Glimpses of Octavio Paz

by Robert Gardner

Over a number of years Robert Gardner found ways to film Octavio Paz as he went about Mexico City or traveled with Gardner to places such as Puebla and Monterrey. From these scattered and intermittent efforts to make a kind of open ended film about Paz, Gardner is producing a DVD (in collaboration with Michel Chalufour and Michael Hutcherson) that puts together all of the most interesting moments, or “vignettes,” regarding this remarkable man. One of the sequences is an English subtitled uninterrupted reading in Spanish by Paz of one of his most important poems: “Nocturno de San Ildefonso,” which was among several pieces from this project screened at DOCSDF 2008 in Mexico City and FICM 2009 in Moreilia.

A looping version of this project was screened at the San Ildefonso Museum March 31 (Paz’s birthday) through May 3, 2009. For more information about this event visit Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso.