Global Genres, Local Films: The Transnational Dimension of Spanish Cinema

Description

The acute processes of globalisation at the turn of the century have generated an increased interest in exploring the interactions between the so-called global cultural products or trends and their specific local manifestations. Even though cross-cultural connections are becoming more patent in filmic productions in the last decades, cinema per se has always been characterized by its hybrid, transnational, border-crossing nature. From its own inception, Spanish film production was soon tied to the Hollywood film industry for its subsistence, but other film traditions such as those in the Soviet Union, France, Germany and, in particular, Italy also determined either directly or indirectly the development of Spanish cinema. Global Genres, Local Films: The Transnational Dimension of Spanish Cinema reaches beyond the limits of the film text and analyses and contextualizes the impact of global film trends and genres on Spanish cinema in order to study how they helped articulate specific national challenges from the conflict between liberalism and tradition in the first decades of the 20th century to the management of the contemporary financial crisis. This collection provides the first comprehensive picture of the complex national and supranational forces that have shaped Spanish films, revealing the tensions and the intricate dialogue between cross-cultural aesthetic and narrative models on the one hand, and indigenous traditions on the other, as well as the political and historical contingencies these different expressions responded to. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments List of Contributors Foreword: Spanish Cinema and the “National/Transnational” Debate: A Brief Reflection Barry Jordan Introduction: Questions of Transnationalism and Genre Part 1: Rethinking Spanishness: The Soft Edges of Early Cinema 1 The Tuneful 1930s: Spanish Musicals in a Global Context 2 Historical Films During the First Years of the Franco Regime and their Transnational Models 3 Realism, Social Conflict, and the Rise of Crime Cinema in Francoist Spain 4 Luis Lucia’s Lola la piconera (1951): Hybridity, Politics, Entertainment 5 Nothing Ever Happens: Juan Antonio Bardem and the Resignification of Hollywood Melodrama (1954–63) Part 2: Broadening Perspectives: Crossing Borders, Crossing Genres 6 Carlos Saura’s Stress es tres, tres (1968): A New Spanish Cinema with French and American Influences? 7 Violence, Style and Politics: The Influence of the Giallo in Spanish Cinema of the 1970s 8 Spanish Gothic Cinema: The Hidden Continuities of a Hidden Genre 9 Reframing Empire: Mediating Encounters and Resistance in Spanish Transatlantic Cinema since 1992 10 The Transnational Dimension of Contemporary Spanish Road Movies 11 Rural Spain as a Transnational Space for Reflection in Icíar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo (1999) Part 3: Appropriating the Global: Self-Conscious Transnationalism 12 Isn’t it Bromantic? New Directions in Contemporary Spanish Comedy 13 Malamadres and Bertomeus: Transnational Crime Film and Television 14 Local Responses to Universal Sufferings in Isabel Coixet’s Transnational Melodramas 15 Transnational Contours and Representation Models in Recent Films about Immigration in Spain 16 Transnational Identities in Galician Documentary Film: Alberte Pagán’s Bs. As. and Xurxo Chirro’s Vikingland 17 (In)Visible Co-Productions, Spanish Cinema, the Market and the Media Index