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This book is a collection of essays that offers a new lens through which to examine Spain's cinematic production following the decades of isolation imposed by the Franco regime. The films analysed span a period of some 40 years that have been crucial in the development of Spain, Spanish democracy and Spanish cinema. The book offers a new lens to examine Spain's cinematic production following the decades of isolation imposed by the Franco regime. The figure of the auteur jostles for attention alongside other features of film, ranging from genre, intertexuality and ethics, to filmic language and aesthetics. At the heart of this project lies an examination of the ways in which established auteurs and younger generations of filmmakers have harnessed cinematic language towards a commentary on the nation-state and the politics of historical and cultural memory. The films discussed in the book encompass different genres, both popular and more select arthouse fare, and are made in different languages: English, Basque, Castilian, Catalan, and French. Regarded universally as a classic of Spanish arthouse cinema, El espíritu de la colmena/The Spirit of the Beehive has attracted a wealth of critical attention which has focused on political, historical, psychological and formal aspects of Víctor Erice's co-authored film-text. Luis Bunuel's Cet obscur objet du désir/That Obscure Object of Desire, Catalan filmmaker Ventura Pons' Ocana. Retrat Intermitent/Ocana. An Intermittent Portrait, Francisco Franco's El Dorado, Víctor Erice's El sol del membrillo/The Quince Tree Sun, and Julio Medem's Vacas/Cows are some films that are discussed.
In some but not all respects, Spain skipped modernity and went from being a premodern to a postmodern society. That said, a tendency to overstress the traditionalism of late Francoism is replicated in a blindness to the continuities still in place in the 1980s, the decade in which Spanish democracy was consolidated. This can clearly be evidenced in the production and reception of popular culture. Raphael and Corín Tellado saw their popularity wane at home, even as their stock rose in Latin America. Conversely, however, the dominant assumption
the time and how it portrayed these advances in social rights and people’s ways of thinking. This chapter studies the legacy of Rosario Pi, Spain’s first woman director, in the light of these new approaches to the Second Republic as the frustrated mother of today’s Spanish democracy. I look at Pi’s difficult and short career and study her œuvre as an exceptional case of challenging narratives in
It is not necessary to accept the claim that pro-secessionist Catalans orchestrated a coup to recognise that their actions constitute the most significant threat to the constitutional order of 1978 since the military held Spanish democracy to ransom in 1981. Chapters 11 and 12 critically examine the interplay of art, education and politics in negotiating relations between the centre and the periphery in and beyond the historical nationalities to make the case that – as opposed to the dominant discourse now surrounding Guernica – culture can be a problem as
accepting the challenge of consolidating Spanish democracy whilst at the same time bringing Spain up to the level of its European neighbours, socially, economically and politically. European integra- The PSOE and social democracy 9 tion provided the fundamental framework for this transformation, ranging from the industrial reforms required to allow Spain to be accepted as a member, to the constraints provided by the Maastricht convergence criteria, and, subsequently, the Growth and Stability Pact. Socialist transformation was side-lined. The party’s frequently
1995, the GAL squads were shrouded in secrecy. Denial of culpability was on a par with attacking the accusers, changing the subject and channelling public attention in a different direction. Spanish governments railed with indignation when anyone suggested that the Spanish police might be involved. How dare anyone assert that the young Spanish democracy was behaving like the contemptible Francoist regime? Those who sought to link the GAL's actions to the Spanish police were accused outright of lying and supporting ETA
, hunted down ETA members and Basque exiles in France in order to quicken the resolution of a diplomatic conflict? After years of sensational trials and political scandals that cast doubt on the certainties of the young Spanish democracy 9 while offering the opposition, the press and the magistrates a whole new image, no one can claim that the last word has been said about the GAL. It is true that the latest news emerging from courts on either side of the Pyrénées is less sensational – in fact, it has
Spanish Literature and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). 16 Isabel Burdiel, Isabel II: No se puede reinar inocentemente (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2004). 17 For example: Mark Lawrence, Spain’s First Carlist War, 1833–40 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Guy Thomson, The Birth of Modern Politics in Spain: Democracy, Association and Revolution, 1854–75 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Thomson uses the phrase ‘precocious politicisation’ (4). 18 Ginger, Liberalismo y romanticismo. 19 For example: Gregorio Alonso and Daniel Muñoz Sempere
la poesía española (1966–2000). 50 poetas hacia el nuevo siglo, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva. Silva, P. H. (Eds) 2006. Agua: Símbolo y memoria, Madrid: Libertad 8/Slovento. Somers-Willett, S. B. A. 2009. The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in America, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Strickland, S. 2009. ‘Poetry and the Digital World’, English Language Notes, 47:1, 217–221. Suñén, J. C. 1994. ‘Lo difícil y el bien’, Ínsula, 565: 33–36. Threlfall, M. 2005. Gendering Spanish Democracy, London: Routledge
This work demonstrates that resistance to occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Second World War has to be seen through a transnational, not a national, lens. It explores how people often resisted outside their country of origin because they were migrants, refugees or exiles who were already on the move. It traces their trajectories and encounters with other resisters and explores their experiences, including changes of beliefs, practices and identities. The book is a powerful, subtle and thought-provoking alternative to works on the Second World War that focus on single countries or on grand strategy. It is a ‘bottom up’ story of extraordinary individuals and groups who resisted oppression from Spain to the Soviet Union and the Balkans. It challenges the standard chronology of the war, beginning with the formation of the International Brigades in Spain and following through to the onset of the Cold War and the foundation of the state of Israel. This is a collective project by a team of international historians led by Robert Gildea, author of Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance (Faber & Faber, 2015). These have explored archives across Europe, the USA, Russia and Israel in order to unearth scores of fascinating individual stories which are woven together into themed chapters and a powerful new interpretation. The book is aimed at undergraduates and graduates working on twentieth-century Europe and the Second World War or interested in the possibilities of transnational history.