Popular Spanish Film Under Franco

Popular Spanish Film Under Franco is the first book of its kind to analyze cinematic comedy during the initial two decades of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. Focusing on the intersection between popular culture and political populism, it breaks new theoretical ground in re-evaluating the policies of the regime and the tactics employed by those who sought to undermine it. Its cultural studies approach - combining Gramsci, de Certeau and Bakhtin - interrogates the ambiguous nature of subversion and challenges common assumptions concerning post-war Spanish film.

How does a totalitarian government influence the arts, and how do the arts respond? Spanish Film Under Franco raises these important questions, giving English speakers a starting point in their study of Spanish cinema. After a brief overview of Spanish film before Franco, the author proceeds to a discussion of censorship as practiced by the Franco regime. The response of directors to censorship—the “franquista aesthetic,” or “aesthetic of repression,” with its highly metaphorical, oblique style—is explored in the works of Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis García Berlanga, and other important directors. Virginia Higginbotham combines historical perspective with detailed critical analysis and interpretation of many famous Franco-era films. She shows how directors managed to evade the censors and raise public awareness of issues relating to the Spanish Civil War and the repressions of the Franco regime. Film has always performed an educational function in Spain, reaching masses of poor and uneducated citizens. And sometimes, as this study also reveals, Spanish film has been ignored when the questions it raised became too painful or demanding. The author concludes with a look at post-Franco cinema and the directions it has taken. For anyone interested in modern Spanish film, this book will be essential reading.

In the 1970s, especially after Franco's death in 1975, Spanish cinema was bursting at the seams. Numerous film directors broke free from the ancient taboos which had reigned under the dictatorship. They introduced characters who, through their bodies, transgress the traditional borders of social, cultural and sexual identities. Post- Franco cinema exhibits women, homosexuals, transsexuals, and delinquents in new and challenging ways.Under Franco rule, all of these dissident bodies were 'lost'. Here, they reflect new mythological figures, inhabiting an idealised body form (a prototypical body).

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On Spanish cinema since the death of Franco

Under the Franco regime (1939-1976), films produced in Spain were of poor quality, promoted the regime’s agenda, or were heavily censored. After the dictator’s death, the Spanish film industry transitioned into a new era, one in which artists were able to more freely express themselves and tackle subjects that had been previously stifled. Today, films produced in Spain are among the most highly regarded in world cinema. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Films features nearly 300 entries on the written by a host of international scholars and film critics. Beginning with movies released after Franco’s death, this volume documents four decades of films, directors, actresses and actors of Spanish cinema. Offering a comprehensive survey of films, the entries address such topics as art, culture, society and politics. Each includes comprehensive production details and provides brief suggestions for further reading. Through its examination of the films of the post-Franco period, this volume offers readers valuable insights into Spanish history, politics, and culture. An indispensable guide to one of the great world cinemas, The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Films will be of interest to students, academics, and the general public alike.

How Spanish directors have handled religious themes, with their highly-charged political implications, from the historical avant-garde to 2010

A History of Spanish Film explores Spanish film from the beginnings of the industry to the present day by combining some of the most exciting work taking place in film studies with some of the most urgent questions that have preoccupied twentieth-century Spain. It addresses new questions in film studies, like 'prestige film' and 'middlebrow cinema', and places these in the context of a country defined by social mobility, including the 1920s industrial boom, the 1940s post-Civil War depression, and the mass movement into the middle classes from the 1960s onwards. Close textual analysis of some 42 films from 1910-2010 provides an especially useful avenue into the study of this cinema for the student. - Uniquely offers extensive close readings of 42 films, which are especially useful to students and teachers of Spanish cinema. - Analyses Spanish silent cinema and films of the Franco era as well as contemporary examples. - Interrogates film's relations with other media, including literature, pictorial art and television. - Explores both 'auteur' and 'popular' cinemas. - Establishes 'prestige' and the 'middlebrow' as crucial new terms in Spanish cinema studies. - Considers the transnationality of Spanish cinema throughout its century of existence. - Contemporary directors covered in this book include Almodóvar, Bollaín, Díaz Yanes and more.

A Companion to Spanish Cinema is a bold collection of newly commissioned essays written by top international scholars that thoroughly interrogates Spanish cinema from a variety of thematic, theoretical and historic perspectives. Presents an insightful and provocative collection of newly commissioned essays and original research by top international scholars from a variety of theoretical, disciplinary and geographical perspectives Offers a systematic historical, thematic, and theoretical approach to Spanish cinema, unique in the field Combines a thorough and insightful study of a wide spectrum of topics and issues with in-depth textual analysis of specific films Explores Spanish cinema’s cultural, artistic, industrial, theoretical and commercial contexts pre- and post-1975 and the notion of a “national” cinema Canonical directors and stars are examined alongside understudied directors, screenwriters, editors, and secondary actors Presents original research on image and sound; genre; non-fiction film; institutions, audiences and industry; and relations to other media, as well as a theoretically-driven section designed to stimulate innovative research

Spanish Cinema against Itself maps the evolution of Spanish surrealist and politically committed cinematic traditions from their origins in the 1930s—with the work of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, experimentalist José Val de Omar, and militant documentary filmmaker Carlos Velo—through to the contemporary period. Framed by film theory this book traces the works of understudied and non-canonical Spanish filmmakers, producers, and film collectives to open up alternate, more cosmopolitan and philosophical spaces for film discussion. In an age of the post-national and the postcinematic, Steven Marsh's work challenges conventional historiographical discourse, the concept of "national cinema," and questions of form in cinematic practice.