presents us with a vision, shaped by his life experience taking elements from reality. It is a confusing, nostalgic border, with a mix of cultures and a cinematographic space in which we can get lost if we are not careful. Although many elements do not correspond to reality, its importance lies in showing us a different vision than that presented in the border cinema of the time. The best way to describe it is using the words that Welles himself used to describe actor James Cagney: ‘Cinematographically true, but unreal.’ An imaginary border, which ironically remains very current.”
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