The industrial contexts of national stardom: a Spanish case study

    Last week I attended the three-day 'Revisiting Star Studies: An International Conference' at Newcastle University. I really enjoyed the conference - it was lovely to meet so many other people researching my own specific area of interest, but also interesting to hear different facets of star studies being investigated in a multitude of cultural contexts.
   My own contribution was a paper on the industrial contexts of Spanish stardom. I'm posting the paper in its entirety, complete with the slides from my powerpoint presentation. It's my habit to write notes / digressions in the margins of my papers, usually in abbreviated form - I've included those here by putting them in square brackets within the text at the point at which I mentioned them (likewise my instruction to myself to change the slide is also included). If I expand this into an article (the 20 minutes time-limit does restrict the level of detail), aside from going into more detail about Noriega's star image (which I only touch upon briefly here) and a broader take on the industrial issues, I'd also like to develop how he fits into the panorama of contemporary Spanish stars (including box office trends and track records). If you're interested, a post I wrote last year looks at his star image in a bit more detail and in a slightly different context (you'll see that a couple of sections - particularly in relation to the Amenábar connection - are almost identical to the conference paper, but the focus is on a specific film - Mateo Gil's Nadie conoce a nadie / Nobody Knows Anybody).

   Industrial contexts are important in relation to national stardom because the majority of stars first ‘break out’, or achieve stardom, within their home market; the industrial and the national are by no means mutually exclusive given that any film industry (traditionally at least) makes films primarily for its native audience. Stars are drawn from the cinema that is being made in a given period, and cinemas are shaped by a combination of cultural and industrial imperatives; changes within a film industry can result in changes in the type of star and stardom produced. This paper will argue, following Andrew Willis (2004), that stars cannot be separated from the industrial contexts of their production, and that they can also be seen to be as reflective of their industry as they are of contemporaneous cultural assumptions. I'm going to be using Spanish cinema and stardom from the 1990s onwards by way of illustration, and for the purposes of this paper Eduardo Noriega will be my central example. [SLIDE]

Noriega emerged in the mid-1990s and he therefore overlaps two quite distinct ‘groups’ of contemporary Spanish stars of the last twenty years: that of Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Jordi Mollà in the early 90s, and a later group that could be said to centre on the 2002 musical comedy El otro lado de la cama / The Other Side of the Bed (the central male cast of which have worked together multiple times) - arguably this overlap is manifested in how his stardom shares different traits with both groups.
    As the boundaries of ‘Spanish cinema’ have expanded (to produce an increasingly internationalised form of cinema), industrial imperatives (i.e. what the industry requires of its stars) gradually increased their influence over the star image after 1992 [an important year – a cultural flashpoint for Spain] and an overt relationship with the national became less important. So while in the cases of Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, overtly national factors and characteristics were the more important aspects at the start of their careers (and remain ingrained in their star images), with Eduardo Noriega the balance starts to shift towards the industrial imperatives and the more generic aspects of stardom. For example, although like Bardem and Cruz, Noriega has many explicit interactions with the national onscreen, Chris Perriam notes in his 2003 study of stars and masculinities in Spanish cinema that while most male Spanish stars are presented as 'normal / ordinary' rather than 'glamorous', the younger Noriega was consistently 'presented as first and foremost gifted with special sex appeal' (2003: 7) -and arguably this is increasingly becoming the norm for new male Spanish stars. Edgar Morin emphasises the importance of the role that turns an actor into a star ([1960] 2005: 29) because that role shapes the career and stardom that follows, and the differences in how Spanish stars are shaped by the contexts of the Spanish film industry can also be traced back to their respective early roles, suggesting that just as ‘nationhood is always an image constructed under particular conditions’ (Higson [1989] 2002: 139) the same is also true of national stardom. With this in mind, I now turn to the state of the Spanish film industry in the 1990s, and then how Noriega's star image fits within it.
    In the early 90s, the Spanish film industry was stagnating, reaching its nadir in 1994 when only 44 films were produced and Spanish cinema received just 7% market share of audience figures. Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán and Gema Fernández-Hoya link the culmination of problems in 1994 in part to the lack of specific support for new directors between 1990 and 1994 (when there were no subsidies for directorial debuts); they argue that the reinstatement of that specific subsidy was a decisive factor in the upturn and cambio generacional that Spanish cinema then experienced (2008: 28-29). [SLIDE]

There was a massive influx of new directors after that point. While the new group of filmmakers who arrived in the mid-to-late 90s have few elements in common other than the coincidence of the timing of their arrival in the industry, the sheer number of them profoundly changed the make up of the Spanish film industry, and Spanish cinema, as their work encompasses a disparate range of styles and genres. 

    This commercially adept and cine-literate generation of filmmakers overtly and explicitly took inspiration from Hollywood films and formats, and reinvigorated Spanish cinema. Many of the new directors were within the same age range as their intended audiences - and in common with their cinema-going peers, they wanted to watch films that were entertaining; their capacity to see cinema as a commercial venture meant that many of them embraced genres that had previously been -and arguably still are in Spain- looked down on, and made their films financially successful. Barry Jordan and Mark Allinson argue that these directors have succeeded in balancing the commercial and the artistic, with the influx of talent leading to ‘the emergence of a broadly commercial, entertainment-driven, Spanish cinema, involving new sets of narrative, generic, thematic, stylistic, technical, and casting concerns and choices’ (2005: 30).

    In combining cinematic influences from inside and outside Spain, these new directors are integral to the creation of Spanish stars in this period; the Spanish stars who have emerged in the last twenty years (effectively a 'post-Banderas' generation [he made his Hollywood debut in 1992]) reflect the cultural hybridity that is increasingly inherent to Spanish cinemas, as evidenced by their own increased ability to operate transnationally. At the same time, the filmographies of the stars I have mentioned are also indicative of the heterogeneity of Spanish cinema in this era, as a variety of genres and styles are represented by a range of both new and established directors; they offer a Spanish illustration of Ginette Vincendeau’s observation that in smaller film industries there can be a ‘co-existence of mainstream and auteur cinema in a single star’s image’ (2000: 2).

     Alejandro Amenábar is usually the example given (alongside Álex de la Iglesia) when commentators discuss the visual and narrative changes that this new ‘generation’ of filmmakers heralded for Spanish cinema, and it was in Amenábar's early films that Eduardo Noriega started his screen career. [AA remains a key part of EN’s ‘star narrative’ – still mentioned in EN’s interviews/profiles – their friendship predates their arrival in the industry - they made short films together while AA at uni & EN at drama school - the roles in the features were written for EN] Making his debut in Amenábar’s work positioned Noriega within this generational shift in a different way to either Javier Bardem or Penélope Cruz; although those two were undeniably at the vanguard of a new generation of Spanish stars in the early 90s, they started their ascendancy in collaboration with established directors (Bigas Luna and Fernando Trueba) whereas Noriega did so alongside a new directorial talent and a different set of industrial contexts -what 'Spanish cinema' consisted of was already undergoing change. [SLIDE]

That Noriega's star image avoids the stereotypically Spanish is not mere happenstance given that he emerged in a Spanish film industry that was becoming increasingly globalised through the use of genres not commonly associated with 'Spanish cinema' (epitomised by Amenábar's films).

    The two feature-length films that Noriega made with Amenábar - Tesis and Abre los ojos - both ostensibly avoid overt Spanish references and settings - Amenábar has suggested that the films could be set in different cities (and countries) without changing the narrative (Payán 2001: 45) [Abre remade as Vanilla Sky]. The two films approach the national in an abstract manner through the themes of urban alienation and the fragility of contemporary masculine identities… [SLIDE] 

…although Paul Julian Smith argues that the highlighting of certain architectural features means that 'Amenábar's transnational shooting style is [...] firmly anchored in settings as distinctively Castilian as the spoken accents of his young stars' (2013: 147). At the same time, the alienation effect that occurs in a Madrid made foreign in Abre los ojos is not only indicative of Amenábar aiming for an international marketplace, but also representative of Spain coming to see itself differently in light of social changes and the resulting uncertainty as to what Spanishness now ‘is’. Noriega’s early characters – and this is true of other films he made in the late 90s as well as the Amenábar collaborations - are correspondingly unsure of their place in the world and arguably project a fear about losing touch with cultural roots and what will happen as Spain continues to change (will it still recognisably be Spain?). 

     The Amenábar films contain several elements that continuously resurface in Eduardo Noriega’s later films and star image: psychological instabilities; the act of looking / significant looks; a link between geographical dislocation and a fragile sense of identity; an emphasis on his beautiful face; the thriller genre; and collaborations with new directors [EN has appeared in a significant number of directorial debuts] - these films also placed a greater emphasis on the generic over the nationally-specific in Noriega’s star image. [SLIDE] 

He has multiple interactions with the national in his later films [see slide] but he is not perceived as explicitly representing ‘the Spanish male’ (unlike Bardem), and instead ‘seductive menace’ and 'fragile identities' have become dominant star traits. There is generally a greater emphasis on the requirements of genre than on national specificities within his films; his most successful films are usually thrillers (the genre in which he made his name).

     Although he has consistently been associated with the thriller, and he is considered 'bankable' by Spanish producers (de la Torriente 2007: 84) because of his box office track record with that genre, he is not a 'star brand' in the sense of a commercial formula that is repeated over and over. [and I don't think he would be interested in doing that] [SLIDE] 

To date Noriega has appeared in 25 Spanish feature productions, and as well as the successes shown in the slide, he also has 10 films that have accrued fewer than 100,000 spectators during their Spanish theatrical release. [His filmography encompasses the spectrum of Spanish production – from super-production Alatriste (>3 million spectators) to, at other end of scale, indie drama Petit Indi (<12,000 spectators)] He has had a very diverse career -due to a concerted effort on his part to reside within the art-house categories of cinema- but his star image is integrally connected to the mainstream generic frameworks of his more successful films and the increasingly international form of cinema being produced in Spain. Philip Drake says that stars are ‘a means by which Hollywood has been able to present itself as a global rather than national film industry’ (2004: 76); the newest Spanish stars are symptomatic of the aspirations of the Spanish film industry to tap into the global film market and not be restricted by their national boundaries - it is noticeable that several of Noriega's forays into English-language cinema position him within the genre that he has had most commercial success with at home, for example, Vantage Point (2008) and Transsiberian (2008) [both in the thriller spectrum & interestingly both engage with his existing star image in terms of the moral ambiguity he can bring to a role]. On the one hand this supports the reading of cinematic genres as ‘the meeting place between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces’ (Beck and Rodríguez Ortega 2008: 1), but it also arguably points to Noriega's star image translating to, or being readable in, other national spaces.

     Although the increasing ease with which contemporary Spanish stars now circulate abroad is indicative of their having participated in, and been shaped by, this international-style cinema at home, the increasing number of Spanish actors attempting to start international careers (Abril 2009) also highlights the perception of perpetual ‘crisis’ in the Spanish film industry. [SLIDE] 

At a basic level, the boost in production caused by the influx of talent does also have negative aspects - namely that the Spanish marketplace cannot support the volume of Spanish films being made. But at the moment a number of factors are contributing to a particularly dark outlook for Spanish cinema - the box office takings so far this year in Spain (for all films, not just Spanish ones) are down 40% on what they were in the same period in 2012 (García 2013) [this is being specifically linked to the tax issue & the rise in ticket prices]. Despite the commercial success of a range of Spanish films in the last twenty years, the Spanish film industry is still perceived as an unstable entity that is overly reliant on a handful of key directors to keep it buoyant - there is a widespread belief that ‘Spanish cinema’ is sporadically (if not permanently) in ‘crisis’, and this has contributed to the decision taken by a range of Spanish stars to work abroad. [SLIDE] 

The periods of absence that are increasingly prevalent in the careers of big names (for example, Penélope Cruz was absent from Spanish cinema for five years between 2001 and 2006, and Javier Bardem had a similar gap after the release of Mar adentro in 2004 [most famous example of extended absence = Banderas – 1992 until 2011 & Almodóvar’s La piel que habito]) are also an outward sign that all is not well within Spanish cinema. Arguably it leads to a vicious circle wherein industrial instability leads the stars to work abroad, which in turn leads to further instability. It should be noted that Noriega, despite an increasing number of projects abroad (10 films so far -mainly in France and the US), has continued to average at least one Spanish film a year - but he has started to become more proactive in developing projects for himself. [SLIDE]

This year will see the release of a film, a psychological thriller, that he co-wrote and in which he takes the lead role. He has also taken another career path that is becoming increasingly common, and branched into television -it is fairly common for Spanish stars to start their careers in television and indeed a number of them continue to switch back and forth between the two formats, but Noriega has no prior relation with TV - but in 2011 he took the lead in a TV series, one that again hooks into the genre expectations of his star image. [he plays a criminal psychologist – consultant to a homicide unit]

      In summary, it is with Noriega that we start to see a distinct change in terms of how the star image interacts with the national in Spain, in a way that can be clearly traced back to the industrial contexts of his initial films. For many of the newest Spanish stars, an overt relationship with the national has lost some of its importance in terms of what the industry requires of its stars; national specificities shape the form that Spanish stardom takes only to the extent that the star (and the film industry) feel it is politic for their image to be shaded with national ‘colour’ and there is increasingly a greater emphasis on the generic elements of stardom. Nonetheless, these stars and their images still originate from (and circulate within) a Spanish context. Ultimately Eduardo Noriega relates to a specifically Spanish cultural environment through the themes, concerns, and narratives of his films, but just as his increasingly transnational career is simultaneously symptomatic of both the success and crisis of Spanish cinema in this era, overall his star image is more obviously defined by the generational shift in Spanish cinema and the accompanying changes in visual and narrative style.

References:

Abril, G. (2009) -'Qué duro es el cine', El País Semanal, 1st February, pp.34-49.

Beck, J. and V. Rodríguez Ortega (2008) - 'Introduction', Contemporary Spanish Cinema and Genre, edited by J. Beck and V. Rodríguez Ortega, Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, pp.1-23.

de la Torriente, E. (2007) - 'Noriega da el gran salto', El País Semanal, 18th November, pp.78-85.

Drake, P. (2004) - 'Jim Carrey: The cultural politics of dumbing down', in Film Stars: Hollywood and Beyond, edited by A. Willis, Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, pp.71-88.

García, R. (2013) - '¿Cines en crisis? Rebajas a la vista', El País, 25th May.  

Heredero, C. (2003) -'New Creators for the New Millennium: Transforming the Directing Scene in Spain', Cineaste, Contemporary Spanish Cinema supplement, Winter, pp.32-37. Translated by D. West and I.M. West.

Higson, A. ([1989] 2002) -'The Concept of National Cinema', reprinted in The European Cinema Reader, edited by C. Fowler, London & New York: Routledge, pp.132-42.

Jordan, B. and M. Allinson (2005) - Spanish Cinema: A student's guide, London: Hodder Arnold.

Morin, E. ([1961] 2005) - The Stars, Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press. Translated by R. Howard.

Payán, M.J. (2001) - Cine español actual, Madrid: Ediciones JC.

Perriam, C. (2003) - Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: From Banderas to Bardem, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rodríguez Merchán, E. and G. Fernández-Hoya (2008) - 'La definitiva renovación generacional (1990-2005)', in Miradas sobre pasado y presente en el cine español, edited by P. Feenstra and H. Hermans, Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, pp.23-35.

Ros, A. (2012) - 'Proyectos de 2012 que no han visto la luz: Historias (aún) sin rostro', Academia, December, pp.35-40.

Santamarina, A. (2006) - '¿Renovación o continuidad? La mirada de los novatos', in Miradas para un nuevo milenio: Fragmentos para una historia futura del cine español, edited by Hilario J. Rodríguez, Madrid: Festival de Cine de Alcalá de Henares, pp.295-302.

Smith, P.J. (2013) - 'Alejandro Amenábar', in A Companion to Spanish Cinema, edited by J. Labanyi and T. Pavlović, Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp.144-149.

Vincendeau, G. (2000) - Stars and Stardom in French Cinema, London & New York: Continuum.

Willis, A. (2004) - 'Introduction', Film Stars: Hollywood and Beyond, edited by A. Willis, Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, pp.1-7.

Yáñez, J. (2008) - 'El cine español que no estrena', Cahiers du cinema España, No.8, January, pp.50-52.

Revisiting Star Studies - An International Conference, Newcastle University, 12th-14th June 2013

My title and abstract are as follows:

The industrial contexts of national stardom: a Spanish case study.

Despite stardom's industrial dimension being routinely passed over in critical analyses, the industrial contexts of stardom in a given national culture is integral to both the form and content of stardom and the star image. This paper will argue, following Willis (2004), that stars cannot be separated from the industrial contexts of their production, and that they also can be seen to be as reflective of their industry as they are of contemporaneous cultural assumptions. Due to a number of nationally-specific factors in the Spanish film industry since the 1990s, 'Spanish cinema' has been becoming a more nebulous and hybrid entity. If stars are 'a means by which Hollywood has been able to present itself as a global rather than a national film industry' (Drake 2004: 76), this paper examines what the impact on Spanish stardom has been of Spanish stars and their images circulating in a national cinema that has increasingly acknowledged and utilised the codes and conventions of a more international form of cinema production. This paper will take as its main example Eduardo Noriega, a Spanish star who emerged in the late 1990s, the point at which a shift in the balance of factors (industrial versus national and / or cultural) shaping Spanish stardom was becoming apparent, and will also suggest that the trend for Spanish stars crossing national boundaries to further their careers is simultaneously symptomatic of both success and crisis in the Spanish cinema of this era.

The website for the conference can be found here. The programme and all of the collected abstracts can be downloaded.
I will put my full paper up on the blog the week after the conference.

Los amantes pasajeros / I'm So Excited! (Pedro Almodóvar, 2013)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Javier Cámara (Joserra), Carlos Areces (Fajas), Raúl Arévalo (Ulloa), Antonio de la Torre (Álex Acero), Lola Dueñas (Bruna), Carmen Machi (concierge), Laya Martí (Bride), Cecilia Roth (Norma Boss), Hugo Silva (Benito), Miguel Ángel Silvestre (Groom), Blanca Suárez (Ruth), Guillermo Toledo (Ricardo Galán), José Luis Torrijo (Más), Paz Vega (Alba), José María Yazpik (Infante).
Synopsis: Madrid, the present. A flight to Mexico takes off with a fault with its landing gear and subsequently circles the skies over Spain while the authorities look for an appropriate place for an emergency landing. The crew sedate the economy class passengers but have their work cut out with the people in business class. As the air stewards put on their best performances, the booze flows and pills are popped, secrets tumble out and inhibitions are lost.

These are just initial thoughts - I'm writing this the same day I saw the film.

    I went in with my expectations lowered, in part because I got too hyped about La piel que habito but also because I was aware that the reviews have been mixed (I didn't read any beforehand), and probably enjoyed it all the more for that: this is froth, but enjoyable froth.
    In fact while the surface of the film is frothy entertainment, there is also a mild satire of the mess that Spain is currently in underneath - the disclaimer at the start of the film saying that this is a work of fiction should be taken with a pinch of salt (the names may have been changed but events on the ground have a basis in reality), as Maria Delgado writes: 'The terms "recession" or "economic crisis" are conspicuously absent from the film, but the Guadiana plotline offers pertinent comment on a society where patronage, politics and public administration are inextricably interwoven' (2013: 40). I guess how much of that undercurrent to the film that you pick up on is dependent on how aware you are of Spanish current affairs.
    Delgado also draws parallels with A Midsummer Night's Dream ('magical makeovers are matched by erotic gameplay' (2013: 38)) and the Valencia cocktail (dosed with mescaline) stands in for the love potion. I like that reading because I think the film can function as a dreamy in-between world - after the Banderas/Cruz prologue the camera closes in on the engine turbine rotating, like milk in black coffee, a kind of hypnotic effect that perhaps signals that what follows is not 'real'. Certainly, up in the clouds, circling with no apparent destination, the passengers are suspended from reality and acting out a farce (signalled by the theatrical red curtains that divide the space) - a diversion for the crew as much as anything else (the 'public' telephone delivering instalments of a soap opera, or glimpses of other possible films).
    I've seen remarks comparing the film to Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios ('a male version') but actually the style of comedy lacks the sophistication of that film and instead harks back to the crude and scatological humour of Almodóvar's very early films such as Pepi, Luci, Bom and Laberinto de pasiones. That kind of humour is not to everyone's taste (those latter two films are not among my favourites) but I think that a lot depends on the characters (and actors) delivering the lines - the air stewards (played by Cámara, Areces, and Arévalo) are written and performed with affection and I think they're probably destined to be regarded as 'classic' Almodóvar characters in much the same way that Agrado (Antonia San Juan) became the standout of Todo sobre mi madre. The dance sequence to The Pointer Sisters' 'I'm So Excited', a longer sequence than is in the trailer, made me cry with laughter -I don't know that any further recommendation is necessary. If I come back to the film again later, I think I'll look a bit more at the actors / performances involved and the side stories -for example, the Ricardo Galán strand in which an actor drives one of his exes mad and another leaves him in order to maintain her sanity has obvious links to Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, but Blanca Suárez's Ruth (in her floral sundress) also cuts a Kika-ish dash through proceedings (also in relation to this plotline: can I ask someone, but Almodóvar in particular, to give Paz Vega another decent lead role in something - she only has a few minutes here but you forget all else while she is onscreen).
    In short, if you go expecting an Almodóvarian dramedy, you will probably be 'disappointed', but if you want a giggle, then the current band of chicos Almodóvar will entertain you.

References:
Delgado, M. (2013) - 'Wings of Desire', Sight & Sound, May, pp.36-38, 40.

Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 6: La prima Angélica / Cousin Angelica (1974)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Rafael Azcona, based on a story by Carlos Saura and Elías Querjeta
Cast: José Luis López Vázquez, Lina Canalejas, Fernando Delgado, Lola Cardona, María Clara Fernández de Loayza, Josefina Díaz, Encarna Paso, Pedro Sempson, Julieta Serrano.
Synopsis: 1973. Luis Cano (López Vázquez) travels from Barcelona to fulfil his late mother's wishes to have her remains interred in the family crypt in Segovia. The trip brings him face to face with the family members he stayed with during the Civil War and leads him to confront the memories and ghosts of his childhood.

   La prima Angélica is another of Saura's films that centres on the issue of memory and shares with El jardín de las delicias not only a lead actor (José Luis López Vázquez) but also the use of him to portray a character in both adulthood and childhood. We first see Luis-as-child when Luis-as-adult pulls his car to the side of the road as he sees Segovia in the distance and he becomes lost in the memory of the first time he was at this roadside - his father's car pulls up behind him and his mother (dressed in 1930s attire) comforts Luis and tries to reassure him about his stay with her side of the family (on the right, politically) in a safer area while his parents return to Barcelona. As the Civil War develops, Barcelona becomes cut off, and Luis will see out the war apart from his parents and in the midst of a family from the 'victorious' side. His return to Segovia as an adult in his 40s shows how those war years shaped the person he became and why he now feels the need to confront the past. D'Lugo observes that the film stands as 'the first compassionate view of the vanquished' (1991: 116):

'In choosing the theme of interdicted history -the Civil War years as remembered by the child of Republican parents- Saura pursues more than just the external demons of censorship that had suppressed all but the triumphalist readings of the war. He confronts the psychological and ethical traumas that the official distortions of the history of the war years in public discourse had conveniently ignored but that had scarred and even paralysed a generation of Spaniards' (1991: 115-116).

Quintana points out that in the context of Spain today, and the contentious issue of 'historical memory', 'Luis's character gains symbolic force as the first fictional character that recovers the power of memory as an act of resurrection of the hidden and of justice to that which is silenced' (2008: 95). La prima Angélica was controversial and had its release curtailed (one Barcelona cinema that screened it was firebombed), but also became the most commercially-successful film of Saura's career at that point (Quintana 2008: 87).
    As with El jardín de las delicias the past is not simply evoked, but reenacted. Although it is perhaps more accurate to say that it is being 'relived', as these are not the theatrical stagings of the earlier film but rather Luis weaving in and out of the present and the past as the return to the family apartment envelops him in memories. Another conceit that is repeated from earlier Saura films is to have the same actors playing more than one character: Lina Canalejas plays Angélica's mother in the 1930s segments and the grown-up Angélica in the present; María Clara Fernández de Loayza plays Angélica in the 1930s and the grown-up Angélica's daughter (also called Angélica) in the present; Fernando Delgado plays both Angélica's father and later her husband (although this is one of the points where the tricks that memory can play on you are pointed out - the grown-up Angélica shows Luis a photo of her father to prove that there is no resemblance to her husband). This 'doubling' obviously aids the transition back and forth in Luis's memory onscreen, which occasionally becomes confusing as Luis loses himself in the past and the lines between the two eras become indistinct. López Vázquez is the only actor to play the same character in both eras - Luis's childhood self is distinguished by voice, body language, and facial expression: for example, his habit of tucking his chin down so that he is looking up (his eyes wide) serves not only to indicate the shy and withdrawn nature of the boy, but also to make the actor seem physically smaller. One particular sequence that I liked comes almost halfway into the film, at the point when Luis has carried out his mother's wishes and is driving back to Barcelona. He stops at the same roadside and the same memory that we saw at the start of the film plays out again. But this time, instead of being immersed in the memory, reliving it, he observes it from the other side of the road; in revisiting the sites of childhood trauma, he has acquired some of the distance required to review the past objectively. He turns his car around and heads back to Segovia to confront the past head on.

References:

D'Lugo, M. (1991) - The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Quintana, À. (2008) - 'A Poetics of Splitting: Memory and Identity in La prima Angélica (Carlos Saura, 1974)', in Burning Darkness: A Half Century of Spanish Cinema, edited by J.R. Resina, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp.83-96.

The Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 5: Ana y los lobos / Ana and the Wolves (1972)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Rafael Azcona and Carlos Saura, based on an idea by Carlos Saura and Elías Querejeta
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Fernando Fernán Gómez, José María Prada, José Vivó, Rafaela Aparicio, Charo Soriano, Marisa Porcel, Anny Quintas, María José Puerta, Nuria Lage, Sara Gil.
Synopsis: An English nanny, Ana (Chaplin), arrives at a house in the Spanish countryside to look after the children of one of three brothers (Fernán Gómez, Prada, Vivó) living with their mother (Aparicio). All three brothers become captivated by Ana, who finds herself living in an increasingly disturbing and dangerous situation.

Warning: contains spoilers, including the ending.

    From the first appearance of the men in the film -José (Prada) entering the newly-arrived Ana's bedroom and insisting on seeing her passport and inspecting the contents of her suitcase- there is the unsettling sense that the foreigner has wandered into something beyond her ken (her passport may show her to be much-travelled but she is still naive). Soon enough she has José showing off his collection of military uniforms to her and commanding dominance of the household, Fernando (Fernán Gómez) explaining his pursuit of a union with God (or at least levitation) in the whitewashed cave at the bottom of the garden, and Juan (Vivó), the children's father, making amorous advances and sending her erotic letters with international postmarks (by using stamps from the family's stamp collection). The men essentially represent three taboos of Spanish culture at the time - the military, religion, sex - but in a slightly more neutered form than they might have taken (José isn't in the military, he just collects uniforms, and Fernando isn't a priest). They're almost living out a kind of stunted adolescence - or rather, in still living with their mother, they have managed to avoid maturing into adults; there's something quite childlike about their enthusiasm for their respective 'interests'.
    But the doll is really the first clue that what is going on is not just harmless fantasy. The three children (Puerta, Lage, Gil) dig up a doll that has had its hair cut off before being wrapped in a shroud, tied with string and buried in the garden. Ana intuits that there is something disturbing at play (the children say that 'the wolves' have done it) and insists that Juan tells her who has 'tortured' the doll but seemingly takes no further action (or precaution) on being told that it was Fernando. It's interesting that Higginbotham refers to the film as a 'grim parable' (1988: 86) because there's something fairytale-like about it and it also carries with it the sensation that certain sequences could be being dreamt by one of the characters - the parallels between Fernando's 'vision' of the various members of the household early in the film and the set of events leading up to Ana's eviction from the house and the brutal finale (several characters including, most pertinently, Ana, are wearing the same clothes in both sequences) suggests that not everything we see actually happens. Saura has said that he saw the final sequence as imaginary ([1979] 2003: 53) (Ana is expelled from the house when Mama (Aparicio) realises how much discord she has sowed, and as she leaves the grounds she is pounced upon by the three brothers - Juan rapes her, Fernando cuts off her hair, and José handcuffs her before shooting her in the head - the film ends on a close-up of her agonised face), which explains how the family (and Ana) can be revisited in Mamá cumple 100 años / Mama Turns 100 (1979).
   Overall the film made me feel uneasy, mainly because of the extent to which Ana plays games with the brothers, teases them, and plays the coquette, seemingly unaware that she is seriously out of her depth - there is a creeping sense, heightened after the doll is found, that something terrible will occur (which it does -whether imaginary or not).

References:

Castro, A. ([1979] 2003) -'Interview with Carlos Saura', Dirigido por, 69, pp.44-50, reprinted in Carlos Saura: Interviews, edited by Linda M. Willem, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, pp.52-64.

Higginbotham, V. (1988) - Spanish Film Under Franco, Austin: University of Texas Press.

The Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 4: El jardín de las delicias / The Garden of Delights (1970)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Rafael Azcona and Carlos Saura
Cast: José Luis López Vázquez, Francisco Pierrá, Luchy Soto, Lina Canalejas, Esperanza Roy, Charo Soriano.
Synopsis: Antonio Cano (López Vázquez), an important businessman, is left partially-paralysed and an amnesiac after a car crash. His family and friends try to recreate key moments in his life in order to give him an emotional jolt and aid his recuperation. He spends each day sitting in his garden, accompanied by memories and ghosts of the past.

Warning: contains spoilers.

   After the relatively straightforward linearity of Peppermint frappé (and skipping Stress-es-tres-tres and La madriguera due to their unavailability) comes El jardín de las delicias, in structural terms by far the most complex film Saura had made. The film operates in five planes, identified within the shooting script (D'Lugo 1991: 101), which we move between without transition (although Pavlović notes that Antonio's amnesia 'links all five continua' (2006: 151)) - Kovacs (1981) has labelled the planes thus: 'the recreated past', a series of scenes staged by Antonio's father (Pierrá) of key moments in his son's life, but which parallel key moments in Spanish history; 'the present day frame', Antonio being taken care of by his wife (Soto) and father, and being pushed to remember via memory tests with collections of old photos, or a staged reencounter with his mistress (Roy) who was in the car crash with him; 'evoked past', Antonio's own independent memories of the key moments in his life; 'the "oneiric" world', threatening hallucinations that Antonio suffers while sitting in the garden; 'a future plane', as Antonio starts coming back to himself, he begins to '[resist] the pattern of existence his family has thrust upon him' (D'Lugo 1991: 102). This intentionally intricate structure was to act as a kind of smokescreen, or a least a counterbalance, to the more political aspects of the film in an era when censorship by the Franco regime was becoming increasingly arbitrary. The original script was passed by the censors, with one writing in his evaluation that 'the advantage of such an intellectualised plot is that nobody can grasp the key to it, and the set-ups are so extremely limited in meaning that nobody can identify with anything' (D'Lugo 1991: 106) - although specific cuts were then made to the film by the censors (but unlike the case of Llanto por un bandido, those cut elements seem to have been reinstated in the version I watched).
    Despite the structure appearing complex when laid out as above, it is comprehensible when watched onscreen (although some confusion/disorientation is intentional - it is a point of connection between Antonio and the audience), with differing levels of theatricality being utilised in the different planes (for example, there is some wonderful over-acting by the actress hired to impersonate Antonio's late mother in the scenes from his childhood, whereas his wife Luchy is more subtle in her manipulation of 'reality' -we see that she is playing 'mood music' on a cassette player when she takes Antonio for a walk). Also, you don't have to be aware of all of the references to know that a point is being made - I didn't know that Antonio's car crash was inspired by the 1962 death (in a car crash) of Juan March, an industrialist who had helped bankroll the July 1936 military uprising against the Republic (there are enough parallels to see Saura as deliberately baiting the censors), but the moments of historical significance that parallel (and interrupt) the restaged moments of Antonio's life clearly indicate that 'Antonio's identity is inseparable from a broader historical context. [...] These national "traumas" give rise to personal ones, showing how the individual is an inscrutable product of the nation' (Pavlović 2006: 156).
    Likewise, Saura uses the institution of the family to equate with the state apparatus: the film 'insistently identifies the Francoist family as the social apparatus that replicates on the personal plane the ideology of the state, constructing the prismatic frame of reference through which the individual's consciousness of himself takes place' (D'Lugo 1991: 102). The 'ideal' family, so deified by the state, is shown to be anything but: not only are they collectively a suffocating and repressive force in Antonio's life, but we eventually find that their interest in his recuperation isn't entirely motivated by love and affection (his father needs to know the number of the Swiss bank account, and his wife wants the combination to the safe in the bedroom). [side-note: some of the events that they chose to recreate to jog Antonio's memory include childhood traumas - being locked in a dark room, aged 5, with an enormous pig that you've been told will eat your hands off, seems an horrific thing to inflict on someone twice in their lifetime]. D'Lugo suggests that the final sequence of the film, another of Antonio's hallucinations - this time of each family member in their own wheelchair on the vast lawn, is a tableau 'approximating a contemporary version of one of Bosch's panels in his "Garden of Delights"' (1991: 106), while Pavlović suggests that it 'points to the endless proliferation of cruelty in a system where both victims and victimisers are irreparably crippled' (2006: 158). But with his family in a similar state to Antonio (who having made progress, is now regressing) I read it as representing the wilful amnesia of people avoiding their own culpability, and also (as they are all facing in different directions) unable to see things from alternative viewpoints.
    The impression that we get of Antonio as he recovers what he was (before seemingly rejecting that vision and sliding back into oblivion) is that he was not a particularly likeable man (he is 'a prototypical product of dictatorial structure, an embodiment of Francoist zeitgeist' (Pavlović 2006: 156)). But when we first meet him, he is a blank slate (and as confused as we are by the events being staged in front of him) and I think that the audience remains on his side because of that initial blankness (the innocence of a child) and also because of the associated affability of López Vázquez, who is quite brilliant in the role. The film is also darkly funny (Colmeiro points to the film following in the tradition of Buñuel, Berlanga, and the esperpento of Valle-Inclán (2001: 284)) -alongside Peppermint frappé, this is the film that I have most enjoyed watching so far in the challenge.

a blank slate

References:

Colmeiro, J.F. (2001) - 'Metateatralidad y psicodrama: los escenarios de la memoria en el cine de Carlos Saura', Anales de la literatura española contemporánea, 26:1, pp.277-298.

D'Lugo, M (1991) - The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kovacs, K. (1981) - 'Loss and Recuperation in The Garden of Delights', Cine-Tracts, 4:2-3, pp.45-54. [I haven't managed to get hold of this yet but the outline of the narrational planes is quoted in D'Lugo]

Pavlović, T. (2006) - 'Allegorising the body politic: Masculinity and history in Saura's El jardín de las delicias (1970) and Almodóvar's Carne trémula (1997)', Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, 3:3, pp.149-167.

The Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 3: Peppermint frappé (1967)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Carlos Saura, Angelino Fons, and Rafael Azcona
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, José Luis López Vázquez, Alfredo Mayo.
Synopsis: Julián's (López Vázquez) childhood friend Pablo (Mayo) returns to their hometown with his new wife, Elena (a blonde Chaplin). Julián becomes obsessed with Elena, who reminds him of a woman he saw beating a drum during the famous Holy Week ritual in Calanda (also Chaplin). Although rebuffed by Elena, Julián continues his pursuit while simultaneously remodelling his assistant, Ana (a brunette Chaplin), in her image.

Warning: contains a spoiler

    As I've mentioned previously, part of my reason for doing the challenge is that I've seen very few of Saura's films (mainly because of their lack of availability in subtitled form -none of the films I've covered so far have been subtitled), but his career also covers eras of Spanish cinema that I'm unfamiliar with, so I'm hoping that this will broaden my field of reference. What's funny about this is when, watching a film you know next to nothing about, you suddenly see a links to another (more recent) filmmaker. Peppermint frappé is dedicated to Luis Buñuel (who Saura considered a mentor) and there is a lot of Buñuelian sexual fetishising going on -apparently there are many parallels with Buñuel's El (1953), but I haven't had time to watch that film before writing this. But the director who most sprang to mind from the opening credits (Julián assiduously cutting out images from women's fashion magazines and pasting them into a scrapbook) onwards was Almodóvar. Except, of course, Pedro came along more than a decade later. Obviously Buñuel also had a strong influence on Almodóvar, but the central conceit of Peppermint frappé -a man goes slightly mad through jealousy and sexual obsession, and attempts to mould one woman into the image of another, before moving on to murder- and the way in which the women are effectively reduced to the accoutrements of femininity (false eyelashes, lipstick, lace stockings), just struck me as being particularly Almodóvarian and certainly not that far away from some of the films he has made (I had a moment of thinking that La piel que habito is set in the same locale as Peppermint frappé, but it isn't). I guess I wasn't expecting to see any connections between Saura and Almodóvar because they've always seemed to me to be very different filmmakers in both style and content, but it would appear that their common influences allow for some crossover.
    For me, the main element of interest in Peppermint frappé was seeing Geraldine Chaplin play three characters within the same narrative - the woman in Calanda (Buñuel's native town and somewhere Saura visited with him (D'Lugo 1991: 69)) who made such a powerful impression on Julián is only seen in a very brief flashback (although she is 'performed' by both Elena and Ana, in different contexts), but Elena and Ana are clearly differentiated in terms of personality, appearance, and Chaplin's performance(s). If I come back to the film later in the year, I think that would be the aspect I look at in a bit more detail - although if I get around to watching El, then that may be another angle to take.
    Peppermint frappé is said to form a trilogy of sorts with Saura's next two films - Stress-es-tres-tres / Stress is Three Three (1968) and La madriguera / Honeycomb (1969) (both of which also star Geraldine Chaplin) - but neither of them are available in any format, so the next post will jump forward to the 1970s and El jardin de las delicias / The Garden of Delights.

The woman in Calanda

Elena

Ana

The Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 2: La caza / The Hunt (1966)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Carlos Saura and Angelino Fons
Cast: Ismael Merlo, Alfredo Mayo, José María Prada, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Fernando Sánchez Polack, Violeta García.
Synopsis: Old 'friends' José (Merlo), Paco (Mayo), and Luis (Prada) reunite after eight years for a day's hunting on José's country estate, with Paco's brother-in-law Enrique (Gutiérrez Caba) also enthusiastically tagging along. But as the day wears on, old tensions and fractures in their relationships become apparent and violence bubbles to the surface.

   Shot in crisp black and white (cinematography by Luis Cuadrado) and sharply edited by Pablo G del Amo (in the documentary about the latter, written about on here last year, the editor tells Saura that this is the only film that he revisits on a yearly basis), La caza marks Carlos Saura's first collaboration with producer Elías Querejeta (who had a preferred team of technical crew) and a stylistic leap on from Llanto por un bandido. The film is considered a landmark in Spanish cinema - 'together with Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Basilio Martín Patino, 1966), [...] La caza is the most representative film of the mid-1960s cycle that came to be known as Nuevo cine español [New Spanish Cinema]' (Mira 2010: 71) - and won Saura the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1966 - his first international award.

   The film takes place in a location that had been a battlefield during the Civil War (D'Lugo 1991: 57), and 'the war' (the censors ensured that the Civil War is not explicitly mentioned) permeates the narrative and the relations between the men (the older three served together). The landscape, and the way it is presented onscreen, is a metonym for the psyches of those who survived the war: battle-scarred, with secrets and remnants of violence hidden in darker recesses. Alberto Mira notes that the use of metaphor and strong imagery 'went beyond narrative needs: the heat that drives characters to madness could be read in terms of the stifling atmosphere created in the country after the Civil War, and the butchery was easily read as a reference to the conflict itself [...]' (2010: 71). Hunting was strongly associated with the regime and there is also an intertextual reference being made with the casting of Alfredo Mayo:

'As a young man, Mayo built his career upon a series of forties films playing the role of the stalwart Nationalist hero fighting the Republican scourge. By far, the most influential of these was the role of José Churruca in Sáenz de Heredia's Raza. Not only did Mayo play the part of the nationalist patriot; his role was fashioned as a sanitized version of the Caudillo, replete with narrative parallels to Franco's own biography. Nowhere in The Hunt is there any overt reference to Mayo's former screen persona, yet implicitly, the character of Paco seems to represent a sequel to the earlier Alfredo Mayo, film-actor-as-national-hero. It is a shattering statement of the passage of time and the transformation of a bygone mythic hero into a venal and narcissistic old man.' (D'Lugo 1991: 57)

As an outsider to this clique, and crucially of a younger generation, Enrique is at one remove from the associations generated by the older men. He therefore acts as witness, and audience proxy, when bitter resentments and disappointments finally cause psychic breakdown and the men turn on each other with spectacular violence. The film ends with a freeze frame of his face, his panting still audible on the soundtrack, as he runs from the scene in horror.

    For the most part the film is realist in its depictions but the frequent extreme close-ups of sweating faces, of weapons and ammunition, and of rabbits in their death throes, give a slightly surreal edge to proceedings - almost a 'heightened' reality, or as if the camera is also feeling the effects of that relentless heat. It feels like a very modern film, not just visually but also in our access to the interiority of the characters:

'[...] Saura uses an experimental procedure which overlaps and contrasts with the realism: the interior monologues of the characters. They reveal their doubts, complex thoughts and passions that move them - the combination of their old friendship, resentment, envy - and it fills the silences, ellipses and insinuations of his dialogues until the final slaughter. Saura incorporates into cinematic introspection mechanisms that were being explored in contemporary literature (Luis Martín-Santos, Juan Goytisolo, Juan Marsé, Juan Benet, etc.).' (Sánchez-Biosca 2011: 117)

State of mind, or at least the animosity under the surface, is also signalled early on via the editing in the sequence where the men are preparing their weapons: a series of shot-reverse-shots show Paco in extreme close-up checking his sites facing right, then cuts to an extreme close-up of José doing the same but facing left (making it appear that they could be aiming at each other), the sequence of shots then repeats before a mid-distance shot establishes their actual positions in relation to each other (sitting alongside one another facing in opposite directions).

   Hopefully I will return to this film later in the year as I've barely scratched the surface in this short piece and many different angles could be taken -it is an incredibly rich text and a small mountain of material has been written on it (I've only read a fraction of it so far -I've found a book, La caza...42 años después [La caza...42 years later], which is a collection of articles about the film and looks really interesting but as it's in Spanish it'll take me a while to read). My intention with the future longer pieces is to draw groups of the films together, but obviously I can't start to think about that until I've watched more of them.

References:

Cueto, R. (ed.) (2008) - La caza...42 años después, Valencia: Ediciones de la Filmoteca.

D'Lugo, M. (1991) - The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mira, A. (2010) - The A to Z of Spanish Cinema, Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press.

Sánchez-Biosca, V. (2011) - 'La caza', in Directory of World Cinema: Spain, edited by Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano, Bristol: Intellect, pp.115-117.

New Book

Labanyi, Jo and Tatjana Pavlović (ed.s) (2013) - A Companion to Spanish Cinema, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 9781405194389

    I mentioned this book at the end of last year as one that I was hoping to get hold of through the library due to its prohibitive price (£120) - I clearly timed my request well in the lull after New Year because it arrived a few days later. In fairness, although I regularly carp on about the price of film books, this one is substantial in both size (more than 600 pages) and content. The book takes a thematic approach with chapters divided into sections written by different authors - although the contents of the chapters generally progress chronologically (in terms of the history of Spanish cinema and also in their use of films as case studies), the range of authors (with distinct points of view) involved allows a multi-faceted take on Spanish cinema to develop. The editors underline that this melange of voices was part of the intention of the book, saying that:

'In keeping with the aim of showcasing different models of analysis, the essays in the volume bring together outstanding scholars - established and young - from Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Just as the volume stresses the transnationalism of Spanish cinema, we have wanted to offer readers a sample of the best scholarship in all three national critical traditions. In presenting a wide range of critical approaches, we aim not only to give a rounded picture of Spanish cinema but also to offer readers a sense of the possibilities open to them in their own future critical work. We have deliberately not tried to iron out the differences of approach between our twenty-six contributors, since we regard these differences as one of the volume's strengths' (p.11)

Whatever your own particular area of interest (for example, directors or actors, genre, or maybe the more technical side of filmmaking) in Spanish cinema, you will find something in this book for you; ideas of 'national cinema', directors, and star theory are of specific interest to me, but I also became engrossed in the chapters on genre, television, and the technical aspects of image and sound. Each section includes a bibliography and there is also a 'further reading' list at the end of each chapter. Unusually for me, I didn't find myself skimming vast swathes of the book - I think that the mix of voices (and also the broad range of films analysed) kept me engaged but I was also genuinely interested in the topics covered. Recommended (although from a library - much as I enjoyed reading it, I couldn't pay that much for it).
   As is usually the case with book posts, I am including the table of contents below - I am using the same format as the book itself, so although the authors for each chapter are indicated, the titles of their individual sections are not given. I will add the book to part 2 of the 'Books on Spanish Cinema' post.

1: Introduction - Jo Labanyi and Tatjana Pavlović
Part I: Reframing the National
2: Transnational Frameworks - Gerard Dapena, Marvin D'Lugo, and Alberto Elena
3: Echoes and Traces: Catalan Cinema, or Cinema in Catalonia - Brad Epps
4: Negotiating the Global and the Local: Andalusia, the Basque Country, and Galicia - José Colmeiro and Joseba Gabilondo
Part II: The Construction of the Auteur
5: Auteurism and the Construction of the Canon - Marvin D'Lugo and Paul Julian Smith
6: Strategic Auteurism - Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, Steven Marsh, Susan Martin-Márquez, and Santos Zunzunegui
Part III: Genre
7: Comedy and Musicals - Steven Marsh, Chris Perriam, Eva Woods Peiró, and Santos Zunzunegui
8: Melodrama and Historical Film - Jo Labanyi, Annabel Martín, and Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
9: Film Noir, the Thriller, and Horror - Jo Labanyi, Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, and Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
Part IV: Stars as Cultural Icons
10: The Construction of the Star System - Kathleen M. Vernon and Eva Woods Peiró
11: Stars, Modernity, and Celebrity Culture - Tatjana Pavlović, Chris Perriam, and Nuria Triana Toribio
Part V: Image and Sound
12: Photography, Production Design, and Editing - Vicente Sánchez-Biosca
13: Soundtrack - Román Gubern and Kathleen M. Vernon
Part VI: The Film Apparatus: Production, Infrastructure, and Audiences
14: Censorship, Film Studios, and Production Companies - Josetxo Cerdán, Román Gubern, Jo Labanyi, Steven Marsh, Tatjana Pavlović, and Nuria Triana Toribio
15: Film Clubs, Festivals, Archives, and Magazines - Ferran Alberich, Román Gubern, and Vicente Sánchez-Biosca
16: Audiences - Manuel Palacio and Kathleen M. Vernon
Part VII: Relations with Other Media
17: Cinema, Popular Entertainment, Literature, and Television - Sally Faulkner, Vicente Sánchez-Biosca, and Paul Julian Smith
Part VIII: Beyond the Fiction Film
18: Newsreels, Documentary, Experimental Film, Shorts, and Animation - Josetxo Cerdán and Vicente Sánchez-Biosca
Part IX: Reading Films Through Theory
19: Isabel Coixet's Engagement with Feminist Film Theory: From G (the Gaze) to H (the Haptic) - Susan Martin-Márquez
20: Becoming a Queer (M)Other in/and/through Film: Transsexuality, Trans-subjectivity, and Maternal Relationality in Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre - Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla
21: The Space of the Vampire: Materiality and Disappearance in the Films of Iván Zulueta - Brad Epps

The Carlos Saura Challenge, Part 1: Llanto por un bandido / Lament for a Bandit (1964)

Director: Carlos Saura
Screenplay: Carlos Saura and Mario Camus
Cast: Francisco Rabal, Lea Massari, Lino Ventura, Philippe Leroy, Manuel Zarzo, Agustín González, Fernando Sánchez Polack
Synopsis: 19th century Spain. The Spanish people have expelled the French but now have to deal with the unjust Fernando VII in their stead. Rabal plays José María, a.k.a. 'El Tempranillo', leader of a group of bandits who garner a Robin Hood-like reputation in robbing only the rich, dealing fairly with normal people, and their continuing defiance of the King.

So begins the 'Carlos Saura Challenge'. This is not his first feature-length film, but Los golfos / The Delinquents (1962) is unavailable in any format, so this is where I start. The reception of Los golfos (the script had been banned by the censors four times) had demonstrated that depicting the here-and-now in Spain was a sensitive issue, and Jean-Claude Seguin suggests that with Llanto por un bandido Saura was attempting to escape from Spanish reality:

"It was for the director to reinstate the figure of the bandit José María 'El Tempranillo' who, when in contact with a fugitive liberal, Pedro Sanchez, acquires a certain political consciousness and chooses the Constitutionalists. Behind this historical film comes a discourse on the need for ideological commitment which, in Spain, was a courageous stand." (2011: 54)

However he clearly had not travelled far enough from reality as the film was heavily cut by the censors, in particular the opening sequence where Saura pointedly uses playwright Antonio Buero Vallejo (who used symbolism in his own work to criticise the Franco government) as a town-crier, announcing a verdict/judgement to the town square while Luis Buñuel cameos as an executioner preparing to execute the condemned men by garrotting - the sequence has been cut so heavily that I thought that the DVD was skipping. It was this treatment of his work that led Saura to utilise metaphors and parables in the films that followed. (side note: here is an interesting interview with Saura about the influence of Buñuel)
Overall, aside from the impetus to be more oblique in presenting a view that might be considered politically 'problematic' by the regime, the elements that seem to me to be significant in terms of Saura's later work are: the allusion to Goya and his Duelo a garrotazos / Fight with Cudgels in the fight sequence between Rabal and Lino Ventura (below) where, buried up to their knees, they batter each other with branches; and also what is already quite a distinctive use of music (certain sequences appear to either be cut to the music, or the actions within the sequence -for example, the blows Rabal rains down on Ventura- are timed to fit the rhythm of the music, which is often diagetic, i.e. we see it being performed onscreen).

References:

Seguin, Jean-Claude (2011) - 'Carlos Saura', in Directory of World Cinema: Spain, edited by Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 53-56.