A documentary film for a general audience Logline. An expert team goes in search of Pre-Columbian treasure. The lost gold Patecte of Ecuador is more than a piece of metal. Its symbolic message holds a hidden identity not only of Latin America and Ecuador but of people everywhere. Integral to El Dorado, it is an identity with astounding potential to solve an enigma haunting mankind: poverty. Synopsis. Chordeleg, Ecuador, 1869. A treasure hunter discovers an ancient royal tomb. Its riches include a mysterious gold plaque - the Patecte. The Patecte quickly vanished. Stolen? Destroyed for its gold content? Hoarded? Mislaid in a museum? Lost at sea? The only hard proof the Patecte existed is an oil painting commissioned by Antonio Heduvides Serrano, the legendary tomb raider who discovered the Patecte. The rest of the story is paved with double and triple-bottomed boxes. An El Dorado fable? - or did the Patecte not only exist but exists today? Our team seeks answers on three continents. Throughout the search, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnologists, psychoanalysts and indigenous experts decipher the Patecte´s timeless, universal message. A NECESSARY PAUSE Why the delay? Our thousands of supporters deserve a full explanation of the current status of our Patecte documentary project. Here it is as of today, July 2, 2023. * * * “Like a glove” The end of the trail? The journey began in the 1960s at Maricopa County Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. When migrant agricultural workers became ill or were injured, they landed on our doorstep. For obvious reasons, no private hospital would accept them. Our wards were always full when I worked there as a college student, first as an inhalation therapist and later in the social services department. You can´t get more front row than that. Having lived and studied in Mexico, I spoke Spanish fluently. I spent who knows how many hours talking with patients, legal and illegal, from Mexico and other Latin American countries. It became apparent in the first few days that government policy regarding undocumented immigrants were an unabashed, unabridged mess. The definitive solution took much longer to appear – 60 years. A reigning ideology first had to be recognized, understood, overcome. After Maricopa County Hospital, the trail turned to the University of Florida and a M.A. in Latin American Studies. Diffuse doubts and questions at Maricopa Hospital evolved into a perspective. The perspective was finalized a few years later when I worked as a legislative assistant to the Governor of New Mexico (Jerry Apodaca), subsequently as assistant to the director of New Mexico´s Hospitals and Institutions Department, and finally as chief of staff of the Majority Floor Leader of New Mexico´s House of Representatives. Being a border state with Mexico, illegal immigrants were a constant issue. In Santa Fe where I lived, I frequently saw them walking at night in small groups. Their shoes gave them away. The trail turned. I left the government and had a newspaper column that ran in New Mexico newspapers and the El Paso Times. The column provided more contact with illegal immigrants and criminals who robbed, raped and murdered them. The final perspective formed over years of study and ground-level experience is not the conventional one. Don´t look for it anytime soon on Anderson Cooper and CNN: The United States does not want (i) Latin America to develop economically or (ii) to seriously correct U.S. immigration policy regarding Latin Americans. The reason: undocumented immigrants form an excess pool of cheap labor that lowers wages all around. I never once voiced the perspective to anyone in New Mexico or elsewhere. The reason: The anthropologist Jules Henry: “Every culture produces, in an unbelievably appropriate and rigid way, a philosophy that fits its needs like a glove.”[i] In the U.S. that appropriate and rigid philosophy – or ideology – with respect to Latin America is the White Man´s Burden. Conceived in the 1800s, the White Man´s Burden exhorted the United States and England to civilize unwilling savages. Its most literate spokesman was the British poet Rudyard Kipling who in 1899 clamored for the United States to take over the Philippines, Cuba and other lands which were newly liberated from the Spanish Empire: Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. The White Man´s Burden in a nutshell: we must save those people from themselves. Again, I never once discussed the Burden with anyone, much less debated it. To do so would have been a waste of time. French historian George Duby: “Ideological systems are not invented. They are there, diffuse, barely touching man’s consciousness. They are not idle. They are changed inwardly by a slow, imperceptible evolution, the effects of which are discovered only much later. If that evolution creates a major dislocation, a re-composition is required…Because the body has changed, the clothing does not fit as well as it should.”[ii] The body and corresponding ideology changed enormously after 1899. The fact that nobody today voices the White Man´s Burden in Kipling´s crude terms does not mean that ideology is dead; on the contrary, it is thriving after undergoing a serious re-composition. I will give three examples of the Burden´s new clothes in a moment. The re-composition fools the majority of the United States populace. Indeed, today, the White Man´s Burden´s most erstwhile proponents proclaim and defame to the stars above that they absolutely, positively, definitely oppose the Burden. All of which shows that, as Duby noted, ideologies (i) change and (ii) are mostly unconscious. Together, they explain why there is no point arguing the Burden ideology with its sleep-walking disciples. If you gave them a lie detector test and asked if they detest the White Man´s Burden ideology, they would pass with flying colors. I conclude this point where it started - Jules Henry´s observation. With its re-composition, the White Man´s Burden fits the United States´ needs like a glove. * * * “You cannot be disillusioned unless…” A necessary sidebar. Our perspective about the across-the-board lowering of wages by an excess pool of cheap labor formed by illegal immigrants is based on consequences, not on intentions no matter how lofty or loudly voiced. If good intentions and their consequences always coincided, it would be a wonderful world. Looking out the window, that is not what I see. Among those consequences is zero funding for projects which would genuinely develop Latin America economically, and consequently dry up the excess pool of cheap labor. To readers who disagree - who think it doesn´t work that way - I respond: Show Me The Money. After years of observation, I have yet to find a single exception to the zero-funding rule for authentic development projects. What U.S. financing organizations actually do will become apparent shortly. No U.S. funding. Such is the reality facing our documentary “The Search for The Lost Gold Patecte of Ecuador.” Our screenplay discloses early a fundamental finding: you cannot be disillusioned unless you had an illusion in the first place. It´s impossible. At the outset, I had no illusions. In 2018, I made several videos in which I stated I did not think our film would be funded in my lifetime; by significantly reducing the number of illegal immigrants, the Patecte project is diametrically opposed to the interests of the U.S. economic elite, the top 5% whose share of the national income pie is increasing exponentially (see below). I did not release those videos because I did not wish to discourage our supporters who wanted, just as much as I did, to see our project successfully completed as soon as possible. There was another reason for not releasing the videos. I hoped a key part of the project could be funded by a crowdfunding campaign. Unfortunately, that option seems to have been, at least for the time being, overtaken by events: Crowdfunding passed its peak when potential donors realized that projects which are not personal - such as to pay somebody´s devastating health care costs - are seldom successfully funded. We attempted a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter but cancelled it within 24 hours when Kickstarter did not respond to our emails asking why they were imposing Byzantine password requirements on potential donors. My friends who tried and failed to send money alerted me to the password imbroglio. (Kickstarter´s self-sabotage, incidentally, perhaps explains why the company ended up laying off up to 45% of its employees.) We may attempt another crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo or GoFundMe; we are watching events closely. Public and private organizations in the U.S. fund documentaries. Examples: Cinereach, CrossCurrents Fund, Creative Capital, Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, Mountainfilm, Catapult Film Fund, Rogovy Foundation, Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, and The National Endowment for the Arts. Unfortunately for our documentary project, those organizations are cornerstones in the ideological superstructure that legitimizes and facilitates the excess pool of cheap labor formed by illegal immigrants. (NOTE: we are not saying those organizations are inherently evil; they may accomplish good things on other fronts. We are saying that for projects like ours, they are at best beside the point). If what you just read comes as a shock, it is because it flies in the face of everything those funding organizations proclaim. Without exception, they bray and crow how they exist solely to help humanity. One begins to suspect something isn´t right on noticing that they all sound pretty much alike. Three examples of lockstep nullité sonore: Ford Foundation. “Today´s challenges, from climate change to institutional racism, demand new, inventive solutions…tackling inequality demands tough questions…Advancing justice calls all of us to think bigger and act bolder.” Catapult Fund. “We believe in taking a chance on filmmakers who have ideas for artful and compelling nonfiction films that inspire us to think differently about the world.” Sundance Documentary Film Program. “Documentaries from around the globe that bear witness to issues of human rights, social justice, civil liberties, and freedom of expression bring forth truth in ways which can have a profound effect on societies and lives. Bringing these truths forward is critical, now more than ever.” Beware of hollow phraseology. When it comes to the economic development of Latin America, U.S. private funding organizations preach what Washington practices. What that practice is… Did you ever wonder why after so many decades of grants and foreign aid, certain appalling facts of life simply won´t go away? Among them: in 2022, in Latin America 201 million people (32.1% of the region’s total population) lived in poverty, with 82 million (13.1%) in extreme poverty. 82 million people. That does it. The results are in: If the conventional methods of fighting poverty significantly reduced poverty, they would have done it by now. It would be mistaken, however, to conclude that those conventional methods don´t do anything. 50 years of watching convinced me they have a covert purpose which is fully achieved year after year: They perpetuate the relationship between benefactor and recipient who is in an inferior, dependent position. In sum, despite the hue and cry to the contrary, the Ford Foundation et al are an integral part of the power structure controlling America. Their reason for existing is to furnish that structure with much-needed ideological justification and relief. Freedom, equality, taking a chance, justice, human rights, truth, climate change, inventive solutions, think differently, profound effect, act bolder, tough questions, artful... As always, reality seeps in, exposes those words for what they are: pop-up, jelly-filled expressions warm from the toaster. Neither fish nor fowl - pure fudge. To conclude, the record shows the words and deeds of United States documentary funding organizations promote and facilitate the White Man´s Burden ideology, albeit with a new paint job. * * * Negative Funding Environment The implacable demand of those standing at the top of the U.S. power structure – the top 5% of the population who receive 23.5% of America´s aggregate income - to keep wages low by maintaining a cheap labor pool of millions of undocumented immigrants is, in and of itself, enough to prevent financing of the Patecte documentary, for our project could not be more opposed to that demand and its ideological enabler, the White Man´s Burden. We will discuss shortly the Patecte´s role in fomenting authentic economic development. There are, unfortunately, four additional factors that discourage funding of our project at this time. 1. The disappearances of the Patecte; of the oil painting of the Patecte commissioned by the legendary tomb raider, Heduvides Serrano, who discovered the Patecte; of a photographic plate of the painting attributed to the pioneer archaeologist Max Uhle (1856-1944); and even of the renowned lithograph of the painting (shown above), are no less revealing than the Patecte´s discovery. It is well known that lapses, slips of the tongue, losing and misplacing things, forgetting words and names are often triggered by the unconscious. If you misplaced your car keys, maybe something deep inside you does not want to go someplace. The Patecte was created by a primeval, non-capitalist civilization that was conquered, lost. Nevertheless, does the Patecte´s iconography - its timeless symbolic message - unconsciously compel Western man to forget, ignore, misplace, discard, lose, destroy - in brief, marginalize - the Patecte? Does the Patecte´s iconography agitate unconscious elements that produced the fervor with which thousands of Europeans and their descendants strove to wipe out Native peoples and cultures? Does the Patecte tell us something we need to know - but unconsciously do not want to hear - about ourselves? Did the Patecte – even major images of it - vanish not because it shows too little but because it shows too much? 2. What has just been said about the Patecte in particular applies to Pre-Columbian art in general. Our documentary faces a daunting challenge. An Ecuadorian scholar: “The entire world knows that different indigenous peoples have narratives (myths, legends, stories) of great qualitative and quantitative richness. But those ´manifestations´ have yet to enter any official history of literature. They have been ´rescued´ and ´valued´ by anthropologists and folklorists; they remain anthropological and folklorist material. They are not literature. They are put together in foreign languages and are transmitted orally. They belong to ´another world.´ They are not art. For that reason, they do not appear in any history of literature; they are not included in any educational program. No literary critic studies them.”[iii] Another world. The Western world views Pre-Columbian art as exotic, hence marginal – not art and irrelevant to current events and people. Our documentary opposes that viewpoint: (a) The Patecte is a masterpiece. An artwork is great more for the questions it raises than the answers it gives. The Mona Lisa is the classic example. The Patecte is another. A (i) serpent (ii) exiting (iii) the mouth of a (iv) hybrid bird-feline figure holding a (v) scepter pointed to a (vi) small altar. If you dreamed that dream, what would it mean? Clearly, powerful psychological/cultural forces have been aroused. Both a sign and a destiny, the Patecte welled up from the realm of archetypes, i.e., universal archaic patterns and images in the unconscious. They are inherited potentials - the psychic equivalent of instincts.[iv] The Patecte achieves what all masterpieces achieve on the everyday level: you never get tired of seeing them. That inexhaustible energy is generated by the unconscious. You do not look at an artwork like the Patecte; you watch it. Worldwide recognition as great art of the Patecte in particular and Pre-Columbian art in general is waiting to happen. Their archetypal creativity, psychological profundity and aesthetic richness are why eventually they will be placed alongside the ancient art of Greece and Rome; of Egypt and the Middle East; of India, Africa and the Orient. (b) Relevancy The cultural significance of the Patecte was summarized by a group of scholars in the Cañar province of Ecuador: “The cover of each of our Heritage Series books will be illustrated with the image of the Patecte which, by its symbolic elements and ideography, integrates the Cañari culture and world view that essentially underlie today, in a determining way, the definition of our collective identity.”[v] (My translation) Given the archetypes forming its iconography, the Patecte represents not only the collective identity of Ecuador but also of Latin America. And beyond. Unconscious archetypes are not limited in time or place, nationality or culture. We will return to the theme of cultural works as phenomena. They are a key to genuine economic development. 3. Certain adverse funding conditions are peculiar to Ecuador. In October 2019 and June 2022, all of Ecuador was hit by massive protests and riots by indigenous groups. The initial cause: the government attempted to reduce subsidies of gasoline. The power of those groups should not be underestimated. Since 2000, they chased two presidents from power. Underlying issues remain unresolved. On November 15, 2002, a national strike was barely postponed by indigenous leaders. Three months later, the leaders called off another national strike but broke off negotiations with President Guillermo Lasso. The 2022 turmoil, which caused over $2 billion in damage, renewed a disturbing message to the international community: Ecuador is a dangerous country - at best unstable, at worst anarchic. On June 22, 2022, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory: in addition to the nationwide protests and “a high level” of Covid 19, “crime is a widespread problem in Ecuador. Violent crime, such as murder, assault, express kidnapping, and armed robbery, is common.” A fiscal crisis lurks behind the disturbances. Ecuador is deeply in debt to foreign lenders, particularly the International Monetary Fund and China. The violence and fiscal crisis are largely the result of a phenomenon that has a long history and is the third negative message: Ecuador is corrupt. The message has substance. Ex-president Rafael Correa is a fugitive living in Belgium; he was convicted on five counts of corruption. Many of Correa´s top officials also fled the country. His vice president, Jorge Glas, was imprisoned for corruption. The pattern continues. In August 2022, the American ambassador withdrew the visas of 19 Ecuadorian police generals whom he described as “narco-generals.” On April 11, 2023, the Attorney General charged Correa´s vice president and successor to the presidency, Lenin Moreno, with corruption; he is living in Paraguay. The current president, Guillermo Lasso, was charged in the National Assembly with corruption. A measure was introduced to remove him from office; Lasso responded on May 17, 2023, by dissolving the Assembly. New elections for Assembly members and the presidency will be held in August 2023. Until a new government is installed, Lasso will govern by decree; he is not running for re-election. As you can imagine, uncertainty and tension abound. In short, three strikes. Financial institutions are well aware of them. In February 2020, Moody´s Investors Service classified Ecuadorian bonds as seven notches into junk. As for private investors, the State Department recently noted the “country’s long-term reputation as a high-risk country for investment.” I am a U.S. citizen and resident of Ecuador since 2011. I and our documentary project have no connection whatsoever with the Ecuadorian Government. However, many funding entities do not make distinctions; they hear the word "Ecuador" – banana republic - and head for the exit. I speak from personal experience - I once worked for a funding organization in Washington. 4. The three strikes against Ecuador come at a time of poor economic prospects generally. The U.S. inflation rate for 2022, was 9%, far above the desired 2%. Major economic trends, such as the latest U.S. banking crisis, point to a coming recession. Finally, the war in Ukraine, a Europe without Russian gas, and fiscal irresponsibility in Washington regarding the national debt add to the present negative funding environment. For now, doubt has replaced certainty. * * * Gold worth more than gold The gold Patecte is the iconic sign of El Dorado. Its signature song. The Patecte is more than a metal plaque in the same way a Leonardo da Vinci paintbrush is more than a paintbrush. How that occurs is the subject of numerous academic studies... The word “icon” is in vogue. In the U.S., icon has become a synonym for star, celebrity. In semiotics, however, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation, icon has a different meaning. At the University of Florida, I was a postgraduate student of a semiotics pioneer, Professor Charles Morris: "An iconic sign is one which would denote any object having certain properties it possesses itself...Iconicity is...a matter of degree. Its lower limits would be found in the case where the sign vehicle had nothing in common with its possible denotata...; and its upper limit would be found in the case where the iconic sign-vehicle had all the properties of what it denoted."[vi] Historical and cultural properties shared by the Patecte and El Dorado put the Patecte at the upper end of the iconicity spectrum. The overall result: the Patecte re-presents - presents over again - something which is absent. That effect combined with the fact that the Patecte was made from El Dorado gold, mean the Patecte IS to a significant extent what it RE-PRESENTS. It is an icon in the fullest, truest sense of the word. We discussed how the United States ideology regarding Latin America is a refined version of the White Man´s Burden. Rudyard Kipling overtly expressed the disrespect and latent racism: fluttered folk, wild, sloth, heathen, folly, sullen people, half devil half child. The earth´s environment has not deteriorated enough for most Western societies to appreciate Native American ecological knowledge and experience. Until that happens, funding for our documentary will remain tenuous, if not off limits entirely. Equally true, that situation will change. Given increasing suffering, property destruction and deaths due to environmental degradation, the lack of appreciation will diminish over time. The question is, when will it reach fruition? 100 years? 200? Sooner? Later? Sidebar. For an introduction to ancient Native environmental expertise, click here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/can-saving-languages-save-nature/p0fh50s5?playlist=made-in-partnership-with-the-open-university. The knowledge which so-called primitive peoples possess is especially noticeable in their greater specificity of terms for natural phenomena. Example: contemporary Western societies have only 20+ synonyms for wind. Natives have many more. The graphic below shows different Hawaiian words for wind on only one island, Oahu: Do certain types of wind and the distinct words for them indicate when a storm is coming? When the rainy season is over? When to plant or harvest? When certain types of fish will be abundant? Westerners cannot answer such questions, which is precisely the point. When Cañari, the language of the Patecte`s ancient creators, died, an unfathomable amount of ecological comprehension and skill vanished. That expertise was a virtue made out of necessity – famines, droughts, floods, wildfires, volcanoes, plagues, earthquakes – over thousands of years. * * * Answers Contrary to what the White Man´s Burden professes, real economic development begins at home. Poverty-stricken nations need to stop looking “over there” - to Washington or Brussels, to Moscow or Peking - to solve their economic problems. If they could solve them, they would have done it by now. The solution to poverty is less than an arm´s length away. The economic history of the United States proves the point. The World Bank: “The United States is the world’s single largest economy…, accounting for almost 22 percent of global output and over a third of stock market capitalization. It is prominent in virtually every global market…” Think about it. Did the United States get that way by waiting for handouts from Washington or the Ford Foundation? From indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund? The road to eradicating poverty and suffering in Latin America is as self-evident as it is seldom traveled. Not a wall (Donald Trump) or “Do not come” messages or memos or task forces (Kamala Harris) or foreign aid or private organization grants or deeper than deep indebtedness and other purveyors of the White Man´s Burden - but authentic economic development. Probably, ongoing failure has convinced you that road is closed. However, hard facts prove otherwise. Ecuador has a stunning local success story of combating poverty. In 1970, Salinas de Guaranda (parish population: 5,551) had an 85% illiteracy rate and a 45% infant mortality rate. Today, without oil or other valuable natural resources, Salinas is a prospering community. The secret to Salinas´ success is no secret. An Italian priest, Antonio Polo, helped turn the village around. He saw something latent and made it manifest. Local people call that something “esfuerzo comunitario.” Community effort. Salinas created an organization-production-commercialization-savings model built on "esfuerzo.” So, what is it? A compelling definition of esfuerzo comunitario in a contemporary context was given by Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano: “Popular organization must be founded on reciprocity and its implicit fairness, on group solidarity, and at the same time on the freedom of the individual and on the democracy of decisions which are collectively agreed to, free from any external imposition.”[vii] (My translation) Quijano´s definition is fundamentally prescriptive - should, ought. However, I think it interweaves with description - what is - so tightly that the two are inseparable. The reason: if a popular organization lacks the normative elements - the values - Quijano mentioned, empirically it is not popular. It is something else. As with ecological expertise, esfuerzo comunitario was a virtue made over thousands of years out of necessity - famines, droughts, wildfires, volcanoes, earthquakes. Esfuerzo was a hallmark of the Pre-Columbian world. A lost world, to be sure. However, as Salinas proved, sufficient vestiges exist to create local initiatives to effectively reduce poverty and suffering - and consequently, stop the torrent of undocumented migrants. If Salinas can do it, any place can. Our documentary will explore esfuerzo comunitario. We will show that the Patecte, the iconic artwork of Pre-Columbia, resonates and can catalyze community effort where it matters - not political speeches or academic treatises, but in the everyday world where people live and work. An ageless question inevitably surfaces: Can cultural works do something? Raise consciousness? Awaken public sentiment? Change expectations and behavior? Four case studies: *Rachel Carson´s science book Silent Spring (1962) sparked the environmental movement in the United States. *The Apollo 8 NASA astronauts´ photograph “Earthrise” (1968), the first color photo of the earth taken from space, showed how fragile and unique the earth is. “Earthrise” set in motion the global environmental movement, specifically the creation of Earth Day. *Pablo Picasso´s "Guernica" (1937) aroused anti-fascism worldwide. *Second in sales in the 1800s only to the Bible, Harriet Beecher Stowe´s novel Uncle Tom´s Cabin was a catalyst for anti-slavery. On meeting the author, Abraham Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." Seismic impacts like those are produced not by rational discussions or advertising campaigns, but by stirring the unconscious of millions of people. That is what transforms a book, sculpture, photo or painting from an artwork into a phenomenon. * * * More Salinases I went looking for what is newest. I found it in what is oldest. Esfuerzo comunitario. More Salinases - that is how to curtail poverty in Latin America. What is at stake: *The renaissance of community effort, the indispensable tried and true agent for reducing poverty and misery. *Without that renaissance, the flood of undocumented migrants will continue as it is now - unabridged, unabated. *Wages in America and elsewhere will continue to be pulled down. Moving beyond economics: *Bird, serpent, feline, scepter, altar: the Patecte´s timeless archetypal message, its penetrating insights into a hidden identity not only of Ecuador and Latin America but of people everywhere, will be marginalized, lost. * * * Not one step back If I appear difficult, it´s because I am. My childhood and adolescent formation had a simultaneous blessing and curse. I grew up around famous people. It was not due to anything I did. My father was a psychiatrist. He taught in medical schools at Yale, Washington University, the Universities of Indiana and Florida, and for six decades had a private practice in Sarasota, Florida. At Washington University he became friends with William Inge who was teaching in the drama department. I think that´s where Dad´s contact with show business began. He helped writers, directors and actors develop their movie and novel characters; in the 1950s and 60s, a supreme value was placed on making them psychologically correct, real. I see Dad´s handiwork in “Splendor in The Grass” (Natalie Wood), “A Face in the Crowd” (Andy Griffith) and “Bus Stop” (Marilyn Monroe). After we moved to Sarasota, the show business connection continued. Elia Kazan – “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh) and “East of Eden” (James Dean); Budd Schulberg - “On The Waterfront” (Marlon Brando, Karl Malden); Joe Hayes - “The Desperate Hours” (Humphrey Bogart in the move, Paul Newman in the play); Irving Vendig - “The Edge of Night” and “Perry Mason”; Lee Goodman – “The Cincinnati Kid” (Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann Margaret): the list goes on. Some became close family friends. Show business people never went to Dad´s office – patients would recognize them in the waiting room and the rumor mill would crank up; instead, they came to the house where I talked with them until Dad came home from work. Those old school masters made an extraordinary impact on me. They set me straight early about a lot of things (“Success? Success only lasts 15 seconds, then it´s back to work.” – Irving Vendig). They were as prodigiously generous as they were consummate perfectionists. The word “serious” doesn´t get it. Try: 300% professional. I can´t close this point without noting they all had remarkable faces. If Elia Kazan were just a guy sitting at a bar, you would notice him. I guarantee it. Once you have people like that in your living room and at your dinner table, you won´t retreat. Not one step back; not one inch down. You become, for lack of a better word, unindulgent. Those men inspired me to make the Patecte documentary in its most crucial sense: they believed art should do something. Forget ars gratias artis. Forget, too, ars gratias pecuniae. The monetary aspect was there – we all have to put hamburgers on the table - but secondary for them, unlike the hustlers making retinal junk food today who take the money and run. If you want to have the impression of prolonging your life, spend time with them. 10 minutes will seem like 10 years. There are good people everywhere. The problem is to find them. During a decade looking for financing, I failed to make contact. I hope film-makers out there reading these words have better luck. There is no getting rid of the short fuse created in me by remarkable celebrated people. Therefore, for the good of the project, I am content to leave the quest for financing to someone in the future who had different formative years - who is young, willing and able to suffer fools gladly. * * * Not one or the other: both At bottom lurks a battle for quality. I have a definite idea of what that word means. I would love to say that all the rude 12-year-olds I dealt with in the motion picture industry who are convinced they deserve a gold star just for showing up are the exception to the rule; however, over a decade of experience taught me the exact opposite. A signpost of where it´s at... In general, production companies et al think the public is too stupid to appreciate our Patecte documentary. “High Concept” they call it. I refuse to dumb it down, because there is no need to. The psychoanalyst C.G. Jung noted the human psyche has four ways of functioning: thinking, feeling, intuition and sensations. He classified personalities according to their dominant and secondary functions, e.g., he would probably say Einstein was a thinking-intuitive. American movies are overloaded with sensations – explosions, car chases, fights, sex, shootings - in order to herd male teenagers to theaters on opening weekend. The overload of sensations is understandable from an economic standpoint; if a film fails to draw a large crowd quickly, megabucks can be irretrievably lost. Research shows that male teenagers make the decision about which movie premiere they and their friends will go to. It is necessary to first meet existing audience expectations like a businessman in order to then create new ones like an artist. My script and panel of experts have considerable thinking and intuition; what is needed are more sensations and feelings. For those functions I turn to my media pros who are the appropriate personality types - which is why I chose them. What the Patecte project seeks is a balance of all four functions. No individual can achieve that balance in their personal life. A work of art that has balance, then, has a charm, an enchantment. There is indeed something for everybody – for all personality types. Sidebar. Thinking, intuition, feeling, sensation: the individual I knew who came closest to achieving a balance of all four functions was Georgia O´Keeffe. I worked with her and will discuss that experience in another post. You don´t have to be a da Vince or Michelangelo to approximate a balance in art. Dan Brown was headed there with his novel The Da Vinci Code. Yes, the thinking function could have been stronger; the novel was denounced by scholars for its historical inaccuracies. Nevertheless, it sold 80 million copies. The issue, then, is not to reduce – much less eliminate - thinking and intuition but rather to supplement them with sensations and feelings. In particular, there should be enough sensations to excite male teenagers. Many scholars I work with would have our documentary be black and white with a professor wielding a chalk stick at a blackboard droning away for two hours. Other people want the contrary - a styleless and guileless Fast and Furious derivative. Neither is acceptable. The lost gold Patecte relief achieved an astonishing balance. I ran ads with images of it on Facebook and received thousands of favorable reviews from all types of people. Reading their comments and looking at their faces, clothes, homes and cars, it became obvious the Patecte touches a broad collective identity where it matters, in the unconscious. Someday, it will have an enormous impact – be an event. A phenomenon. Summing up: film financers, sorry. Not one step back; not one inch down. If that means no financing, hence no film during my lifetime, so be it. * * * A polygraph exam ´Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be-- This land of Eldorado?’ – Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado” – You may have noticed something in our discussion of the Patecte as the iconic sign of El Dorado. The observation that the Patecte and El Dorado were of the same gold could not have been made unless El Dorado really existed. Did our search for the Patecte take us to El Dorado? Does our documentary reveal where El Dorado is? Is our documentary´s account of El Dorado historically accurate? JFK once said, talk is cheap. To avoid the specter of sensationalism, I will take a polygraph exam in which those questions and ten more about El Dorado will be asked. The results will be stored with the screenplay and other documents, including the videos I made, in a bank strongbox (see below). * * * The delay If you had a project that you are absolutely convinced would improve the lives of millions of people, what would you do? You would see it through to the end. For reasons given above, in more than a decade I was unable to acquire necessary financing. Nothing new there; I repeat what I told my colleagues at the outset - I never expected to live long enough to see the film produced. I will never abandon the project. However, circumstances require that I postpone it. Five options: (1) A crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo or GoFundMe. For reasons given above, Kickstarter is not an option. Warning: looking at the faces and homes of the thousands of people who like our Patecte project, a central contradiction emerges: If the people who back our project and who would most directly benefit from it had the money to finance it, there would be no need to make the film. That paradox approaches the project´s surprise climax; for that reason, I will not elaborate further. (2) Elections in Ecuador for president and national assemblymen will take place August 20, 2023. If I see a candidate I like I will voluntarily aid his/her campaign in exchange for the prospect of having the Ministry of Heritage and Culture seriously consider financing our documentary. (3) The United States is not the only country that finances films. Examples of European funding organizations: France. CNC. “Aide aux cinémas du monde.” Spain. El Fondo Iberoamericano de Ayuda IBERMEDIA. Ecuador is a member of IBERMEDIA. Germany. The World Cinema Fund. Cultural support fund of the Council of Europe. Eurimages. Creative Europe (MEDIA). Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), European Commission. Our project has strong ties to Europe because the Patecte has long been rumored to be in a European museum. The script calls for interviews in Germany, Italy, the Vatican, France and England with museum directors and experts regarding the Patecte and Pre-Columbian art. We have an important advantage for European financing. Our director, Carlo Fusco, and editor, Joshua King Ortiz, are European citizens, Italy and Spain respectively. Unfortunately, most European documentary funding organizations only support projects which are in production or distribution. As of this writing, our project is in pre-production. (4) Several production companies are still considering our project. For reasons given above, I do not expect them to find financing; therefore, unless I hear otherwise, I will close this option next month (August). (5) If none of the above options are viable, my will provides for the Patecte project as follows: The screenplay and all related documents will be put in a bank strongbox. The box cannot be opened until April 13, 2144, the two hundredth anniversary of my birth. The documentary project will then be offered for production. If no producer is found in a year, the screenplay and related documents must be put back in the strongbox which cannot be opened until a century later, April 13, 2244, at which time the project will again be offered for production. If no producer is found in one year, the documents will go back into the strongbox where they will remain until April 13, 2344. The pattern of 100-year cycles will be repeated until production occurs. In 2144, will China rule the world? Will there be a nuclear war with Russia? In 2244, will AI and nuclear fusion have transformed human existence? Will the prevailing socioeconomic trend – rich richer, poor poorer, middle class smaller (see below) – in America have created a catastrphe? In 2344, will entire countries be uninhabitable due to air and water pollution? Will wars for food and water be the order of the day? The reason for the 100-year cycles is that it is impossible to foretell at which point the future will be auspicious for production of the Patete documentary. My guess is that, overall, time will be favorable given the continuing deterioration of the earth´s environment and a concomitant growing appreciation of Native ecological principles and practices. The Patecte will definitely have its day. Equally true, that day is not today. I owe a deep apology for the delay to the thousands of our project´s supporters - among them historians, archaeologists, ethnologists, artists, indigenous leaders and anthropologists of all persuasions. But I owe a special apology to the millions of undocumented migrants - two million in 2022 alone - who will be arrested at the U.S. border. I offer it now: Yo quisiera aprovechar esta oportunidad para dirigirme directamente a todos y cada uno de ustedes, nacidos y por nacer, tan afligidos y desesperados en su búsqueda de una vida mejor. Una sala vacía siempre parece más vacía si hace unos minutos estaba llena de gente. Aquí en la provincia de Azuay esa atmósfera inquietante persiste día tras día en ciudades, pueblos y caseríos. He caminado por las tranquilas - demasiado tranquilas - calles desiertas que en otros tiempos rebosaban de vida; calles con casas con ventanas entabladas y puertas cerradas con candados, todas con la misma historia...ido a EE.UU. Un anticlímax sin clímax precedente, que no termina. Decir que ustedes desafían a la muerte no es ninguna exageración. Siendo de Nuevo México, yo conozco el desierto y lo implacable que es. A diferencia de Estados Unidos, aquí en Ecuador los angustiados niños, tíos, abuelas y otros familiares a quienes los indocumentados tuvieron que dejar atrás, aparecen regularmente en las noticias. Yo veo los velatorios y ataúdes de sus seres queridos repatriados. Veo los rostros dolidos, inconsolables; se quedan conmigo cuando me pongo a dormir, mientras escribo estas palabras. Palabras que, por supuesto, fallan, porque no existen palabras para expresar cuánto yo lamento que nuestro proyecto, que hubiera amparado quién sabe a cuántos de ustedes de tanto dolor y sufrimiento, de tantas familias rotas, de tantas muertes horribles bajo un sol despiadado, de tanta droga y delincuencia – todos prescindibles - no podría concretarse más temprano. Esa situación mortal cambiará en el futuro, no por deseo sino por necesidad. * * * “The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery.” — Paul Robeson -- Collaborating with White Man´s Burden legitimizers and enablers falls on the wrong side of the freedom-slavery dilemma. It would also be squarely against the spirit of the Patecte. I would add this nuance to Paul Robeson´s comment: Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are in a condition worse than slavery that presently has no name. If a slave breaks his arm, his owner will take him to a doctor. A slave who cannot work has no monetary value. If an undocumented immigrant breaks his arm, his employer tosses him onto the street like a sack of garbage. * * * Conclusion “Why bother?” a close American friend asked. U.S. national income figures tell the tale.[viii] Each year the Census Bureau divides households into five equal portions. The share of the aggregate national income going to each fifth or quintal, from lowest (poorest) to highest (richest) is noted and can be tracked over time. In 1971, the share of the income pie going to the lowest quintal was 4.1%, to the richest, 43.5%. The share going to the middle quintals 2, 3 and 4 – the middle class – was 52.4%. 50 years later, in 2021, the share going to the poorest quintal plummeted to 2.9%. The top quintal´s share swelled to 52.7%. The share of the three middle quintals fell to 44.5%. The biggest gainer was the top 5% whose share of the national income ballooned from 16.7% in 1971 to 23.5% in 2021. Rich richer, poor poorer, middle class smaller - there you have it. Obviously, that trend cannot continue without cataclysmic results. Obviously, too, the millions of undocumented immigrants forming an excess pool of cheap labor are a major contributing factor to the destructive trend. The good intentions/destructive consequences conflict – the immigrants want only to better their lives and feed their families – is nowhere more pronounced. Sidebar. No elected official or political candidate anywhere is seriously addressing the increasing socioeconomic polarization. A crucial threshold already was crossed. In 1987, the middle class – quintals 2, 3, and 4 – received 50.0% of the national income. After that year, the share fell below 50% and never recovered. A socioeconomic and political revolution took place that was so monumental it went unnoticed: the middle class is no longer able to play its traditional role of balancing and moderating the other two classes. I addressed this subject at length in “The Big Movida: The Third American Revolution”. A catastrophe is not inevitable. In 1930, the preeminent economist of the twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes, made a startling observation: “I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not - if we look into the future - the permanent problem of the human race.”[ix] The economic problem can be solved. It is not inherently permenent. Keynes, incidentally, was no utopian. If you find his commentary shocking, it is because it flies in the face of over 90% of what we are seeing in the world today. Of course, wars and a major world population increase (2 billion in 1927 to over 7 billion in 2020) postponed – but do not nullify – Keynes´ prediction of a future free of the economic problem. The Patecte is a sign. It conveys instructions and information. They were acquired by Pre-Columbian Cañaris over thousands of years of living and working with nature day in, day out. The Patecte is also a destiny. It indicates the likely presence of a future outcome. Given those attributes, to the extent the Patecte documentary resurrects esfuerzo comunitario and generates genuine socioeconomic development, it will help transform Keynes´ remarkable comment from vision to reality. * * * Epilogue The revitalization of community effort - the sine qua non to abolish poverty - is no longer only regionally desirable for Latin America. With every passing day, it is becoming essential for all people everywhere. In human affairs there is a perennial struggle between cooperation and competition. Today, in the Western world, competition clearly rules. Cooperation only surfaces briefly, sporadically, when tragedies such as tornadoes or mass shootings occur. Perhaps, we could continue living that way if a new epoch was not upon us: climate change. It portends a change of - not in – life on earth. Already, wildfires, floods, storms, famines, heatwaves, droughts and other environmental calamities are warning us to change or become extinct. Call it what you will, it still remains the same. To successfully confront deadly climatic changes, cooperation must prevail. It is by no means certain it will. FOOTNOTES [i] Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, Random House, New York, 1963, p. 57. [ii] « Les systèmes idéologiques ne s’inventent pas. Ils sont là, diffus, affleurant à peine dans la conscience des hommes. Non point immobiles. Travaillés de l’intérieur par une évolution lente, imperceptible, mais dont se découvrent de loin en loin les effets : qu’elle a disloqué l’ensemble, qu’il faut le recomposer. […] Parce que le corps a changé, que le vêtement ne tombe plus comme il faudrait. » George Duby, Féodalité, Gallimard, Paris, 1996, p. 523. (My Translation) [iii] “Todo el mundo, ahora sabe que las diferentes nacionalidades indígenas tienen producciones narrativas (mitos, leyendas, relatos, en general) de una gran riqueza (en lo cualitativo y en lo cuantitativo). Pero, ´esas manifestaciones´ no han entrado todavía a nuestra historia literaria, a la ´oficial´. Han sido ´rescatadas´, ´valoradas´ por antropólogos y folcloristas. Son material antropológico o folclórico. Pero no literatura. Están compuestas en otros idiomas y se transmiten oralmente. Pertenecen a ´otro mundo´. No son arte. Por los mismo, no aparecen en ningún manual de historia literaria, no constan en ningún programa de enseñanza; nunca ningún crítico literario las estudia.” Alfonso Carrasco Vintimilla, El único puente posible: Obra crítica, Universidad de Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador, 2008, pp. 429-30. (My translation) [iv] “And the essential thing, psychologically, is that in dreams, fantasies, and other exceptional states of mind the most far-fetched mythological motifs and symbols can appear autochthonously at any time, often, apparently, as the result of particular influences, traditions, and excitations working on the individual, but more often without any sign of them. These ´primordial images´ or ´archetypes,´ as I have called them, belong to the basic stock of the unconscious psyche and cannot be explained as personal acquisitions. Together they make up that psychic stratum which has been called the collective unconscious.” C.G. Jung, Collected Works vol. 8 (1960), “The Significance of Constitution and Heredity in Psychology” (1929), paragraphs 229-230 (p. 112). [v] “La portada de cada uno de los tomos de la Serie Patrimonial se ilustrará con la imagen de la plancha o lámina de Patecte, que por sus elementos simbólicos e ideografía subsume la cosmovisión y cultura Cañari que subyace con sus esencialidades, hasta hoy, como elemento determinante en la definición de nuestra identidad colectiva.” Casa de la Cultura, Núcleo del Cañar, Serie Patrimonial del Cañar: Tomo I, Investigación y puesta en valor de los sitios arqueológicos de Culebrillas, Coyoctor, Zhin y Cojitambo en la provincia del Cañar, Quito, Ecuador, 2010, p. 11. [vi] Charles Morris, Significance and Signification. A study of the relations of signs and values, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964, p. 68. https://archive.org/details/significationsig0000morr/page/68/mode/2up [vii] "La organización popular debe constituirse en] practicas sociales fundadas en la reciprocidad, en su implicada equidad, en la solidaridad colectiva, y al mismo tiempo en la libertad de la opción individual y en la democracia de las decisiones colectivamente consentidas, contra toda imposición externa.” Aníbal Quijano, Modernidad, identidad y utopía en América Latina, El Conejo, Quito, 1990, p. 68. https://antropologiadeoutraforma.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/quijano-anibal-modernidad-identidad-y-utopia-en-america-latina-1988.pdf [viii] “Table H-2. Share of Aggregate Income Received by Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of All Households: 1967 to 2021” (all races) https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html [ix] John Maynard Keynes, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.”
0 Comments
|
AuthorThe Patecte team consists of historians, archaeologists, writers, anthropologists and psychoanalysts. It was formed over a five-year period. Archives
July 2023
Categories |