Filming the Pampas:

Victoria Ocampo, from Eisenstein to Güiraldes

Abstract

In 1930, Victoria Ocampo spoke with Sergei Eisenstein about filming in Argentina a “documentary poem about the pampas”. The project was never materialized, but the writer never abandoned the idea: she was convinced that such an exemplary film could correct the flaws of national cinema. Over several decades, Ocampo insisted on the project, though it constantly mutated, and at each stage, she believed she had found the right filmmaker to carry it out: Robert Flaherty, Benjamín Fondane, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti were the names that came to replace Eisenstein. However, from the beginning and until the end, the model for that film seemed to be the novel Don Segundo Sombra, written by her friend Ricardo Güiraldes. Drawing on previously unpublished correspondence from Victoria Ocampo preserved in various archives, this essay traces the process that this documentary poem underwent and examines the various transformations it experienced over four decades.