Two films by José Rodriguez-Soltero: LUPE & DIALOGUE WITH CHE presented by BoriCine

LUPE 1966 49.5 min

Strangely neglected for way too long, José Rodriguez Soltero’s Lupe is an underground classic of the stature of Flaming Creatures, Scorpio Rising, Hold me While I’m Naked, or The Chelsea Girls.

It is ostensibly a biopic of Lupe Velez inspired by Kenneth Anger’s sketch of the Mexican spitfire in Hollywood Babylon and, stylistically, by Von Sternberg’s Marlene Dietrich vehicles. Rodriguez Soltero takes some liberties with the facts and produces a color-saturated, gorgeous dime-store baroque that tells of Lupe’s rise from whoredom to stardom, her fall into fractured romance and suicide, and her ascension into the spirit world. It is consistently inventive and surprising, and wrapped in a dense soundtrack that combines, Elvis, Cuban boleros, Spanish flamenco, The Supremes, and Vivaldi. It features some of the main players of the Ridiculous Theatrical Playhouse (Charles Ludlam plays a keen lesbian seducer and Lola Pashalinsky, Lupe’s maid). Mario Montez never looked better; no wonder this was his favorite film. Whether they know it or not, Pedro Almodavar, Vivienne Dick, and Bruce LaBruce have a grandfather in José Rodriguez Soltero. –Juan Suarez

DIALOGUE WITH CHE 1968 53 min

Newly Preserved with with an Avant-Garde Masters Grant through the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation. In 1967, José Rodriguez Soltero made “Dialogue with Che” (1968), starring Venezuelan artist, actor, producer and dancer Rolando Peña as Che. Warhol superstar Taylor Mead is also featured, in the role of a CIA agent. “The film was partly underwritten by Andy Warhol, who gave a check to cover lab fees. “Dialogue…” was seldom shown in the States – it is entirely in Spanish – but had some life in the European screens. It had a modest run at the Cinémathèque Française, where it was championed by Marie Meerson and Henri Langlois, and played at the Berlin Film Festival in 1969.

ABOUT JOSÉ RODRIGUEZ SOLTERO

José Rodríguez Soltero was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, in 1943, and studied at the  University of Puerto Rico, at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and later on at  San Francisco State University, before moving to New York in 1965. He first became known in experimental film circles for his early titles  El Pecado Original (1964) and Jerovi (1965), a film portrait of his friend Jeroví Sansón Carrasco, who commissioned the work.

His main achievement was probably the luscious Life, Death and Assumption of Lupe Velez (aka Lupe), a poignant and hilarious recreation of the life of the Mexican spitfire in a style that recalls the Kuchar brothers and Kenneth Anger, yet still manages to be uniquely personal. The film stars Mario Montez (it was Mario’s favorite film and José, his favorite director) and the performers of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. Charles Ludlman plays a predatory lesbian out to get Lupe; Lola Pashalinski is Lupe’s maid; and Bill Vehr is occasionally visible in the background of the action.

After Lupe, José’s work took a political direction. In the Spring of 1968, he put on political happening at the Gate Theater, on St Mark’s Place, during which he famously burned an American flag, bringing about the closing of the venue. Later in the year, he made Dialogue with Ché (1968) a two-screen work on the significance of the Latin American revolutionary starring Venezuelan artist Roland Peña as Ché and Taylor Mead as a highly improbable CIA agent. The film was partly underwritten by Andy Warhol, who gave José a check to cover lab fees. Dialogue was seldom shown in the States–it is entirely in Spanish–but had some life in the European screens at the time. It had a modest run at the Cinematheque Francaise, championed by Marie  Meerson and Henri Langlois, and played at the Berlin Film Festival in 1969.

After Dialogue, José made newsreels with the Puerto Rican collective Young Lords and some video for the United Nations Committee on De-Colonization.