Birthday time again

    The blog's birthday always seems to catch me unawares - for some reason I remember it as starting later in the month than it did. Anyway, that's my excuse for not having a special post ready for Nobody Knows Anybody's fourth birthday. 

    So what happened in 2014? There were ups and downs, but overall it was a marked improvement on 2013.  

    In the negative column, I'm still in the same job as I was this time last year. Staff morale has continued in steady decline since the restructure in 2013 but has noticeably nosedived even further in the last six months. The smallish team (14 of us) I'm in moved to an open plan basement office (with approx. 55 people in there) in the summer and I've discovered that I don't much like spending my entire day underground with strip lighting and in such close proximity to other people that there is no middle distance to gaze into. I know that a decline in working conditions / environment seems to be being rolled out worldwide, with the Powers That Be apparently in a race to the bottom in terms of how they treat their workforce - and I know that many others have it far worse than me [plus, y'know, a job is a job *repeats ad infinitum*] - but it makes going to work more of a grind than it needs to be. In an effort to see more sky, towards the end of the year I started walking to and from work (about 3 miles) - at the moment I mainly see night sky, but I figure that if I can stick with it during the cold and dark, then the warm (ha!) and light should be a doddle.
    Anyway, it was a combination of the ongoing crappy working conditions and my being tied to home outside of working hours (a family member had multiple surgeries) during 2013 that made me determined to do more of the things I enjoy, but also to get out and about more in 2014. 
    Film festivals combined both of those things. I started off small with a daytrip to Manchester in March to catch a double bill at the 20th Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival, and I also saw several documentaries in the same month as part of the AV Festival in my home city (Newcastle). Then I found out that three of the 'otro cine español' titles I was investigating were screening at Bradford International Film Festival (April), so I headed off there (I wrote about those films for Mediático - Costa da Morte ended up being my favourite film of the year). Three days in Edinburgh (June) followed, another three in Berwick (September), a 24-hr return to Edinburgh for the inaugural Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival in October, and finally four days in Leeds (November). Although Spanish films featured at most (but not all) of those festivals, as I said in my birthday post last year I wanted to broaden the range of films I was watching, so the Spanish titles were not necessarily the main reason for attending a given festival. I'm no better at negotiating large groups of people I don't know in a festival context than I am in a conference setting, and I didn't explore places as much as I should have, but I saw some good films - many of which I might not get the chance to see anywhere else. I'll be continuing with my film-seeking travels in 2015 and will hopefully also head beyond the UK at some point this year as well.
    The other thing that I said that I wanted to do in 2014 was consider other forms / arenas of publication. That's something I'm still working on (I think I need to broaden the scope of what I write about before I approach some of the publications I've been thinking of), but I considerably upped the amount of writing I was doing last year, which was a challenge given that I work full-time but I think that my writing improved through more consistent application and effort. The much-mentioned (by me) Javier Bardem article morphed into something else entirely, but it was published as part of The Cine-Files special issue on acting. I wrote two short 'Lost Classics' pieces for The Big Picture Magazine website (the first on Entre tinieblas (Pedro Almodóvar, 1983), the second on Overlord (Stuart Cooper, 1975)) and two articles for Mediático (the already-mentioned one about the Spanish films at BIFF, and one on censorship and Spanish documentary - the latter being the piece of writing I was happiest with last year). But the main part of my new output has been reviews, primarily for Eye for Film (45 reviews) and a handful for Take One (7 reviews). Writing reviews has allowed me to write about non-Spanish films for the first time in years - and I wrote at least one review for each festival I attended (around 30 of the Eye for Film reviews are for Spanish films - mainly because I covered the London Spanish Film Festival in September (from the comfort of my own home because a lot of the films were available on DVD or VOD) and the Spanish retrospectives at Leeds - ordinarily I don't think I would see so many Spanish films on the festival circuit in one year).

    As I trundle on into the fifth year of writing this blog my plans are not much changed from those of a year ago. My 2014 project of researching this ever-mutating 'otro cine español' continues, although I am much more focused on documentaries than I was at the start, and I have also been watching a variety of (non-Spanish) documentaries for a broader context. Hopefully I'll reach a point this year where I work out exactly what the nub of what I'm going after in this research is and what shape the writing needs to take. The Carlos Saura Challenge has (finally) restarted and I'll be trying to keep momentum going with that - I need to watch at least two of them a month to be in with a hope of finishing the challenge this year, so we'll see how I go. I'll be going to more festivals and writing more reviews, but also thinking about different ways to write about both festivals and the films I see there. I'd like to learn how to make a video essay. And I think I should aim to write something in Spanish. Maybe. I've currently got a backlog of viewing unrelated to the blog, so I need to work through that during the next couple of weeks - but after that I hope to fall back into a regular pattern of writing on here too.

Plan of Action: Documentaries and Blurred Borders

   It has been my intention in the last couple of months (I've kept getting waylaid by other things, as is my habit) to start imposing some kind of order on to my 2014 project ('El otro cine español'). The filmmakers who are being labelled with that tag are a disparate and unwieldy bunch - while I'm trying to work out who I would classify as belonging to this 'movement' (and how I will define 'it', and my own classifications) it seems sensible to divide them up into more manageable groups, even if I later draw the lines in different places.
    As I've previously said, I have some qualms with Caimán Cuaderno de Cine's criteria for their list. The actual articles they've published on the theme are more inclusive (so, even more filmmakers are mentioned, but that makes more sense to me - i.e. there is a thread that can be followed further back than CdC's arbitrary (to me) one year period). I've been reading my way through the articles and making translated notes (it would appear that the only way information will stick in my mind is in English), or in the case of Carlos Losilla's key article ('Un impulso colectivo', Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, September 2013, pp.6-8) I've written a full translation. As a side note, I'd like to say that the enthusiasm and excitement of the Spanish critics (in CdC but also websites such as Blogs&Docs) who have been writing about - and championing - these films (and particularly in what they've written about the newer group of filmmakers as being a group of people united by the conviction that you have to make images of the world and of ourselves with the aim of changing it and changing us (Losilla 2014: 22)) is compelling and infectious, and manages to even survive my broken up manner of translation (i.e. having to stop to look a word up in a dictionary when I'm not sure I've understood something properly). I've still got articles to work my way through, but I now have a better idea of the key themes or strands to what constitutes this 'other' cinema and also a view on which filmmakers I think need to be added to my considerations.
    I've come to the conclusion that documentaries are where I need to start - because of the number of documentaries being made by these filmmakers (and there are a lot of filmmakers who switch back and forth between making documentaries and making fiction films, which seems unusual to me because I can't think of many examples of this happening extensively elsewhere - Werner Herzog is one of the few names who springs to mind but please feel free to inform me of others), the manner in which documentaries more obviously fit with the apparent impetus and intentions of this 'movement' (I'm not 100% clear on this aspect at the moment, but that's my instinct), and also because it is some (but not all) of the more straightforwardly 'fictional' filmmakers (they make more or less exclusively fiction features - I'm not suggesting that they themselves are fictional, although that would make for an interesting digression) who I have more difficulty seeing quite how they fit into the larger collective. I've said 'straightforwardly' fictional because there are also a group of films that blur the borders between documentary and fiction - for example, in La plaga (Neus Ballús, 2013) the characters are local people playing fictionalised versions of themselves - and I'm going to include those films with the documentaries, at least in this initial period of research. So I need to do some reading on documentaries generally, but also look at documentary traditions within Spain as well.
    That almost inevitably means looking at filmmakers who date back to earlier periods but I don't want to get bogged down in the past too much, so I'm restricting myself to two antecedents for the time being - Joaquim Jordá (because he is frequently referred to in relation to this contemporary 'other' cinema) and Pere Portabella (because his films are clearly 'other', his filmography includes documentaries (some of them - particularly the political documentaries - key works in Spanish cinema), and I've recently watched all of them - rule no.4: always include something on your 'to do' list that you have already done, so that you can cross it off straight away). At this stage I'm not intending to write about either of them - I just want to watch as many of their films as I can get hold of, so that I have a better idea of connections Spanish critics might be seeing. It may be that as I read more, I come across more names or films that I'd like to see - but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that it's the people working now who I'm wanting to investigate and write about.
    Who makes the first cut? Again, I'm sure that more names will occur to me - or cross my radar - once I get going, but I think that Jose Luis Guerin (not on CdC's list) and Isaki Lacuesta (on CdC's list) both have to be on my list without question. The two of them move back and forth between documentary and fiction (or blur the borders in an individual film) and they've also got established careers, so there is a trail to be followed and they possibly act as a bridge between cinematic past and present (again, that's just my instinct at the moment). The other filmmakers I'm intending to look at initially are mainly people who are on CdC's list (with a few additional ones who have already crossed my path), most of whom have fairly short filmographies, but inclusion (or not) will partly depend on whether I can get hold of / view their films. It is about the films, after all. Documentaries actually seem to be easier to track down than some of the fiction films (another reason to start with them), so I do have access in some form or other to the majority of films in my initial selection (see the notes in the image above).
    That's where I'm starting - I don't know how frequently I will write about the films on here, but I will continue to at least give an indication of what I've been watching. I'm doing general reading at the moment and then I'm intending to spend some time just watching the films, before doing some more specific research. I'm taking notes when I view things already, so I may write them up in brief batches or something - but I'm not setting a schedule for including stuff on here, and in terms of my overall schedule for the project, I need a better idea of what I'm dealing with before I start setting myself deadlines. To be continued...

Belated Birthday

My favourite of the Spanish films I've seen in the last twelve months, Atraco a las tres / [Bank Robbery at Three O'Clock] (José María Forqué, 1962)

     An email telling me that the Nobody Knows Anybody twitter account had turned three alerted me to the fact that I had forgotten the blog’s birthday (on Thursday 6th). Caught up in other things, it had passed me by; I have entered the fourth year of this blog’s existence in much the same way as I conducted the third one.
     2013 was not a brilliant year for me. There were some positives: I finally managed to get a full-time job, after years of being stuck in part-time employment; I delivered a paper at an academic conference for the first time in more than five years; I started going to the cinema again, after a couple of years of not really bothering (a combination of it being too expensive to be a regular habit and an increasingly ‘meh’ attitude to life in general and recent cinema in particular – La grande bellezza shook me out of the meh-ness (I saw it three times on the big screen), and full-time hours mean that I can now afford to go more often); and people started writing guest posts for the blog (which is exciting for me and something I really appreciate – so, thank you Fiona Noble, Michael Pattison, and Rowena Santos Aquino). But the negatives were at times overwhelming: three weeks after I started the job, the institution I work for announced a full restructure and I (along with all of my colleagues) had to reapply and be re-interviewed for a reduced number of jobs (I hung on to my job, but the process took a couple of months and the aftermath of redundancies and reassignments, and the general feeling that good people have been messed around, was horrible and still lingers six months later); and a member of my immediate family was in hospital for surgery on three separate occasions (the last just before Christmas), which has been stressful and emotionally draining.

So, bring on 2014!

      Certain things were also clarified for me. I enjoyed the conference, which surprised me because I’ve not had good experiences with academic conferences in the past (in my experience they seem to attract people who need to make others feel small in order to make themselves feel big –a lot of unnecessary point scoring– but on this occasion everyone was lovely) and having listened to so many people researching one of my main areas of interest (but in a variety of different contexts), I left feeling that my spark of enthusiasm had been reignited. However you’ll note that I said ‘listened to’ rather than ‘spoken to’; I find navigating large groups of people I don’t know to be a bit of an anxiety generator, and it sometimes brings out my shyness to an incapacitating degree. I’m fine in small groups, or one-to-one, but I avoid large gatherings if possible. But I felt I had to go, and that I had to submit a paper, if only to prove to myself that I could and that my brain was still capable of functioning in that way. So I went. But I also know that that probably isn’t the forum I would choose to put myself into again anytime soon. What it also clarified is that I don’t think that ‘academia’ is what I’m aiming for; I want to write about films but not necessarily in that way. That’s not to say that I won’t write something up as an article and submit it to an academic journal if I have an idea that suits that setting, but I’m not setting out for an academic publications profile. The purpose of creating and sustaining a list of (academic) publications is usually to acquire an academic position / footing, and I don’t want to be ‘an academic’. But I also think that there are different (and more immediate) ways to share information, ideas, and arguments about films (from my personal perspective, Mediático and Modern Languages Open are interesting developments in that regard). I realise that whatever form you choose to work or publish in, there are hoops to be gone through, but I find that I am quite picky about which hoops I will choose to jump through. At the same time, some ‘requirements’ don’t seem like hoops at all because they’re part-and-parcel of something you enjoy doing and how you view the world. But I'm more interested in textual analysis than theoretical frameworks, and I'm currently trying to find my voice with that focus. 
      I have made a start with considering different forms / arenas of publication, but I won’t mention particulars unless / until I have something concrete. That said, I have ‘signed up’ (and am looking forward) to contributing to Mediático (initial topic still to be decided), a new blog focussing on Latin American, Latino/a, and Iberian media and film studies (find them on twitter @MediaticoMFM). In terms of what I write about, I’ve come to a number of conclusions in the past year: the blog is really helpful for working through ideas because I think by writing, and something larger can be approached piecemeal and without pressure to be ’perfect’, and it can be returned to as and when I'm ready, so that over time I can hone my thinking and can see the shape that the argument or discussion needs to take (a case in point is the Javier Bardem ‘issue’ I kept returning to, which has now turned into something else entirely and which I have submitted for consideration at an online (open access) journal); I should draw a line under some of the topics that were the basis of my PhD and look at other things; I need to be more focussed because the ‘random viewing’ thread, although it does reflect my viewing habits most of the time, does not allow me to be consistent or coherent in thinking things through; I don’t need to write about every Spanish film I watch (this relates to the previous point, but sometimes I just don’t have anything to say about a particular film and at that point I should just move on); in order to improve and expand my writing, I should write about cinema more broadly (i.e. not just that which originates from Spain). 
     So, the blog will continue but with a few changes. One element of my PhD research that I haven’t done much with is the industrial component, which I think is currently an interesting topic because the Spanish film industry has been generally imploding for at least the past 12-18 months. An offshoot of that has been the development of what is being referred to (by Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, at least) as ‘El otro cine español’ and the general trend for ‘cine low cost’ and initiatives and / or platforms such as #littlesecretfilm and Márgenes. I’m intending to mainly focus on these topics (and how they interrelate; not everyone thinks that the low cost development is good for the future of cinema made in Spain) for the next year, initially by watching a lot of films and getting a sense of what this ‘movement’ (if that is what it is) comprises and what it doesn’t; I will be looking for connections but will probably write about the films individually, or by director, to begin with. But from now on I won’t be writing about every film viewed. I’ll probably post a full list at the end of the year or something like that instead. My Carlos Saura Challenge will restart, hopefully soon, but I’m not going to attempt to give a timetable because I always break from it (but my aim has to be for more than another 6 films in the next twelve months, otherwise it'll take me more than six years to work my way through his filmography). I hope that there will be more guest posts – please tweet me or comment below if you have an idea for a post. It can relate to any aspect of Spanish cinema; starting a dialogue with people was one of my original intentions with the blog. Which brings me to my last point: writing about cinema outside of Spain. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it. In relation to Spanish-language cinema (that isn’t technically 'Spanish’), I may still just post that here (as I did with my Pablo Larraín post), but I have also got a couple of ideas for things that in no way relate to this blog, so I will have to have a think about that. If I argue (as I do) that the emergence of specific actors / stars doesn't happen in a vacuum, that there is an industrial as well as a cultural context to their creation, the same is also true of Spanish cinema(s) more broadly; 'it' (cinema in Spain is not singular) exists within a wider network of events and circumstances and my trips to the cinema in the second half of 2013 highlighted for me that I need to pay attention to that wider context as well. So something non-Spanish should start appearing at some point in 2014 (later in the year, if I’m being realistic).
     Ordinarily by this point in the year I have posted ‘my top 5 of [previous year]’ and ’10 films to look out for in [the current year]’ posts. I’ve decided not to do that this year. My top 5 post would relate to Spanish films from 2013 and 2012 (because I mainly see things on DVD the year after their Spanish release) but I didn’t see enough films from those years in the last twelve months (I saw five, so it would be like just putting them in order of preference rather than actual favourites, and there were at least two of them that I didn’t rate) – between Carlos Saura and Alfredo Landa, I watched a lot of older films last year. In terms of the films coming this year, a couple of the ones I highlighted last year have still yet to be released (generally due to funding falling through) and at least one has stalled in pre-production (the Saura one, obviously), so there didn’t seem much point in attempting another full-blown list. Of the ones outstanding from last year, I am still interested in: Murieron por encima de sus posibilidades (dir. Isaki Lacuesta) and Presentimientos (dir. Santiago Tabernero) (the latter has been released in Spain in the past week or so). Of films that are ‘finished’ or well into production (as far as I can tell) and due for release in 2014, I will keep an eye out for: Magical Girl (dir. Carlos Vermut); La novia (dir. Paula Ortiz); Carmina y amén (dir. Paco León); La isla mínima (dir. Alberto Rodríguez); and El niño (dir. Daniel Monzón).

[Untitled]

   I should probably never state how regularly I’m intending to post because I’m invariably proved wrong –‘life is what happens while you’re making plans’ and all that.
   I have watched a few films for the Random Viewing thread but have got ‘stuck’ on one in particular (I’m starting to think that I may just post an image from it and move on to the next one), which is why I haven’t posted anything for a few weeks, but I’ve also just generally been busier than I thought I would be this month.
   As I mentioned back in February, I finally had an ‘idea’ for a more academic piece of writing and was starting to research that. I then managed to get what ended up being an almost-six month secondment to a better job and had to put said idea to one side for the duration. In the past couple of weeks I’ve started to try and pick up the threads of where I was going with that idea, or at least trying to retrace my steps. I’ve also found a half-written piece (started around this time last year) on Javier Bardem which I’m currently trying to work out what to do with (and likewise trying to rediscover what my thoughts at the time were - the notes that I wrote as an aide-memoir at the end of where I’d got up to don’t make a great deal of sense to me now) –it might become one of my longer-style blog posts, or I might try to turn it into a conference paper. I think that these two things are probably going to be my focus for a while, so posting here will be a bit irregular for the rest of the year. I also need to get back into watching films for the sake of watching films –since September, when I said that my work commitments meant that my posting would increase again, I’ve felt a bit like I have to watch something in order to write about it here rather than just because I’d enjoy watching it. So I think that, rather contradictorily, I need to let my mind veg out a bit at the same time as focussing on a specific project and not darting from film to film so much.
So, in summary: I will be posting in the coming months but not in a regular pattern or great frequency. I’ll let you know when I start getting somewhere with my ‘project’ and I’ll still be checking in here and on twitter.