Tangled Ideas

    You develop a funny attachment to films that feature in your thesis. Not all of them (there are a few that you'd have to pay me to watch again), but I think certainly the ones that find themselves woven into the central fabric of your central argument; you are infinitely aware of their defects and flaws (you've pored over their minutiae for months, taking them apart and holding them up to the light), but you bristle slightly if someone else points them out. But once you've submitted, the idea of revisiting one of those films (for enjoyment!) doesn't appeal; it's difficult to view those films from any other perspective than the one through which you wrote about them in such detail. But this is where the funny attachment comes in for me because there are some that I nonetheless regard with what can only be described as affection, of which Los lunes al sol is one. There is something about the film that moves me no matter how many times I watch it, or how I've dissected it in the past: it is a film about solidarity, loyalty, about people being stronger together, and about how friendship can keep you afloat in the worst of times. Much of this centres on Bardem's character, Santa, the pillar of a group of friends laid low by unemployment. If I were told that I could only watch one Bardem performance again, this is the one I would choose; in part because it is a perfect encapsulation of what 'Javier Bardem' and his star image mean within Spanish cinema, but also because I personally think that he has yet to better this performance.
     But I thought that I was 'done' with the film in terms of writing about it. Then in September 2011 I watched Biutiful and throughout the film Los lunes al sol kept tugging at my consciousness. A week or so later I watched León de Aranoa's film for the first time in at least two years. But you can see from this post that I couldn't quite articulate what it was that kept snagging in my brain, other than it centred on Bardem's performance (try not to laugh at my hugely optimistic assertion that I would write about the two films together within the next month - although, that said, I have found what I initially started writing in 2011; more than 3000 words, all of them about Los lunes al sol) and the feeling that Biutiful was a turning-inside-out of his earlier performance. And then life got in the way. I wrote a few of New Year's resolutions at the start of 2013 and one of them was 'Write the Bardem Los lunes/Biutiful article'. My attempts to restart my research focussed on my conference paper in the first half of the year, but it finally seems like time to actually get on with the bloody thing. So I rewatched Los lunes al sol this past weekend (I'd actually forgotten that I'd watched it in 2011 - I thought it was four years since I'd seen it) with fresh eyes and a sense of relief that this 'old friend' had not changed beyond recognition. I'll now have to rewatch Biutiful as well, but one step at a time.
    Performance is still at the centre of what I want to pick apart between the two films but in combination with the issue of genre and the associations that Bardem brings with him. I'm not sure whether I've got two ideas fighting each other, or just one that I've not properly untangled yet. 
    My intention is to look at the associations that Bardem's presence generates (at least in Spain) particularly in relation to cine social, before moving on to his performances in the two films, alongside criticism of the films that specifically relates to genre and their treatment of social issues. I think that Los lunes al sol addresses its themes, and wears its social conscience, with greater skill than Biutiful, but also better utilises Bardem and certain elements of his star image. It's not that there are obvious similarities between the films (they are quite different in terms of both visual style and their treatment of their respective subjects) but rather that Bardem's character and performance in the latter strongly reminded me of the earlier film because of the way that the performance seems (to me) to be a turning-inside-out of the earlier one. I don't think that Biutiful is cine social by any straightforward definition (but is genre ever clear cut? Los lunes al sol could be viewed as containing elements of melodrama as well) - but what is interesting is how it has been shoehorned into that genre by certain critics (particularly in Spain), and then judged as having failed to meet 'the standard' (again, particularly in Spain - both films have received their share of scathing critical commentary*). I think that this shoehorning is partly because of the associations that Javier Bardem brings with him for a range of reasons, but namely his style of acting (which is where the performance/genre overlap comes in).
    What I may do initially is use the blog to write about his performance in each film, so as to ground myself in them and to clarify what I'm grasping for by actually having to put what I think he does through his performances into written words. And then I'll have to do battle with genre and sort out my argument. But I think that if this nugget of an idea has stuck with me for two years while I've flailed around doing other things, then I should probably follow it. I'm putting all of this up here so as to hold myself to it because I find it far too easy to carry around ideas in my notebook without attempting to develop them - so feel free to give me a nudge if nothing appears on here in the next month!



*One of my favourite 'takedowns' of Los lunes al sol comes from Fecé and Pujol, who describe the film as ‘bienintencionada […] aunque conviertan el paro y la lucha de clases en una hipotética canción de Eurovisión cantada en esperanto: Si todos los parados del mundo caminasen cogidos de la mano’ ['well-intentioned [...] although they convert unemployment and the class war into a hypothetical Eurovision song sung in esperanto: if all the unemployed of the world could walk along hand in hand'] (2003: 161-162) - which is cutting but nonetheless makes me chuckle every time I read it. Biutiful's scathing commentary is more wince-inducing than funny (I think I tweeted some of my favourites when I watched it).

New Book - A History of Spanish Film: Cinema and Society 1910-2010

Faulkner, S. (2013) - A History of Spanish Film: Cinema and Society 1910-2010, London: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9780826416674

    This book uses the concept of Spanish middlebrow cinema to explore the representation of class and social mobility across a century of Spanish cinema: 'A History of Spanish Film explores, first, the cinema's representation of upwardly and downwardly mobile groups on-screen, and places this representation, second, alongside class realignments in Spanish society off-screen' (p.1). As Faulkner points out in her introduction, by examining Spanish cinema decade-by-decade rather than the traditional narrative of 'key dates' approach (often centring on whether a film is pre- or post-1975), she manages to uncover continuities at the beginning and end of the 1970s. But by focussing on 'an original terrain that was in-between previous "art" and "popular" alternatives' she also traces the 'middlebrow' through Spanish cinema from the 1970s onwards, arguing for the presence of a greater consistency and continuity in the Spanish cinematic output than is usually taken to be the case.

    The close textual analysis in combination with a nuanced reading of production, reception and changes in taste in Spain gives new insights into a range of films, including those that have already had acres written about them. From a personal perspective, the section on Los lunes al sol, which I'm intending to write about in relation to Javier Bardem's performance style, has given me much food for thought not least because it offers a more positive interpretation of its fusing of social realism and melodrama (much decried by the likes of Ángel Quintana and others) and has pointed me in the direction of other useful sources on the film as well. I'm also planning to track down some of the films that I haven't seen. A really interesting read.

As usual, I'm listing the table of contents below - I've listed the films English title first because that's how it's done in the book (I usually put the Spanish title first).

Introduction: Cinema and Society 1910-2010

1. Questions of Class and Questions of Art in Early Cinema

• Blood and Sand (Sangre y arena -André and Ibáñez, 1916)
• Don Juan Tenorio (de Baños, 1922)
• The Grandfather (El abuelo -Buchs, 1925)
• The Mystery of the Puerta del Sol (El misterio de la Puerta del Sol - Elías, 1929)
• The Cursed Village (La aldea maldita -Rey, 1930)
• The Fair of the Dove (La verbena de la paloma -Perojo, 1935)

2. Social Mobility and Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s: Consolation and Condemnation

• The Nail (El clavo -Gil, 1944)
• She, He and His Millions (Ella, él y sus millones -Orduña, 1944)
• From Woman to Woman (De mujer a mujer -Lucia, 1950)
• Furrows (Surcos -Nieves Conde, 1951)
• That Happy Couple (Esa pareja feliz -Bardem and Berlanga, 1951)
• Main Street (Calle mayor -Bardem, 1956)

3. Charting Upward Social Mobility: 1960s Films about the Middle Classes and the Middlebrow

• Plácido (Berlanga, 1961)
• Life Goes On (El mundo sigue -Fernán Gómez, 1963)
• Summer Night (Noche de verano -Grau, 1962)
• The Happy Sixties (Los felices sesenta -Camino, 1963)
• City Life is not for Me (La cuidad no es para mí -Lazaga, 1966)
• Marisol's Four Weddings (Las cuatro bodas de Marisol -Lucia, 1967)

4. The 'Third Way' and the Spanish Middlebrow Film in the 1970s

• Tristana (Buñuel, 1970)
• Tormento (Olea, 1974)
• Spaniards in Paris (Españolas en París -Bodegas, 1971)
• My Dearest Señorita (Mi Querida Señorita -Armiñán, 1972)
• Unfinished Business (Asignatura pendiente -Garci, 1977)
• Daddy's War (La guerra de papá -Mercero, 1977)

5. Miró Films and Middlebrow Cinema in the 1980s

• First Work (Ópera prima -Trueba, 1980)
• Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre -Saura, 1981)
• The Beehive (La colmena -Camus, 1982)
• Diamond Square (La plaza del diamante -Betriu, 1982)
• Mambrú Went to War (Mambrú se fue a la guerra -Fernán Gómez, 1986)
• Half of Heaven (La mitad del cielo -Gutiérrez Aragón, 1986)

6. Middlebrow Cinema of the 1990s: From Miró to Cine social

• The Dumbfounded King (El rey pasmado -Uribe, 1991)
• The Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto -Almodóvar, 1995)
• The Dog in the Manger (El perro del hortelano -Miró, 1996)
• The Grandfather (El abuelo -Garci, 1998)
• A Time for Defiance (La hora de los valientes -Mercero, 1998)
• Alone (Solas -Zambrano, 1999)

7. From Cine social to Heritage Cinema in Films of the 2000s

• Mondays in the Sun (Los lunes al sol -León de Aranoa, 2002)
• Take My Eyes (Te doy mis ojos -Bollaín, 2003)
• Carol's Journey (El viaje de Carol -Uribe, 2002)
• Soldiers of Salamina (Los soldados de Salamina -Trueba, 2003)
• Alatriste (Díaz Yanes, 2006)
• Lope (Waddington, 2010)

I will add the book to part 1 of the book list.

I've been building up quite a stockpile of books on Spanish cinema recently, partly because there have been an unusually high number published this year, but also because I'm trying to expand my knowledge (concentrated on 1992 onwards) backwards to encompass the 1980s and 1970s. The more-recently published books on my 'to be read' pile include:

Delgado, M.M. and R. Fiddian (ed.s) (2013) - Spanish Cinema 1973-2010: Auteurism, politics, landscape and memory, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Maurer Queipo, I. (ed) (2013) - Directory of World Cinema: Latin America, Bristol: Intellect Press.

Palacio, M. (ed) (2011) - El cine y la transición política en España 1975-1982, Madrid: Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, S.L.

Huerta Floriano, M.Á. and E. Pérez Morán (ed.s) (2012) - El "cine de barrio" tardofranquista: Reflejo de una sociedad, Madrid: Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, S.L.

Aguilar, J. (2012) - Las estrellas del destape y la transición: El cine español se desnuda, Madrid: T&B Editores.

Benet, V.J. (2012) - El cine español: Una historia cultural, Barcelona: Paidós.

Expect some of those to feature on here at some point in the future.

The Carlos Saura Challenge: a recap

Image taken from here

Due to the combination of a stressful situation at work and family circumstances, I’ve been away from the blog for longer than I would have liked. 
    Rather than continuing the Carlos Saura Challenge within the set time limit of a year (which may have been unrealistic from the start, given the number of films), I’m going to continue without a set end date but with the aim of covering 1-2 films each month. Aside from filling in a gap in my own knowledge, the Challenge was meant to lead up to the release of Saura’s next film, Guernica, 33 días – however, that film has continued to have funding problems (it had already had its production delayed a year) and with the death of producer Elías Querejeta a few months ago, the film’s future does not look any less precarious. So in that sense (given that the film is still in pre-production – Saura has been directing theatre in the meantime) the time scale does not matter so much.
   Since I started the Challenge in February, a few more of Saura’s films have become available on VOD and/or I’ve tracked down a couple more on DVD, so I thought I’d amend the list from the first post: if a title in the list below has ‘VOD’ next to it that means that VOD is currently the only way to view it;  ‘+VOD’ signifies that means that it is also in circulation on DVD; nothing next to the title means DVD only (I’ve indicated if a film is completely unavailable). The majority of the DVDs seem to be currently OOP, but I have found most of mine on either ebay or amazon.es.
   All relevant posts are / will be tagged ‘Carlos Saura Challenge’ so they can be found together – film no. 10, Cría cuervos, is due to be covered next (although you can find Fiona Noble’s take on here already), but you’ll see that one of Saura’s earlier films, La madriguera, is now available on VOD, so I may go backwards first – but one or other of those films will be covered in September.
As usual any English titles in square brackets are my own translation (otherwise the title shown is the official English language title). The dates given refer to the Spanish theatrical release.

38. Guernica, 33 días / Guernica, 33 Days (in pre-production)
37. Flamenco, Flamenco (2010) +VOD
36. Io, Don Giovanni / I, Don Giovanni (2010)
35. Fados (2007)
34. Iberia (2005) VOD
33. El séptimo día / The Seventh Day (2004)
32. Salomé (2002)
31. Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón / Buñuel and King Solomon's Table (2001)
30. Goya en Burdeos / Goya in Bordeaux (1999) +VOD
29. Tango (1998)
28. Pajarico / [Little Bird] (1997)
27. Taxi (1996)
26. Flamenco (1995)
25. ¡Dispara! / Outrage (1993)
24. Sevillanas (1992) [currently unable to get a copy]
23. ¡Ay, Carmela! (1990)
22. La noche oscura / [The Dark Night] (1989)
21. El Dorado (1988) VOD
20. El amor brujo (1986)
19. Los zancos / [The Stilts] (1984)
18. Carmen (1983)
17. Antonieta (1982) [only available on R1]
16. Dulces horas / [Sweet Hours] (1982) VOD
15. Bodas de sangre / Blood Wedding (1981)
14. Deprisa, deprisa / Faster, Faster (1981) +VOD
13. Mamá cumple 100 años / [Mama Turns 100] (1979) +VOD
12. Los ojos vendados / Blindfolded Eyes (1978) VOD
11. Elisa, vida mía / Elisa, My Life (1977) +VOD
10. Cría cuervos / Raise Ravens (1976) +VOD
09. La prima Ángelica / Cousin Angelica (1974) +VOD
08. Ana y los lobos / Ana and the Wolves (1973) +VOD
07. El jardin de las delicias / The Garden of Delights (1970)
06. La madriguera / Honeycomb (1969) VOD
05. Stress-es-tres-tres / Stress is Three (1968) [unavailable]
04. Peppermint frappé (1967) +VOD
03. La caza / The Hunt (1966) +VOD
02. Llanto por un bandido / Lament for a Bandit (1964) 
01. Los golfos / The Delinquents (1962) [unavailable]

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.

Guest post: Fiona Noble on Cría cuervos / Raise Ravens (Carlos Saura, 1976)

As indicated previously, I've paused my Carlos Saura Challenge for a few weeks while I deal with a situation at work. Fiona Noble kindly offered to write something for Nobody Knows Anybody about Cría cuervos as it is a film that features in her doctoral research. I hope to be back up and running in July, but in the meantime I leave you with Fiona's take on one of Saura's key films.

   Like La prima Angélica (already discussed on this blog), Cría cuervos revolves around the intersection of memory and childhood.  These themes are channelled primarily through the film’s central character, Ana, played by Ana Torrent.  Torrent has been read by Marsha Kinder as emblematic of the generation raised during the dictatorship, the self-proclaimed ‘children of Franco’ (1983: 57).  For Kinder, the figure of the child in films produced by this generation of directors (including, as well as Saura, José Luis Borau, Jaime de Armiñan, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón) symbolises their infantilisation by the Francoist regime.
   Regarding Torrent’s earlier appearance in Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena (1973), Kinder underscores the fundamental ambivalence of the child: while her ‘luminous dark eyes confront us with a bold knowing gaze, conveying a precocious intelligence, passion and intensity that seem almost ominous’, at the same time ‘her pale oval face and slender birdlike frame create a fragility that also marks her as a victim – a delicate instrument for the registering of pain’ (1983: 59-60).  This ambivalence underscores the dualism of this generation, at once victims, who have suffered at the hands of the regime, as well as potential future aggressors, who have learned from, and are at risk of perpetuating, their traumatic experiences through the repetition of violent acts.
   These concerns surface too in Cría, insofar as protagonist Ana actively seeks to kill her father, and then her aunt by poisoning them.  While the poison is revealed to be a harmless substance (bicarbonate of soda), and thus ‘meaningful action is still only imaginable, not performed’ (Kinder 1983: 66), Ana’s desire to provoke the death of these individuals is anything but imagined.  The figure of the child thus functions as a metaphor for those who have grown up under the Franco regime, replicating their sentiments of frustration and helplessness, but also encapsulating their impulse towards violence.
   That the child is representative of a now adult generation impacts upon Cría’s temporality and chronology.  Produced in 1975, shortly before Franco’s death, the film prophetically and symbolically addresses this event through the death of the father in the opening scenes. Furthermore, the narrative moves between past and present, or rather between present and future.  The action takes place on two distinct temporal planes – the first during protagonist Ana’s childhood in 1975, and the second, twenty years later, in 1995, when an adult Ana attempts to explain her actions in the past.  The child in addition demonstrates the ability to conjure up the image of her dead mother, evidencing a fluid approach to chronology and to history.  This is further underscored by the film’s casting, given that Chaplin plays both the adult Ana and her mother María.  On the one hand, this fluid chronology, that evidences the influence of the past on the present, is tied specifically to the film’s politico-historical context.  Specifically, it highlights the extent to which the country’s forgotten traumatic past was bound to return in the aftermath of the dictator’s death.  On the other, and in more general terms, this evidences the child’s status as, in the words of Judith Halberstam, ‘always already anarchic and rebellious, out of order and out of time’ (2011: 27).
   In spite of this fluid approach to chronology, the film’s spatiality is characterised conversely by claustrophobia and restriction.  The majority of Cría’s narrative unfolds during the girls’ school holidays, creating a stifling atmosphere in which the children have little access to the world outside the walls of their home.  In support of this, the action takes place almost exclusively within the family home.  The only exception to this is the episode in which Aunt Paulina takes the children to their father’s friend’s farm.
   Furthermore, the family home is marked as a site of trauma, given that the film begins with the death of the girls’ father in his own bed.  Having previously lost their mother, Ana and her sisters are now orphans, under the tutelage of their Aunt Paulina, their mother’s sister.  Their mute grandmother, and maid Rosa, also live in the house with the three girls.  The fractured family unit, in conjunction with the claustrophobic family home, symbolise the political and cultural climate in Spain during and after the dictatorship.  Cría’s spatial restraint thus contrasts dramatically with its temporal freedom, underscoring both the limitations and possibilities of the child’s imagination.
   The film ends with the girls’ re-emergence into the outside world, the camera positioned in a high angle shot, tracking the children as they make their way along the bustling streets of Madrid to attend their first day back at school after the holidays.  The camera lingers at the city skyline, leaving the spectator wondering about the fates of these young girls, and the generation that they represent.  The unfinishedness of this conclusion echoes the liminality of the climate – in the months preceding Franco’s death – in which the film was produced.

References:
Halberstam, J. (2011) – The Queer Art of Failure, Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Kinder, M. (1983) – ‘The Children of Franco in the New Spanish Cinema,’ Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 8.2, pp.57-76.


Bio:
Fiona Noble is currently working towards the completion of her PhD in Hispanic Studies and Film & Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen, where she also completed her MLitt (in Visual Culture with Distinction) and MA (with Joint Honours in French and Hispanic Studies).  Her research centres on notions of transitory subjectivities in contemporary Spain, an issue she explores through three key figures of post-Franco Spanish cinema: the child, the performer, and the immigrant. She writes the blog spanishcinephilia.

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.