Resources Revisited: Where to buy / watch / read Spanish cinema

Way back when this blog began in February 2011, I wrote a resources post detailing where to find films, DVDs, books, journals related to Spanish cinema. I've updated that post multiple times since then but thought that the time had come to write a separate, updated version because (a) the original post has so many revisions that it's starting to look like a patchwork quilt, and (b) so much has changed online in the past two years, it seems simpler to start over. So, some of the information in this post is the same as the original (where things haven't changed), but I've tried to make sure that all of it is up to date.

Films and DVDs –

      The UK distribution of Spanish films on DVD has improved in the last few years, and there are a number of options in terms of buying them within the UK. Moviemail has good offers / sales on foreign language cinema and I like supporting an independent retailer when I can - they also have free postage within the UK. Prices on Amazon UK vary and they've changed how you can go about finding Spanish language films as they no longer bother to have a World Cinema genre category. To find them - Music, Games, Films & TV > Film & TV > Look at the sidebar on the left of the screen > Under 'Languages', you will see 'Spanish'. From there you can change the order of the search results by popularity, price, or release date, and you can also see more recent releases by looking at the 'New arrivals' category in the sidebar on the left (you can choose between 'Last 30 days', 'Last 90 days', and 'Next 90 days'). 

       However a lot of Spanish films that don’t get released over here are released in Spain with optional English subtitles (this is more true of contemporary films than older classics, but there is nonetheless a wide range available with subtitle options). If you’re unsure about ordering from Spain, there are quite a lot of Spanish sellers selling Spanish DVDs on ebay UK. It used to be quite straightforward to find Spanish films on ebay (DVDs > Foreign Language > Spanish), but they've dropped 'Foreign Language' from the main genre menu - you can still find them as a category if you click 'More refinements' in the left-hand sidebar (when you've selected the general DVD category) but you have to go through several more menus and it becomes quite convoluted (with only a comparatively small number of DVDs listed under what become sub-genres within sub-genres). What I usually do is search for the title / director / actor in the main search engine, tick the box that says 'include description', and set the 'Item Location' as European Union - you will then start to see Spanish sellers / ebay shops –the prices sometimes seem a little high, but consider that they quite often offer free postage and have factored that into their asking price (standard postage for one DVD being sent from Spain to the UK seems to be around 12€). I have ordered DVDs through ebay in this way and have never had any problem.

       If you’re feeling more adventurous and / or speak Spanish, there are a number of online Spanish DVD stores. Amazon Spain opened in September 2011, and it is as reliable as the UK version but they do seem to have quite low levels of stock -you sometimes have to wait a few weeks for something to come back into stock. The postage is a standard 7€, which is far more reasonable than most of the other sites I have used. Fnac would seem the other obvious place to start, but you need to have a bank card issued in Spain in order to use it. I’m not sure if that is also the case for El Corte Inglés but the last time I attempted to order from them they wanted my passport number, which seemed a bit excessive for the sake of the 1st series of 7 vidas (don’t ask). The site that I used most often before Amazon Spain opened is DVDgo -if you’re not confident in Spanish, click on the Union Jack in the top right-hand corner and the menus switch to English (although you still need to search for titles in Spanish). They have really good reductions when they have a sale, although be warned that the postage costs can be quite expensive. The other DVD site that I’ve used is Stars Cafe (and I've continued to use them in combination with Amazon because they have good sales and their postage rates are more reasonable than DVDgo) and likewise there is another Union Jack on the right-hand side to switch the menus into English. Both stores do deliveries by courier, so once they are despatched they arrive very quickly.

      In terms of films being streamed online, I can vouch for Filmin and Filmotech. Filmin is entirely in Spanish and there are no English subtitle options on the films, so it’s one for people who speak Spanish or who want to improve their Spanish. It mainly streams contemporary Spanish films with an emphasis on the indie / arthouse end of the market. You can watch films on Filmin in the UK, but you will need to find an amenable Spaniard to pay on your behalf (or to buy you a gift subscription). The prices currently break down into two streams: Premium and Premium+. In the Premium strand you can pay 8€/month or 70€/year and that allows you to watch an unlimited number of films from the main catalogue (more than 3700 films and rising). There are certain films (usually ones that are either unreleased in Spanish cinemas or that are shortly about to get a DVD release) that cost more, and that's where Premium+ comes in. In the Premium+ strand you pay 15€/month, 30€ for three months, 55€ for six months, or 110€ for a year - and each of those will also cover three of those more exclusive films per month (but you can't accumulate the tokens - you have three per month, they don't carry over to the next month). You can also buy bundles of these tokens (14€ for 5, 50€ for 20). Filmotech generally has older films than Filmin (although in the past year they have increased their number of contemporary releases), and they’re also restricted depending on where in the world you are (for example, only certain Berlanga films are accessible from the UK). The plus side is that some of them do have English subtitle options and you pay a monthly subscription of 6,95€, with some premium titles available for an extra payment (all payable through paypal).

Books and articles–

      In terms of book recommendations, see my posts - Books on Spanish Cinema, Part One and Part Two - those posts are periodically updated as and when I get my hands on new books (which also receive standalone posts - click on 'Books' in the labels at the bottom of the blog and you will get to all of those posts). 2013 is shaping up to be a bumper year for new books on Spanish cinema - so standby for more! 

      The two online bookshops that I have used in the past are Casa del Libro and Ocho y Medio. Casa del Libro can be switched into English by clicking on the drop down menu next to the Spanish flag at the top of the page and likewise Ocho y Medio also has an English option by clicking on the Union Jack –but if you’re after Spanish-language books, you can probably cope with the websites being in Spanish (note: Ocho y Medio sells French-language books as well). Casa del Libro is similar to Waterstones and Ocho y Medio is a specialist (Cinema) bookshop. The postage is pretty expensive but I’ve never had any problems with my orders, and again delivery is by courier. I have also ordered specific books direct from the publishers as well –some of those are in the links list on the right-hand side. It’s also worth noting that since Amazon Spain started, Amazon UK have more Spanish-language film books listed on their site (and that are included within their Amazon Prime postage package), and more Spanish bookstores seem to be listing Spanish books on the Amazon Marketplace on the UK site. AbeBooks is kind of Marketplace for independent bookstores and offers price comparison and facilitates the orders and payments –there are a lot of Spanish bookstores on there and I've got some good deals from there in the past (including back issues of Spanish magazines).

      In terms of online content, the academic journals listed on the right-hand side usually have at least one (old) back issue that is available for download for free (that is at least true for the Intellect titles), and if you’re at university you may be able to get access to more recent issues through the university library (if they subscribe electronically). In the past year, Archivos de la Filmoteca, a Spanish-language journal, has made all of its back issues viewable online in PDF form, for free - all you have to do is register with their site. The other major resource that is out there is the website Film Studies for Free, which among other wonders has regularly-updated lists of online film and media studies journals, open access film e-books, and links to film and moving image studies PhD theses that are online.

I will continue to add links to the lists on the right-hand side, and if I come across something really interesting I’ll highlight it in a post.

Another Book Added

Torres Hortelano, L. J. (ed) (2012) - World Film Locations: Madrid, Bristol: Intellect Books. ISBN: 9781841505688.

'When a book on cinema is launched, the first thing that one might try to do is figure out exactly what type of book it is. The book may be aimed at cinephiles, academic scholars or even those who just love to talk about movies. The World Film Locations series does not fit comfortably into any of those categories. What readers will find are the myths and the facts that explain what cinema is today through the representation of the city. We can see what remains today from the early twentieth up to the twenty-first century, and also what cinema has become. Movies are one of the most powerful cultural means of expression and catalyst for society. This series focuses on the representation of an area that was born alongside cinema: the city.' (p.5)

   Part cinematic appreciation, part travel guide, this book is effectively a love letter to Madrid and its various onscreen incarnations. It brings together seven bite-sized essays on various aspects of Madrid's representation(s) on film with an examination of forty-four scenes from different films. The introduction states that the 'criterion for the selection of films is not so much the length of footage that is dedicated to the city [...] but the importance of the scenarios, buildings or monuments in the narrative of the film, as well as the intrinsic role of the city of Madrid to the film as a whole' (p.5). The scenes are arranged throughout the book in chronological order (dating from 1912 to 2009), so we get a sense of change over time not just in terms of how the city has been utilised onscreen but also how the city itself has evolved. Each 'set' of scenes includes a map with the locations marked on it, and the two pages that each film receives include stills from the scene in question as well as photographs of the locations as they are today. The discussion of each scene is only a paragraph long but that's enough in most cases to give you a taste of the film and how the scene and its use of the city fit within the film overall. Having felt that Intellect's Directory of World Cinema: Spain was a bit light on a particular high-profile director, I was pleased to see that several of his films appear in this volume: a consideration of Madrid as a cinematic city would be seriously lacking if it did not give Pedro Almodóvar a certain prominence. But there are a range of films and directors included, including non-Spanish films that have sequences set in Madrid. Overall, I felt that the bite-sized essays take some interesting angles on the book's theme, and the scene discussions serve as a good taster for the films (there are certainly some that I haven't seen, but will now try to track down). Recommended.
I will add the title to the Books on Spanish Cinema, Part Two post. The list of contents (including film titles) is below.

Introduction
Madrid: City of the Imagination -Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano
Scenes 1-8 (1912-1951):

Asesinato y entierro de Don José de Canalejas / The Assassination and Burial of Don José de Canalejas (Enrique Blanco and Adelardo Fernández Arias, 1912), El sexto sentido / The Sixth Sense (Nemesio Sobrevilla, 1929), La verbena de la paloma / Fair of the Dove (Benito Perojo, 1935), La torre de los siete jorobados / Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks (Edgar Neville, 1943), Domingo de carnaval / Sunday Carnival (Edgar Neville, 1945), Siempre vuelven de madrugada / They Always Come at Dawn (Jerónimo Mihura, 1948), El último caballo / The Last Horse (Edgar Neville, 1950), Surcos / Furrows (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1951).

Madrid in Motion: Squares, Corralas, Markets, Verbenas -José Luis Castro de Paz and José Ramón Garitaonaindía de Vera
Scenes 9-16 (1955-1965):

Muerte de un ciclista / Death of a Cyclist (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955), El inquilino / The Tenant (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1957), El pisito / The Little Apartment (Marco Ferreri, 1958), El cochecito / The Little Car (Marco Ferreri, 1960), The Happy Thieves (George Marshall, 1961), La gran familia / The Great Family (Fernando Palacios, 1962), El mundo sigue / Life Goes On (Fernando Fernán-Gómez, 1963), Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965).

Iván Zulueta: Films of Madrid's Underground -Steven Marsh
Scenes 17-24 (1967-1984):

La busca / The Search (Angelino Fons, 1967), Cría cuervos / Raise Ravens (Carlos Saura, 1976), Elisa, vida mía / Elisa, My Life (Carlos Saura, 1977), Ese oscuro objeto de deseo / That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977), Asignatura pendiente / Unfinished Business (José Luis Garci, 1977), Maravillas (Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1980), Las bicicletas son para el verano / Bicycles Are For the Summer (Jaime Chávarri, 1984), ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! / What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Pedro Almodóvar, 1984).

Embracing Normalcy: Madrid Gay Cinema at the Turn of the New Millennium -Helio San Miguel
Scenes 25-32 (1987-1997):

La ley del deso / Law of Desire (Pedro Almodóvar, 1987), Siesta (Mary Lambert, 1987), ¡Atame! / Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar, 1990), El día de la bestia / Day of the Beast (Álex de la Iglesia, 1995), La flor de mi secreto / The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodóvar, 1995), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto / Nobody Will Speak of Us When We Are Dead (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 1995), Tesis / Thesis (Alejandro Amenábar, 1996), Barrio / Neighbourhood (Fernando León de Aranoa, 1997).

Madrid: Unexpected Dream Factory -Helio San Miguel
Scenes 33-38 (1997-2002):

La buena estrella / Lucky Star (Ricardo Franco, 1997), Abre los ojos / Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997), Segunda piel / Second Skin (Gerardo Vera, 1999), El corazón del guerrero / Heart of the Warrior (Daniel Monzón, 2000), Lucía y el sexo / Sex and Lucía (Julio Medem, 2000), Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002).

Beyond the Cliché: Madrid in Twenty-First Century American Thrillers -John D Sanderson
Scenes 39-44 (2003-2009):

Noviembre / November (Achero Mañas, 2003), Camarón (Jaime Chávarri, 2005), The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2007), Deception (Marcel Langenegger, 2008), Los abrazos rotos / Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar, 2009), The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch, 2009).

Bright Young Things: Neo-existentialism in Madrid Cinema of the 1990s -Rafael Gómez Alonso
Resources
Contributor Bios
Filmography

More articles added to the Spanish cinema reading list

All of these articles come from issue 39 of Archivos de la filmoteca, the search for a copy of which became something of an unresolved Holy Grail-type quest during my PhD –the articles in this specific issue are repeatedly referenced in books and articles on Spanish cinema of the 1990s but it is really difficult to track down. I found this copy a few months ago through Abe Books but only bought it last month after deciding that my quest would not be complete until I actually had a copy (I’d been dithering because I no longer ‘need’ it). These are just the articles that look at some general issues in Spanish cinema of the period (although taking specific films as examples) –there are others in the issue that take specific films or filmmakers as the basis for the article, but I’m not adding those at the moment because I will eventually do a filmmaker / specific film list. The articles listed below have been added to Books on Spanish cinema, Parts One and Two. 

Benet, V.J. (2001) –‘El malestar del entretenimiento’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.40-53.

[Taken from the official abstract] This article looks at various film adaptations of Spanish novels, specifically those of Ray Loriga and José Ángel Mañas. The analysis examines the values and symbols reflected in these films, which differ significantly from films made during the Spanish transition to democracy. The article situates the relationship between these films and their literary sources within an economic perspective, taking leisure and entertainment as key cultural concepts.

Gámez Fuentes, M.J. (2001) –‘No todo sobre las madres: cine español y género de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.68-85.

[Taken from the official abstract] This paper analyses the various images of motherhood through their configuration in ‘90s films such as El pájaro de la felicidad (1993), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (1995), Solas (1999) and Todo sobre mi madre (1999). The different figures are considered as cultural products which articulate tensions contextualized at a particular historical moment: the consolidation of democracy in Spain. Through a detailed study of the maternal, such issues as job access, geographical origin and sexual identity are discussed within the framework of the private and public negotiations women are to be faced with in the new welfare state. The legacy of the dictatorial past is, undoubtedly, a question that also permeates the construction of female narratives -unfolded here in personal and historical complexity.

Quintana, Á. (2001) –‘El cine como realidad y el mundo como representación: algunos síntomas de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.8-25.

[Taken from the official abstract] In contrast to traditional discussions of film and history, the author takes the concept of historicity to examine the relationship between thought, culture, and art at a specific moment in the history of cinema. As point of departure, the article takes the commonly cited crisis of reality in Spanish cinema of the 1990s, in particular three significant cultural phenomena: the identity crisis, excessive images of violence, and the transformation of the world into a gigantic Platonic cave. These phenomena are observed in the various models of Spanish film of the 1990s, where a new generation of filmmakers aim to situate their films within the cultural logic of postmodernity. The author affirms that representative figures in Spanish film are a symptom of the global crisis of the real that is affecting the world, dominated by a loss of faith in the media and the creation of new spatial and temporal dimensions in a virtual sphere.  

Books on Spanish Cinema, Part Two

This is Part Two of the list that I started yesterday (see Part One here).

Part Two: Authors J (continued) - Z

Books on Spanish Cinema, Part One

This post is inspired by my attempts a couple of weeks ago to discover which films were covered in an edited collection of articles on Spanish films. I was looking for info about / analysis of La madre muerta and I knew that the book in question looked at key Spanish films –but could I find a list of contents anywhere? No. Not on Amazon, not on the publisher’s website, not on the public library catalogue. I eventually tracked down a copy in one of the university libraries in this city (it didn’t have anything about La madre muerta, incidentally), but this reminded me that the recurring problem that I have had when buying books about Spanish cinema, especially when the books are in Spanish, is that I effectively have to buy ‘blind’ because there is so little information about the book available online. This is especially true on websites such as Casa del Libro, which lists very little information beyond author, title, and publisher, but Amazon is equally as bad with edited collections (where you are often given no indication of what topics are included, or who has written the various articles) and books not in English. Note to publishers: putting some kind of content information online would net you more sales.
    
So, I’ve decided to be helpful (at least, this would have been helpful to me in the past).
    
What I’m going to do is this: with books that are written by one author, I will write a (very) brief summary of the book; with the edited collections, I will include the list of contents; and if an article is available online, I will link to it. I’m not going to translate the titles of articles that are in Spanish because there is little point given that the article itself will also be in Spanish. The aim for this resource is that it will be a cross between a recommended reading list and an annotated bibliography –I may write some book reviews of some of the books included at a later date, but that is not the purpose of this particular post.
First up will be books / articles that are about Spanish cinema in general (I will post something about books on directors / actors / specific films at a later date) –this is going to be split across more than one post because I’ve got rather a long list. The books / articles are being chosen by two criteria: 1) I’ve read them and currently have access to a copy (I can’t get the information without the physical copy) and 2) they relate to the period that I’ve said this blog is going to cover (the last twenty years). The latter point is why some older books by significant authors are not included. The list is in alphabetical order by author because that’s the most straightforward way to do it. If you think that I’ve left a glaring omission (especially for books in Spanish –buying blind means that my collection is a bit hit and miss), please leave a comment below. Likewise, if you’ve got something to say about the books included, please join in as well!
If you’re in the UK, most of these books can be obtained from the British Library via the Inter-Library Loan system. If you want to buy any, I’d recommend comparing the prices available between Amazon, Casa del Libro, Ocho y Medio, The Book Depository, Alibris, and Abe Books –there are bargains to be had if you do some searching (but likewise there are some people –on Amazon in particular- selling second-hand copies for absurdly high prices).
Ok, let’s get started!