Stars And Masculinities In Spanish Cinema

Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema focuses on the careers of ten Spanish film actors, including Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem, and Eduardo Noriega. Chris Perriam traces their development as stars in the Spanish context and builds on recent, exciting work on Spanish film and culture bycombining close study of performance in specific scenes with the theoretical paradigms of Star Studies and research into masculinities. Full use of popular and intellectual press coverage of these actors grounds the approach in the certain specifics of Spanish audience responses and productioncontexts in the period covered - more or less from Almodovar's Labyrinth of Passion to the latest premieres. Scenes from thirty key films are covered in detail, and the full range of each star's Spanish career is studied by briefer reference to some seventy films or more. Spanish cinema is among themost exciting and distinctive cinemas in Europe and this new study is a key contribution to the growing fields of Spanish Cultural and Film Studies.

Men on the Screen articulates various different types of masculinities, arguing that Spanish cinema is a reflection of the great changes experienced by Spanish society during these years.

The rise of consumerism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries radically changed the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. And, as it has throughout history, the social construct of “ideal” masculinity both reflects and responds to that lived reality, helping individuals adapt. Through a close study of Spanish film of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this book investigates hegemonic, or dominant, masculinity in the wake of dramatic consumer changes that occurred in Spain. It explores the ways in which masculine identity as represented in Spanish film positions itself in relation to desire and consumption, focusing especially on representations of hegemonic masculinity from the almost 40 year dictatorship of General Francisco Franco through the transition to democracy and into the early 1990s. Using psychoanalytic theory as employed primarily by Todd McGowan and Slavoj Žižek, this book analyzes cinematic representations of hegemonic masculine models, along with those portrayed as less favorable, to understand how political, social and economic changes in Spain in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries affect the process of masculine identity formation. In the shift from a “society of prohibition” to a “society of commanded enjoyment,” hegemonic masculinity as represented in Spanish film changes dramatically, initially organizing itself around prohibition and self-renunciation in the early Franco dictatorship and later, with neoliberal reforms and mass media promotion of consumerist values starting in the 1950s, reorienting itself around desire and enjoyment (embodied, for example, in the sexually promiscuous, fashionable young man of the 1970s). Personal pleasure and the satisfaction of one’s desires replace submission, obedience and self-abnegation—leading to a reconstruction of masculine identities in a social context that appears increasingly fragmented, plural and individualistic. The primary innovation of this text involves the repositioning of consumerism as a fundamental force in the formation of Spanish masculinity and showing how widely disseminated masculine models serve to accommodate political, social and economic demands.

In post-Franco Spain, a re-shaping of notions of the masculine has been under way for some time. The authors of "Live Flesh" demonstrate how contemporary Spanish films, during this modern period, have contributed to this process. They do so by visualizing the ways in which Spanish men have been abandoning old self images and adopting new ones, and they explain and explore the complexity and diversity of these fresh cinematic creations of masculine identities. The book's point of focus is Spanish films of the democratic period, both popular and auteur, made by directors of national and international prominence, such as Pedro Almodovar, Alejandro Amenabar, Bigas Luna or Julio Medem, as well as films featuring acclaimed actors who have contributed to the construction of contemporary ideas of the masculine in their country, including Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem. Using a fresh theoretical framework, embracing queer and feminist theory and concepts of nation, race and class, each chapter examines key films that represent the male body, highlighting notable elements - young, muscular, homosexual, (dis)abled, foreign and so on - and goes on to focus on recent case studies from the early 1990s to the present. An increasingly transnational Spanish cinema is a most promising field in which to explore questions of how male bodies are represented - and mediated - in film. "Live Flesh" more than fulfils this promise and goes further, to reveal how these representations have intervened in the Spanish cultural imagination.

Performance and Spanish film is the first book to provide a detailed study of screen acting in Spanish film. With fifteen original essays by leading scholars of Spanish film, the book casts light on the manifold meanings, methods and influences of Spanish screen performance, from the silent era to the present day. In doing so, the book provides bold new readings of the work of significant Spanish actors and filmmakers, from Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Alfredo Landa, to Pedro Almodóvar, Carlos Saura and Alejandro Amenábar. The fine-grained study of acting in each chapter also provides a means of exploring broader questions surrounding Spanish film practices, culture and society. Performance and Spanish film will be essential reading for both students and scholars of Spanish film alike, as well as to those more broadly interested in the history of screen acting.

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

Costume design is a crucial, but frequently overlooked, aspect of film that fosters an appreciation of the diverse ways in which film and fashion enrich each other. These influential industries offer representations of ideas, values, and beliefs that shape and construct cultural identities. In Fashioning Spanish Cinema, Jorge Pérez analyses the use of clothing and fashion as costumes within Spanish cinema, paying particular attention to the significance of those costumes in relation to the visual styles and the narratives of the films. The author examines the links between costume analysis and other fields and theoretical frameworks such as fashion studies, the history of dress, celebrity studies, and gender and feminist studies. Fashioning Spanish Cinema looks at instances in which costumes are essential to shaping the public image of stars, such as Conchita Montenegro, Sara Montiel, Victoria Abril, and Penélope Cruz. Focusing on examples in which costumes have discursive autonomy, it explores how costumes engage with broader issues of identity and, relatedly, how costumes impact everyday practices and fashion trends beyond cinema. Drawing on case studies from multiple periods, films by contemporary directors and genres, and red-carpet events such as the Oscars and Goya Awards, Fashioning Spanish Cinema contributes a pivotal Spanish perspective to expanding interdisciplinary work on the intersections between film and fashion.

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).