Video id 3734

A non-fiction film which shows the landscape, the cowboys and the herds of cattle in Arizona. The festival day is the day of the Rodeo, the central event of the film and of life in Arizona. Pictures of the last Apaches, old men and children filmed in front of their tepees and young people in characteristic dances. Dances ‘sauvages, qui après tout ne manquent pas de civilisation’, recites a caption. There are then the ‘Canyon d’Or’, shot from a boat travelling down the river, the desert and the cactus, and the picturesque villages where the films are shot. It is suggested that Hollywood privileges Arizona as the ideal set for westerns. When the evening descends, a very pink sunset, hangs over the landscape with its typical cactuses.
The film is coloured entirely by stencilling and certainly goes back to the Twenties, perhaps to the second half of the decade. The colorations are very precise, an indicator of a totally mechanised pochoir system. The shades are warm, yellows, browns and pinks prevail but are tenuous. The colours in this film play a perfectly complementary role to the images, without suffocating them, on the contrary to what occurred with some films coloured a pochoir in earlier times.
Giovanna Fossati, Catalogue Il Cinema Ritrovato 1996.

Film restored in collaboration with Cinémathèque Suisse.