Leopoldo Nilson Torre

Background

Leopoldo Torre was the son of Argentine pioneer film director Leopoldo Torres Ríos, with whom he collaborated between 1939 and 1949.

Education

Leopoldo was educated locally.

Career

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, as film festivals grew in size and self-importance, Torre Nilsson was everyone's South American entry. Thus we had to sit through his judicious melodramas to convince ourselves that we were seeing, say, Tirez sur le Pianiste or L’Avventura in a proper perspective. He was the son of Leopoldo Torres Rios, another director, and of a Swedish mother. While reading philosophy and writing poetry, he helped his father and eventually became his country’s most prestigious director. Who knows whether he is representative? In 1960, Argentina was producing some thirty movies a year; only Mexico took the medium more seriously in Latin America. Nilsson's movies aspire toward Europe; they say little about the pampas or about a country where a raw actress named Eva Perón could become a goddess. Nilsson was the writer on many of his early films, but he also collaborated on scripts with his wife, novelist Beatriz Guido.

He seems to me less interesting, or more solemn, than Hugo Fregonese, an Argentine-born wanderer, with something of the way of a gaucho. Yet, Dias de Odio is taken from the Borges story, "Emma Zunz”; and Boquitas Pintados is a fierce piece of social criticism, taken from a novel by Manuel Puig.

Works

More photos

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  • Los Gauchos Judios

    (Los Gauchos Judios: Pepe Soriano, Gina Maria Hidalgo, Víc...)

  • La Guerra Del Cerdo (Diary of the War of Pigs)

    (La Guerra Del Cerdo (Diary of the War of Pigs): Jose Slav...)

  • Los Siete Locos (The Seven Madmen) [PAL/REGION 2 DVD. Import-Spain]

    (Los Siete Locos (The Seven Madmen) [PAL/REGION 2 DVD. Imp...)

  • Films and Filming Magazine (November 1962 Vol. 9 #2)

    (Films and Filming Magazine (November 1962 Vol. 9 #2) [Pet...)

Connections

Torre Nilsson was married to writer Beatriz Guido, whose work served as inspiration and who worked alongside him in many of his scripts.

Spouse:

Beatriz Guido