The roto on the screen: the urban popular type in the classical chilean cinema

Abstract

The figures of roto and huaso are considered popular types of the chileanity. The researcher Santa Cruz Achurra points out that during the Chilean cinema of the 1940s we can find greater presence of the huaso in relation to the roto on the movies. From this information, our objective in this article is not to seek answers to this phenomenon, but to analyze how the figure of the roto became an important element present in the Chilean cultural industry in the first half on the 20^th century, and thus it was absorbed by the local film production. Finally, we will focus our studies on the comic actor Eugenio Retes, specifically in the film El gran circo Chamorro (1955), directed by José Bohr.