Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema (Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts)

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Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts Jon Woronoff, Series Editor 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Science Fiction Literature, by Brian Stableford, 2004. Hong Kong Cinema, by Lisa Odham Stokes, 2007. American Radio Soap Operas, by Jim Cox, 2005. Japanese Traditional Theatre, by Samuel L. Leiter, 2006. Fantasy Literature, by Brian Stableford, 2005. Australian and New Zealand Cinema, by Albert Moran and Errol Vieth, 2006. African-American Television, by Kathleen Fearn-Banks, 2006. Lesbian Literature, by Meredith Miller, 2006. Scandinavian Literature and Theater, by Jan Sjåvik, 2006. British Radio, by Seán Street, 2006. German Theater, by William Grange, 2006. African American Cinema, by S. Torriano Berry and Venise Berry, 2006. Sacred Music, by Joseph P. Swain, 2006. Russian Theater, by Laurence Senelick, 2007. French Cinema, by Dayna Oscherwitz and MaryEllen Higgins, 2007. Postmodernist Literature and Theater, by Fran Mason, 2007. Irish Cinema, by Roderick Flynn and Pat Brereton, 2007. Australian Radio and Television, by Albert Moran and Chris Keating, 2007. Polish Cinema, by Marek Haltof, 2007. Old Time Radio, by Robert C. Reinehr and Jon D. Swartz, 2008. Renaissance Art, by Lilian H. Zirpolo, 2008. Broadway Musical, by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, 2008. American Theater: Modernism, by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londré, 2008. German Cinema, by Robert C. Reimer and Carol J. Reimer, 2008. Horror Cinema, by Peter Hutchings, 2008. Westerns in Cinema, by Paul Varner, 2008. Chinese Theater, by Tan Ye, 2008. Italian Cinema, by Gino Moliterno, 2008.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Architecture, by Allison Lee Palmer, 2008. Russian and Soviet Cinema, by Peter Rollberg, 2008. African American Theater, by Anthony D. Hill, 2009. Postwar German Literature, by William Grange, 2009. Modern Japanese Literature and Theater, by J. Scott Miller, 2009. Animation and Cartoons, by Nichola Dobson, 2009. Modern Chinese Literature, by Li-hua Ying, 2010. Middle Eastern Cinema, by Terri Ginsberg and Chris Lippard, 2010. Spanish Cinema, by Alberto Mira, 2010.

Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema Alberto Mira

Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts, No. 37

The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2010

Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Alberto Mira All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mira Nouselles, Alberto. Historical dictionary of Spanish cinema / Alberto Mira. p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts ; 37) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8108-5957-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-7375-9 (ebook) 1. Motion pictures—Spain—Dictionaries. I. Title. PN1993.5.S7M553 2010 791.430946'03—dc22 2009037425

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Editor’s Foreword

Jon Woronoff

vii

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ix

Chronology

xi

Introduction

xxxiii

The Dictionary

1

Bibliography

325

About the Author

431

v

Editor’s Foreword

All of a sudden, or so it seems, Spanish cinema is emerging as one of the most exciting, fascinating, and special cinemas in the world—not only are others viewing Spanish films, they are adopting Spanish producers and Spanish actors as their own. Obviously, part of this trend can be traced to Pedro Almodovar or Penelope Cruz, but that would be a vast oversimplification. Spanish cinema is not new: it has been maturing for a long time, having been one of the first to arise in the early days of silent film, and having produced excellent producers, actors, and films for decades—even during the dark times of the Franco regime. But now it is winning numerous fans not only at home but also abroad. So, this is a particularly good time to take a close look at its past and present and see just what it has achieved to date. More particularly, it is essential to discover that in today’s cinema Almodovar and Cruz are simply part of a cinematic tradition that is impressively long and broad, in some ways specific to Spain, in others truly universal. Moreover, there is not just Spanish cinema, but a circle of regional cinemas that also gain from being known better. A historical dictionary is a good way to explore this tradition, because it starts with a chronology that progresses from the very first, hesitant steps, through various periods of modest success and occasionally dismal failure, to the present, when recognition and awards, as well as reasonable box-office receipts, are rewarding Spain’s cinema and auteurs. The introduction takes a much broader view, showing how the industry is organized, who the leading players were and are, and considering the very different eras and sometimes quite different cinemas within the same era. Much of this information has been totally ignored outside of Spain until recently, as Spanish cinema has garnered world attention. The dictionary section is obviously the most informative, with hundreds of solid entries on producers, directors, and film companies, on actors vii

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and actresses, and on memorable films. Still, there is a limit to what can be done in one book, and this one pushes those limits rather far, so it ends with a bibliography that allows readers to go even further. This Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema was written by Alberto Mira, who is Spanish, and lives in Catalonia (which is not without its advantages). His earlier studies actually focused on English and American drama, which makes it easier for him to adopt a comparative approach and explain his own national cinema to outsiders. This is what he has been doing for well over a decade now, since he is presently a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University in England while also teaching at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Along with film studies, he lectures on Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture, as well as on gender studies. Aside from this book, he has written a number of works in Spanish, including translations of plays, and he was the editor of a special issue of a Spanish film journal on homosexuality and film. He is also a member of the editorial board and review editor for New Cinemas and a member of the Pedro Almodovar Research Forum. These various and varied activities have combined very neatly in this particular work, which he engaged in very enthusiastically and conscientiously, and which has turned into one of the more insightful and helpful volumes in this series on cinema. Jon Woronoff Series Editor

Acronyms and Abbreviations

CIFESA

EOC ETA FIPRESCI GATT ICAA

ICO IIEC NO-DO

PP PSOE Seminci UNINCI

Compañía Industrial Film Español Sociedad Anónima (Spanish Industrial Film Company, production company) Escuela Oficial de Cine (Official Film School) Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom, terrorist organization) Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (International Federation of Film Press) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Instituto de la Cinematografía y las Artes Visuales (Institute of Cinematography and Visual Art, government division for film and visual arts) Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Official Government Institute for Credit) Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (Institute for Film Research) Noticiarios y Documentales Cinematográficos (News and Documentary Cinematography, official documentary and newsreel production company) Partido Popular (People’s Party, Spanish right-wing party) Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid (Valladolid Internacional Film Festival) Unión Industrial Cinematográfica (Union Industrial Cinemtography, production company)

ix

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1896 April: An employee of the Lumière brothers uses their patent to record images in Spain for the first time. These were intended to become part of the Lumière Catalogue of Images and focused on typical aspects of the country: some views of the Barcelona port, military exercises, bullfighting rituals. 11 May: Erwin Rousby premieres his own patent, the Animatograph, at the Parrish Circus in Madrid. 14 May: Lumière’s Cinematographe is presented in Madrid. The Barcelona presentation takes place in June. Several patents compete at this point, including those supported by Gaumont-Demeny, Meliés-Roulos, Pathé, and Edison. 11 October: Eduardo Gimeno premieres in Zaragoza his shot of a group of people as they come out of the Pilar Basílica in Saragossa. This is considered the first “Spanish film” by most historians. 23 October: Arrival at Segorbe from Teruel, most likely shot by Charles Kall, premieres in Valencia, the second focus for film production and exhibition in the country for more than 20 years, after Barcelona. 1897 Premiere of the first staged film, shot by Catalan camera operator Fructuós Gelabert in Barcelona: Riña en un café (Fight at a Café). 1898 15 February: The Maine is sunk, and this is regarded as the direct cause of the participation of the United States in the Cuban War for Independence, which had started in 1895. 10 December: Treaty of Paris and end of the Spanish-American war. The Spanish Army’s defeat at Cuba, which marks the end of Spanish colonial empire, also encourages debates on “Spanishness” and progressive thinking on ways to deal with Spanish history and folklore. 1902

17 May: Alfonso XIII comes of age and is crowned king.

1904 Films Cuesta founded in Valencia. The company started as an exhibition room at the back of a general store, and focused on production xi

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from 1906. Cuesta specialized in folkloric melodramas and costumbrismo, setting a trend that will continue to resonate throughout Spanish cinema history. 1906 Hispano Films is founded in Barcelona, specializing in romantic drama inspired by stage plays. French company Pathé opens a branch in Barcelona. 1907 Meliés and Gaumont companies open their Barcelona branches, competing fiercely with smaller Spanish companies like Cuesta and Hispano. Fructuós Gelabert premieres two adaptations of Catalan playwright Ángel Gimerá plays: Terra baixa (Low Lands) and María Rosa. 1909 26 July–5 August: Social unrest peaks. The Barcelona “Tragic Week,” a period of strikes and worker revolts, is a sign of political and social instability in the country. 1910 September: First issue of Arte y cinematografía, the first specialized Spanish film magazine. 1912 27 November: The first attempt to establish a regulated censorship system is passed by the king. Numerous debates on censorship in the press during the next decade show growing concern about its impact of film. The Catholic Church regards the increasing popularity of film with suspicion, and reactionary media label film a “School for Criminality.” 1913 December: Barcelona company Barcinógrafo is founded by playwright Adrià Gual. It encouraged production of artistically ambitious films and sought prestige for Spanish film, but competition from more substantial foreign products will remain too strong for these attempts to succeed fully. 1914 Spain opts for neutrality in World War I. Film production decreases in the rest of Europe, providing a small window of opportunity for Spanish film industrialists. 1915 First guild for film professionals, Mutua de Defensa Cinematográfica (Union for the Defense of the Film Industry), is founded. Studio Films is founded by ex-Pathé employees Joan Solà Mestres and Alfredo Fontanals Solé. It quickly became the most typical Catalan

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production company of the silent period. Benito Perojo, one of the country’s film pioneers, founds Patria Films, a production company specializing in españoladas and stage adaptations. Premiere of Entre Naranjos (Among the Orange Trees, Albert Marro) the first in a long series of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez adaptations. 1918 November: Nationalist movements within Spain, particularly Catalonia and the Basque country, become more vocal in demanding more autonomy or, in some cases, independence. The end of World War I brings a short period of growth and prosperity to the country. Nobel Prize–winning playwright Jacinto Benavente becomes involved with Cantabria Cines, a company that will eventually produce adaptations of his plays. 1921 22 July: Military defeat of Annual, in Morocco, is felt as an offense by the Army, starting a chain of events that will lead to the 1936 military revolt. A crucial situation emerges in the Barcelona film industry, which is unable to cope with pressures of competition and establish a national star system. Studio Films closes. At this point, it becomes clear that Madrid will become the center of Spanish film industry. The success of the first film version of the zarzuela La verbena de la Paloma (The Fair of the Virgin of the Dove, José Buchs), with typically Madrilenian costumbrista themes, is a sign of that shift. Silent zarzuela adaptations become an increasing popular genre. 1923 13 September: Coup d’ etat by General Miguel Primo de Rivera, supported by King Alfonso XIII, who felt unable to maintain control of the country. Dictatorship will last seven years. The period will be characterized by strong police control and censorship. 1924 As a result of economic expansion, Spain starts building up technological networks. August: The Compañía Telefónica Nacional de España is created. 1926 August: Film magazine Popular Films is published for the first time. 1927 June: Sound film is exhibited for the first time at the Kursaal cinema in Barcelona. Lee de Forest’s Phonofilm patent is used. This is the beginning of a patents war that will only end in 1931.

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1928 1–10 October: Primer Congreso Español de Cinematografía (First Spanish Conference for Film), the first official gathering of film industry professionals, takes place in Madrid. At this point, 2,203 film theaters are in the country. 1929 19 September: Innocents of Paris (Richard Wallace), a Maurice Chevalier musical, premieres in Barcelona. This was the first projection of a sound film in Spain using standard technology. Although technology for the exhibition of talkies spreads quickly, resources to make Spanish sound films remain limited until 1931. 4 October: First talkie exhibited in Madrid. 1930 28 January: End of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and return to monarchy. February: First Spanish sound film is released: El misterio de la Puerta del Sol (The Mystery of the Puerta del Sol Square, Francisco Elias). 18 October: Premiere of the silent version of Florián Rey’s rural drama La aldea maldita. It is a critical hit, both domestically and internationally. 1931 The Monarchy succumbs to social pressure and political incompetence. 14 April: As a result of a referendum, the Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed. Film censorship is decentralized and the attitude toward women on film is liberalized. August: The Filmófono production company is created. This is a crucial year for the Spanish film industry as a consequence of its difficulties to incorporate sound in production: out of 500 films released in the country, only three were Spanish. 1932 March: A new tax is introduced on film exhibition that collects 4.5 percent of the profits generated by foreign films and 1.5 percent in the case of Spanish film. March: CIFESA, the only Spanish film production and distribution company ever to resemble a Hollywood studio, is founded by Valencian industrialist Vicente Casanova. 1933 January: Comité de Cinema de la Generalitat de Cataluña (Catalan Government Film Board) is created to fund and support film within the Catalan regional government. MGM sets up dubbing studios in Barcelona, a sign of a shift toward this practice, after a brief period in which separate Spanish versions of popular films were shot in Hollywood.

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1934 18 October: First sound version is released of Florián Rey’s La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpice), starring Imperio Argentina, who becomes the country’s most important film star and goes on to make a series of musicals with Rey. 1935 Spanish film production peaks, with 38 titles released, of which 20 were literary or stage adaptations. Luis Buñuel works as scriptwriter and producer for Filmófono. In spite of low production values, films like the military comedy Centinela Alerta!! (Listen, Sentinel!!) or the melodrama La hija de Juan Simón (Juan Simón’s Daughter) remain good instances of Spanish Republican cinema in terms of outlook and use of star images. Buñuel’s film L’Age d’or, which was to be premiered at the Exposición Surrealista (Surrealist Exhibition) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is banned in Spain. In view of the worsening political situation, a decree is passed that will exercise censorship on “distortion of politics or history,” an important precedent to later legislation. Premiere of the box-office hit La verbena de la Paloma (The Fair of the Virgin of the Dove, Benito Perojo). 1936 16 February: The Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, wins the general election in the midst of a harsh economic crisis. 18 July: The military uprising of General Francisco Franco, leading a faction of traditionalist army men, is the direct cause of the Civil War. The film industry ceases to devote resources to entertainment. Cinema becomes a tool for propaganda on both sides, and documentaries are the only kinds of films officially supported. 1937 January: Film Popular, a company dependent on the Communist Party, is set up to shoot newsreels. The Republican Ministry of Propaganda becomes the main source of funding for films during the Civil War. 1938 January: French writer André Malraux begins work on L’Espoir: Sierra de Teruel (Hope), inspired by his own experience in the Republican Army during the Civil War. May: The Francoist authorities set up the Departamento Nacional de Cinematografía, as part of the process of taking over legal Spanish institutions. They also introduce a new censorship system. Hispano Film co-produces a series of films on national and folkloric themes with Nazi Germany, including a musical by the Rey-Argentina team.

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1939 1 April: End of the Spanish Civil war and start of the Franco period, which will last until the dictator’s death in 1975. Important artists, including filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Benito Perojo, went into exile. With the country devastated, the Spanish government proclaims its neutrality at the start of World War II. Because of material constraints, only about 10 features were released in this year. Lack of quality product and limited production values in popular film will last a decade. Triumphalism is a central theme of journalism and cultural discourse. This will extend to film in the following years with a short cycle of patriotic war films including Sin novedad en el Alcázar (All Quiet in the Alcázar, Augusto Genina) and Raza (Race, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia). 1940 February: Government organizations that deal with film become part of the Ministry for Propaganda. 20 October: Primer Plano, an official film magazine is first published. 1941 The film industry becomes slowly more established, with 31 Spanish films released. Films follow the trends of the prewar years: musicals, comedies, and sainetes. April: Dubbing becomes compulsory for foreign films released in Spain. As the linguistic difficulties disappear by decree, audiences tend to prefer foreign product with higher production values. November: Introduction of political measures to protect national film production, including subsidies, fees for dubbing, and import taxes. A screen quota of one week of Spanish film showing for six of foreign film is enforced. Production that year includes patriotic films like Sin novedad en el Alcázar, the musical Goyescas (Benito Perojo), melodramas like Malvaloca (Luis Marquina), and some comedies, such as Huella de luz (Trace of Light, Rafael Gil). 1942 Peak year for CIFESA, with 10 films produced and distributed. 6 January: Premiere of Raza based on an idea by General Franco and inspired by his career. 29 September: NO-DO (Noticiario Documental) introduced: this was an official, exclusive, and compulsory newsreel projected before every film until the death of General Franco. 1943 More films are produced this year than in any other of the 1940s: with 52 features completed, the Spanish film industry seems to have overcome the crisis of the immediate postwar. May: Creation of the Spanish Board for Spanish Film Classification. Films that deal cen-

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trally with the Civil War are forbidden. Any mention of contemporary politics on film is subject to strict censorship. 1944 June: The former official favor for the “Cine de cruzada” is replaced by the newly introduced funding category of Interés Nacional (National Interest) that rewarded films that supported the official version of Spanish history. Many producers start to follow government guidelines in order to be awarded the Interés nacional funding. October: The quota for the exhibition of Spanish films is increased to one day of Spanish film for five days of foreign films. 1945 2 September: End of World War II. Spain becomes isolated from international politics, banned from the United Nations. The war’s victors all express their condemnation of the dictatorial regime. 1946 15 November: Fotogramas, a popular film magazine, is published for the first time. 1947 February: The Instituto de Investigaciones y Experimentación Cinematográfica (IIEC), the first official film school, is created. Among the first graduates were Luis García Berlanga and Juan Antonio Bardem. 1948 Spain is excluded from the Marshall Plan, intended to help European countries during the postwar rebuilding period. The sense of isolation increases. January: Beginning of the CIFESA cycle of historic epics with the premiere of Locura de Amor (Madness for Love, Juan de Orduña). These productions required high investment, and besides high box-office returns, they were dependent on government subsidies, which in turn meant they had to follow official guidelines on the most appropriate kind of topics. 1949 Aurora Bautista, Alfredo Mayo, and Amparo Rivelles, working for CIFESA, become the regime’s most popular stars and are used to reinforce “Spanish” values. 1950 An early sign of changes to come: Julien Duvivier’s Black Jack will be the first postwar co-production with Hollywood. Peak of the CIFESA historic cycle, with two Aurora Bautista box-office hits directed by Juan de Orduña: Agustina de Aragón (Agustina of Aragon) and Pequeñeces (Small Matters).

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1951 Premieres of two films completed the previous year: Juan de Orduña’s Alba de América (Dawn of America), and José Antonio Nieves Conde’s Surcos (Burrows), representing opposing approaches to quality Spanish film. The earlier was an example of the CIFESA style, the latter was a serious and innovative attempt to make films that engaged with social issues. March: Ambassadors from Western democracies return to Madrid, and the UN withdraws their embargo. July: Falangist José María García Escudero is made director general de cinematografía (general director for film affairs). He resigned shortly after, as a consequence of his support for Surcos as opposed to Alba de América, a more bombastically patriotic effort preferred by the higher government offices. After a few box-office failures and as a direct consequence of not getting the expected subsidy for Alba de América, CIFESA goes into the red. From now on, it will become mostly a distribution company. 17 November: Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming) was released in Spain for the first time. 1952 February: End of rationing. García Escudero resigns under pressure, a sign of the ambivalence that gripped the Franco regime. March: The Junta de Clasificación y Censura de películas (Board for Censorship and Film Classification) is created. October: Spain joins UNESCO. Shooting of ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall!), directed by Luis G. Berlanga, a film that expressed an ironic perspective on the Spanish political situation. 1953 February: Release of the neorealist-flavored comedy Esa pareja feliz (That Happy Couple, Berlanga and Bardem). Creation of the Filmoteca Española (Spanish Cinemateque), to protect Spain’s film heritage. 21 September: The Primera Semana Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián is celebrated for the first time, which will later evolve into the San Sebastian Film Festival. 1955 14–19 May: Salamanca Conversations. A group of filmmakers dissatisfied with the treatment film receives from the government and the ideological demands constraining narratives, express for the first time their dissidence. Among them were Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis G. Berlanga. July: Distribution quota is reconfigured once more: at least one in five films exhibited in a cinema must be a Spanish production. Motion Pictures Export Association is outraged by this

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limitation of its activities and decides to boycott Hollywood releases in Spain. This situation will last until 1958 and will benefit the exhibition of Spanish film. Two important films premiered: Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, Juan Antonio Bardem, premiere 9 September) was an excellent instance of artistically ambitious filmmaking. Marcelino pan y vino (Marcelino Bread and Wine, Ladislao Vajda, premiere 24 February), on the other hand, was a populist religious fantasy starring child actor Pablito Calvo, and the first Spanish film to become a boxoffice hit abroad. December: Spain is admitted to the UN, beginning a period of “aperturismo” (“opening up”). 1956 February: Riots at the university. Beginning of a period of deep changes within the regime in order to encourage more progressive politics. 28 October: Spanish Television is founded as an organization dependent on the Ministry of Information. 30 November: Premiere of Calle mayor (Main Street, Juan Antonio Bardem). 1957 6 May: Premiere of El ultimo cuplé (The Last Torch Song, Juan de Orduña), one of the most successful Spanish films. The sultry Sara Montiel achieves overnight stardom and becomes the country’s most popular star during the next decade. 1959 John Paul Jones becomes the first of a series of Samuel Bronston co-productions shot in Spain and with a largely Spanish team. In the next decade, Spain will become a favorite location for Hollywood films, including El Cid and 55 Days in Peking. Francoist cultural institutions encourage this. Los golfos (The Loafers), first feature by Carlos Saura, is completed (it will be officially premiered 16 July 1962). Ricardo Muñoz Suay begins negotiations to bring Luis Buñuel back to Spain, seeking help from Pere Portabella’s recently founded Films 59 (which also supported Saura’s debut) and Mexican producer Gustavo Alatriste, after the latter’s wife Silvia Pinal became involved. 15 June: El pisito (The Little Flat), a neorealist-flavored film directed by Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri, premieres. This was the debut of scriptwriter Rafael Azcona, who will collaborate with Ferreri on many occasions in the following years. 1960 9 September: Release of Un Rayo de Luz (A Ray of Light, Luis Lucia) and rise to stardom of the film’s protagonist: blonde, blueeyed andalusian child actress Marisol. 3 November: El cochecito (The

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Motorized Wheelchair, Marco Ferreri), becomes one of the best examples of Spanish satiric neorealism with its strong streak of black humor. Luis Buñuel shoots Viridiana. 1961 With 91 films produced in that year, including 19 coproductions, the Spanish film industry reflects a period of economic growth. In that year, Spanish film had around a 17 percent market share. A Spaniard went to the cinema an average of 11.11 times a year, one of the highest official figures for film attendance ever in the country. Two new magazines are published that will participate in debates on the state of film in Spain: Nuestro cine (which started publication in July) and Cinestudio (first published in May). May: Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana (his first Spanish film since 1932) wins the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but protests from the Catholic press cause this film to be banned in Spain; the film becomes officially Mexican. Filmmakers demand a clarification in the regulation of censorship. 28 February: Plácido (Luis García Berlanga) premiered. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign film the following year, but was regarded as “sensitive” by authorities in Spain because of its satire of the provincial middle classes. 1962 July: José María García Escudero becomes Director General de Cinematografía (General Director for Film Affairs) for the second time, with an agenda that encourages substantial Spanish films that have some social relevance and are produced by young directors. This is part of a broader project for the dissemination of Spanish film abroad through its participation in international festivals. This marks the beginning of the Nuevo cine español period, supported by García Escudero, but with many obstacles coming from other political factions. The list of directors associated with the new policies include Francisco Regueiro, Manuel Summers, Mario Camus, Basilio Martín Patino, Miguel Picazo, and Antxon Eceiza. Elías Querejeta becomes the producer most closely associated with Nuevo cine español. 21 July: El verdugo (The Executioner) is completed by Luis G. Berlanga. The film was a satire on the death penalty, which will achieve a very high critical reputation, but which cultural authorities will find problematic. It will have a muted official release. August: Following changes in the regulation of censorship across the Atlantic (which opened the way for more liberal attitudes in Hollywood film), the Spanish government sets up an explicit code (implemented from the following

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year), which will be more specific than previously, but more restrictive than U.S. and some European legislation. 1963 March: In addition to supporting art cinema, legislation is passed to support the production of children’s films. This will pave the way to a series of animation films and stories starring child actors. 1964 August: Box-office control legislation is introduced for the first time, as an attempt to control exhibition more tightly. A decree for the protection of film guarantees 15 percent funding on the film’s income. El extraño viaje (Strange Journey), a black murder comedy directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez, is completed and shelved; it will not be released until 1969. 1965 Increase in European co-productions (a record-breaking 98 were completed that year), particularly with Italy. Almería, a semi-desert region in the south of Spain becomes the favorite location for a number of spaghetti Westerns in coming years. Competition with television becomes increasingly obvious: TV sets increase from 360,000 in 1963 to 1,250,000 by mid-decade. Fata morgana, a science fiction art film considered as the first film of the Escuela de Barcelona (Barcelona School) has a limited release. La caza (The Hunt, Carlos Saura) is completed. This will be an early instance of a formula known as metaphorical cinema, intended to circumvent suspicious censorship boards. 15 March: The first comedy starring Paco Martínez Soria, La ciudad no es para mí (City Life Is Not for Me, Pedro Lazaga) is released, making the actor one of the most popular stars in Spanish cinema. 1966 Another record year in terms of production (164 films, including 97 co-productions), but experts point out the average quality of film continues to fall. The Escuela de Barcelona, a group of distinctive filmmakers working outside the mainstream of the film industry, starts producing feature films. Directors include Joaquim Jordá, Jacinto Esteva, Gonzalo Suárez, and Carles Durán. Tensions between dissident filmmakers and the government on the issue of censorship peak, a sign of the difficulties attending a commercially viable Spanish art cinema. Censorship is particularly imposed on the work of filmmakers who are known to be against the regime personally, even if their opinions are not directly reflected in their work. In response, their films grow increasingly “symbolic” (and, eventually, obscure).

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1967 January: A new category of exhibition is created to release in original-version films that are considered problematic for the mainstream. These salas de arte y ensayo (“art and essay cinemas”) became a marginal circuit for exhibiting serious films, particularly works by European intellectual and avant-garde filmmakers including Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and Michelangelo Antonioni. December: García Escudero is forced to resign. This dashes the hopes of Nuevo cine español directors to produce their own kind of modern film. The focus on desarrollista (“development”) comedies is now almost exclusive. Examples are the successful series starring José Luis López Vázquez and Gracita Morales, and many other unashamedly commercial films directed by such prolific filmmakers as Pedro Lazaga and Mariano Ozores. 1968 Funding for Spanish films is reduced to 10 percent of box-office takings (from 15 percent). The exhibition quota is once again increased: one day in four every month must be reserved for Spanish film in a given cinema, but there is a marked scarcity of substantial films to fulfill those expectations. The reputation of Spanish cinema as lacking in cultural prestige and made with low production values grows stronger. 1969 Political conservatism tightens: changes in the government in October gave more power to the ultraconservatives of the Opus Dei, a Catholic Church–related institution. Tercera via is proposed by producer José Luis Dibildos and director Roberto Bodegas as an alternative both to minority Nuevo cine español films and the cheap desarrollismo comedies. Peak year of the horror cycle. 1973 8 October: The subtle, reflective El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive), directed by Víctor Erice, is released and internationally acknowledged as one of the indisputable masterpieces of Spanish cinema. 20 December: ETA murders prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco. Increase in government funding to support the development of Spanish films. 1974 July: A bomb explodes at a Barcelona cinema showing Carlos Saura’s La prima Angélica (Cousin Angelica), which presented links between the past and present. The film went on to become a box-office hit. August: General Franco’s illness starts, and there is a strong feeling that political change is approaching.

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1975 Nudity is allowed on film, as long as it is “demanded by the script.” The first film showing full female nudity (a shot of María José Cantudo reflected in a mirror) was La trastienda (The Back of the Shop, Jorge Grau). This marks the dawn of the age of the Spanish “nudie comedy” that will continue into the early 1980s. September: José Luis Borau’s Furtivos (Poachers), a film that the censors were unlikely to have allowed, wins the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián Film Festival, and authorities grudgingly permit general release. It becomes one of the box-office hits of Spanish cinema. 20 November: General Franco dies. Juan Carlos I is crowned king. 1976 26 January: Premiere of Cría Cuervos (Raise Ravens) the last film Saura shot under the Franco regime. February: Censorship of scripts abolished. 1977 February–April: Political parties, including the Communists, are legalized. Some regions voice their demands for more autonomy, which they had been prevented from doing for four decades. The instability of the situation can be illustrated by the fact that there were no less than three different general directors of cinematography in this year. November: End of official film censorship. A series of issue-centered films invades the screens, driven by audience demand to see what had for many years been forbidden. Political or sexual themes and images that had been considered sensitive by the regime are now predominant. Major films include Jose Luis Garci’s Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject), Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s Sonámbulos (Sleepwalkers), and Luis G. Berlanga’s La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun). Luis Buñuel shot in Spain the French production That Obscure Object of Desire, a satire on the corruption of the Francoist bourgeoisie that became a box-office hit. 1978 As official script censorship is phased out, “Arte y ensayo” cinemas disappear as an independent circuit. This has negative impact in that now minority films must compete in the same circuits with mainstream films. Introduction of the “S” classification for films including images that “may hurt audiences’ sensitivities.” This encourages a thriving parallel soft-core porn film industry, devoted to cheap erotic films with very low production values. The first film released in Spain with the new “S” classification was Just Jaeckin’s Emmanuelle;

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20 out of 105 Spanish films released that year were “S” films. The percentage will remain constant over the next three years. This is also the year in which the issue-centered film reigns supreme: El diputado (The Congressman, Eloy de la Iglesia), Un hombre llamado Flor de Otoño (A Man Named Autumn Flower, Pedro Olea), Bilbao (Bigas Luna), El corazón del bosque (The Heart of the Forest, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón), Companys: Procés a Catalunya (Companies: Catalonia on Trial, Josep Maria Forn), El proceso de Burgos (The Burgos Trial, Imanol Uribe), are completed and released between 1978 and 1979, and all deal with sensitive social and political issues. April: The NO-DO production company ceases to have exclusive status and will fold in 1980. An exhibition quota is introduced that required cinemas to show one day of Spanish film for each two days of foreign film. December: Primer Congreso Democrático del Cine español (First Democratic Conference of Spanish Cinema) takes place, intended as a gathering of a wide range of representative Spanish film industry professionals to discuss the problems facing Spanish cinema. Beginnings of the short-lived “comedia madrileña” (Madrid-set comedy) cycle, derived from Tercera vía. The first title to fall into that category is Fernando Colomo’s ¿Qué hace una chica como tú en un sitio como este? (What Is a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?), completed that year. 1979 Pilar Miró’s El crimen de Cuenca (The Crime of Cuenca) is banned for “slandering” the Spanish military police. Spanish Television Company (still largely dependent on the government) becomes a key player in the funding of film, thanks to legislation that privileges agreements between producers and television for the broadcast of film after a period of cinema exploitation. A substantial budget is destined to TV series that adapt literary classics. The Madrid movida, a manifestation of the new spirit of artistic freedom among the young crowd, becomes visible. Pedro Almodóvar rises as one of the central underground figures of the period. 1 March: The Unión de Centro Democrático party wins the general election, but it will be riddled with tensions and will almost disappear in 1982 after Spanish democracy becomes established. October: Catalonia and the Basque Country achieve legal status as “autonomous regions.” Nationalist parties gain power. 9 June: Iván Zulueta’s Arrebato (Rapture), a film close to the spirit of the Madrid movida, premieres.

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1980 27 October: The shoestring budgeted Pepi Luci Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom), is Almodóvar first commercially released film. 1981 23 February: An attempted coup d’etat has the effect of reinforcing democratic feelings in the country. August: El crimen de Cuenca is finally released. 1982 A record 146 Spanish films are produced (although a substantial number were “S” films). This level of production will only be reached again in the boom year of 2007 (with a higher percentage of coproductions). Meanwhile, film attendance is plummeting (each Spaniard went to the cinema 4.3 times a year average, which compares poorly with the 6.1 figure for 1978). The number of cinemas declines by 1,000 in just one year, to 2,939. A series of measures to protect Spanish film are introduced; in some way, these are a continuation of policies introduced by the previous government. A central aspect will be the protection of “quality” projects, which starts a move toward star-laden literary adaptations. The new classification category, “X,” is introduced for pornographic films, which will from now on be ghettoized in special cinemas. February: Mario Camus’ La colmena (The Beehive) wins the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. This marks the beginning of a period of growth for Spanish cinema, which for a few years has some prominence in international festivals. 28 October: Victory in the general elections of the Socialist Party (PSOE). November: Pilar Miró is General Director of Cinematography. 1983 April: José Luis Garci’s Volver a empezar (Begin the Beguine) wins an Academy Award for Best Foreign film, the first Spanish film to achieve that honor. 19 May: Release of Víctor Erice’s first film in 10 years: El sur (South), which was conceived as a TV series and was left unfinished by the director (with final cut by producer Querejeta). 29 June: Death of Luis Buñuel. December: Introduction of the Ley Miró, an attempt to increase quality of films through funding from broadcasting rights and other official institutions. The immediate results are a drop in production figures as a consequence of the disappearance of the “S” category. 1984 The Dirección General de Cinematografía organizes a campaign (“Spanish film for the world”) designed to promote Spanish film

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abroad. May: Mario Camus’ Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents) receives acting award at the Cannes Film Festival. This is read as a triumph for Spanish cinema and even as a sign of the success of Miró’s measures. 25 October: Release of Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This?), the director’s first critical success. 1985 January: Founding of the Instituto de Cinematografía y Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA), which became the government organization (within the Ministry of Culture) dealing directly with the Spanish film industry. June: Spain becomes a member of the European Community. Legislation is passed to encourage co-production as a way of strengthening the appeal of European films. December: Pilar Miró is forced to resign from her position as Directora General de Cinematografía. 1986 El Deseo S.A., a film production company, is created by Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar in a move for more independence from uncertain funding sources. As time goes on, it will become a model of its kind. February: The Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (Spanish Film Arts and Sciences) is founded. It will introduce its awards, the Goyas, the following year. June: The Socialists win a second consecutive election. 5 December: Release of El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment), a marked shift away from the comedia madrileña in Fernando Trueba’s career. 1987 7 February: Premiere of La ley del deseo (Law of Desire), Almodóvar’s bold gay melodrama, which would become an international cult hit in the art cinema circuits. February: Protests against the Ley Miró. Professionals claim that the emphasis on quality has the effect of weakening the industry. March: Fernando Fernán Gómez wins the first Goya award as best director for El viaje a ninguna parte (The Trip to Nowhere). He also wins as best actor, for Mambrú se fue a la Guerra (Mambrú Went to War), also directed by Fernán Gómez. 1988 The box-office share of Spanish cinema falls to an all time low (just 2 percent of total income). Spanish distributors take the new laws regulating exhibition to court in Brussels, claiming they are against freedom of the market. 23 March: Release of Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), which will confirm Almodóvar’s stardom both in Spain and abroad.

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1989 February: Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is nominated for the foreign film Academy Award, but he is snubbed at the Goyas as best director. A Hollywood version, to be directed by Herbert Ross and starring Jane Fonda, is planned but this never materializes. March: A new agreement between the ICAA and Spanish TV to fund film. August: Three new broadcasting companies emerge: Tele Cinco, Antena 3, and Canal +. Eurimages fund is set up by the Council of Europe to encourage production collaborations among European countries and support the distribution and exhibition of European film. The focus for this fund will remain cultural rather than merely industrial, rewarding substantial and innovative filmmakers. December: The ICAA also seeks the support of the Banco de Crédito Industrial to fund certain projects. 1990 A new financing scheme for film is introduced, but is contested by the actors’ unions, which call for a strike. Premiere of first features by Basque directors Juanma Bajo Ulloa (Alas de mariposa, Butterfly Wings) and Julio Medem (Vacas, Cows) mark the beginning of a generation that will come to be known as Joven cine español (Young Spanish Cinema). 1991 Creation of the European Union’s support program Media, which will undergo a series of transformations to become the central European-wide organization for the support of production, distribution, and exhibition of European film. 1992 “Miracle year” for Spain, which became the focus of international attention with several cultural events taking place at the same time: coinciding with the Olympic games in Barcelona, Madrid became the cultural capital and Seville hosted the Universal Exhibition. For some commentators, these events showcase Spanish modernity and put it firmly on the map, leaving behind the traditional image encouraged by Francoism. September: Creation of the Europa Cinemas / Media network, a European community project supported by the E.U. Media support programme to encourage the exhibition of European film in selected cinemas, whose programming is monitored to privilege European film. 8 October: Premiere of the expensive and heavily subsidized Ridley Scot epic 1492 on Christopher Columbus’ first expedition across the Atlantic, featuring a largely non-Spanish cast and crew. 4 December:

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Release of Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba) a film identified with the “new Spain” that consolidated in that year. 1993 6 June: The Socialist Party wins the general elections for the fourth consecutive time, but its majority in parliament is waning. Statistics reveal the crucial situation in the Spanish film industry: only 8.7 percent of the films exhibited in Spain that year were Spanish. Measures to support production through special credits from the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Official Institute of Credit) are introduced. These will prove successful from 1996, when the upward trend in production and box-office returns stabilizes for more than a decade. 1994 6 October: Días contados (Borrowed Time), Imanol Uribe’s substantial thriller, that takes a dispassionate view of a terrorist, is completed. In the following year, it was awarded nine Goyas, including best film. 1995 During this year and the next, the idea of a new generation of Spanish filmmakers is consolidated with a series of releases including El día de la bestia (Day of the Beast, Alex de la Iglesia), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Speak About Us When We Are Dead, Agustín Díaz Yanes), Hola ¿Estás sola? (Hi, Are You Alone? Icíar Bollaín), Boca a boca (Mouth to Mouth, Manuel Gómez Pereira), Familia (Family, Fernando León de Aranoa), Tierra (Earth, Julio Medem), and Bwana (Imanol Uribe). The favorable reception of these films built up a sense of confidence in Spanish cinema that will be further encouraged by box-office figures the following year. 12 April: Tesis (Dissertation) marks the feature debut of Alejandro Amenábar. 1996 3 March: The right-wing Partido Popular wins the general elections. José María Otero is appointed general director of ICAA until 2004. Ninety-one films are produced, including co-productions, 30 more than in the previous year and the highest figure since 1983. 1997 An excellent year for Spanish cinema, at least in box-office terms: the road comedy Airbag directed by promising Joven cine español director Juanma Bajo Ulloa (who seemed to have renounced his earlier artistic ambitions) becomes one of the biggest box-office hits in Spanish film history. This will be followed by an even bigger blockbuster: Torrente (Santiago Segura). 30 May: Premiere of the critically

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acclaimed La buena estrella (The Good Star, Ricardo Franco) confirms the healthy state of Spanish cinema. 1 July: Partido Popular politician Miguel Angel Blanco is kidnapped and executed by ETA. Terrorism becomes a central concern for politicians and intellectuals. Daniel Calparsoro’s A ciegas (Blinded) is released, as another complex attempt to deal with the topic. 19 December: Amenábar’s science fiction thriller Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes) premieres. Tom Cruise snaps up the rights for a Hollywood version, which will be released in 2001 under the title Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe). 1999 5 March: Premiere of the low budget Solas (Women Alone, Benito Zambrano), the first in a series of films on the experiences of ordinary women. 28 May: Release of Icíar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo (Flowers from Another World) dealing with Spanish “machismo” and domestic violence. 2000 March: Second victory of the Partido Popular at the general elections. This time, it achieves a majority that will allow it to govern without the support of the nationalists. It was widely considered as a period in which conservative views regarding nationalism, gender issues, immigration, and terrorism made a return, but the film industry confirmed its upward trend, particularly in 2003. 26 March: Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), released in Spain the previous year, wins the Academy Award for best foreign film. 2001 Record-high 20 percent market share of Spanish film productions in terms of box-office returns, largely thanks to such box-office hits as Santiago Segura’s sequel Torrente 2: Misión en Marbella (Torrente 2: The Marbella Mission), Vicente Aranda’s Juana la Loca, and the Argentinian co-production El hijo de la novia (Son of the Bride, Juan José Campanella). Release of Amenábar’s Los otros (The Others) a co-production with the United States, France, and Italy starring Nicole Kidman, which to date remains the most successful Spanish film ever. 2003 January: Demonstrations against the Spanish government’s support of the Iraq War. The discontent was voiced by a substantial segment of film professionals at the Goya ceremony this year. Joaquín Oristrell’s Los abajo firmantes (The Undersigned) is a manifestation of the political commitment of Spanish filmmakers. Hay motivo (There Is

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a Cause), a compilation of shorts directed, among others, by Fernando Colomo, David Trueba, Icíar Bollaín, Imanol Uribe, Julio Medem, Vicente Aranda, Chus Gutiérrez, and Pedro Olea, also deals with the hopelessness of artists in the face of reactionism. Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun, Fernando León de Aranoa), an example of the kind of social cinema traditionally preferred by Spanish critics, is awarded five Goyas. 7 February: Premiere of comic book adaptation La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón (The Great Adventure of Mortadelo and Filemón, Guillermo Fesser), which quickly becomes one of the highest-grossing titles in Spanish cinema. 24 March: Almodóvar wins both the Oscar for best foreign film and best script for Hable con ella (Talk to Her). 3 October: Premiere of Julio Medem’s documentary on the ETA group La pelota vasca (Basque Ball). 2004 January: Triumph at the Goyas for Icíar Bollaín’s Te doy mis ojos (I Give You My Eyes) an issue-centered film about domestic violence. 11 March: Terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda in Madrid kill 192 persons. 14 March: The PSOE wins the general elections. 2005 January: The Almodóvar brothers voice their dissent with the Goyas voting system. Their latest film, the perfectly crafted La mala educación (Bad Education), received no awards in that year. 30 June: Legal reform is passed that allows same-sex marriages. Strong dissent from conservatives. As the reform was being discussed, Reinas (Queens) Manuel Gómez Pereira’s fantasy on the first gay (male) marriages premiered (8 April). 2006 A number of box-office hits, which were also well received critically, confirm the euphoria about Spanish film: the historical epic Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes), the comedy-drama Volver (Pedro Almodóvar), and the fantasy El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro) dominated screens and awards ceremonies and had an important international presence. January: The Goya for best film that year goes to La vida secreta de las palabras (Secret Life of Words, Isabel Coixet), shot in English and starring Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins, another sign that Spanish cinema is moving toward an international market. 2007 Another record year for production, with 172 films, including 57 co-productions. The international reception of the previous year’s

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hits confirms optimism about the state of Spanish cinema. The number of cinemas is also on the rise, from 2,627 in 1997 to 4,296 in the latest count. Almodóvar’s Volver is the Goya winner this year, and this is read by analysts as a return of Almodóvar to the Academia’s favor. El Orfanato (The Orphanage, Juan Antonio Bayona), a horror thriller, is the year’s most successful film at the box office, making 24 million Euro, and it could set a new record before finishing its international career. Media 2007 replaces previous incarnations of the general EU Media framework to support European film. The scheme now provides funds for about 50 percent of European films and supports about 100 film festivals in the EU, as well as continuing to be the main source of extra funding for the Europa Cinemas network of 1,500 screens, of which 227 are located in Spanish cities. 2008 The market quota of Spanish and European film releases remains higher than that of Hollywood releases in terms of titles, although in box-office terms U.S. film commands 75 percent of total revenue. January: The experimental La soledad (Solitude, Jaime Rosales) is awarded a Goya for best film. March: The general elections hand a second consecutive victory to the PSOE.

Introduction

A PROBLEM LIKE ALMODÓVAR: SPANISH CINEMA AT THE CROSSROADS No body of work has contributed to the international presence of Spanish cinema since the late 1980s like the films of Pedro Almodóvar. For many nonspecialist audiences, these films are the quintessence of a certain idea of Spain. Several monographs have been published on his work, and he is well covered by the general press, as well as in trade magazines, with articles written about each of his films, a privilege few Spanish filmmakers have achieved. But if the question of Almodóvar’s representativeness is put to Spanish critics and academics, whose job is after all to view “Spanish film” as a whole and come up with some kind of evaluation, the reaction can be unexpectedly ambivalent, even hostile. Indeed, Almodóvar’s strong reputation abroad is matched in his own country, from the beginnings of his career until today, with skepticism about his future place in the Spanish canon, which, as his critics insist, needs to show an engagement with history, realism, and art tradition. This conflict is actually a replay of continuing discourse on the definition of “Spanishness” and, by extension, Spanish cinema, a topic that cannot be overlooked if we want to understand the historical development of film, and one that has been discussed most insightfully by Nuria Triana-Toribio in her indispensable Spanish National Cinema. Since its very beginnings, when Alexander Promio, a French camera operator working for the Lumière brothers, first impressed negative stock on Spanish soil, there have been gray areas in the delimitation of what Spanish cinema is, which have been influenced by deliberations on what Spanish cinema should be. In following such debates, we find a related tension between a certain mythical notion of Spain as seen xxxiii

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from abroad (the image that foreigners prefer to see, so central to the international marketing of Spanish culture) and the way insiders like to think of themselves or the way intellectual elites like to think of Spain. According to the Spanish myth, Spain is, for instance, the country of the original femme fatale, Carmen. Yet, critics claim that the gypsy temptress is a character created by a Frenchman, imbued with ideologies of gender and racial otherness that cannot be identified with any real idea of Spain. The articulations of this myth of “Spanishness” have been known pejoratively since the early 20th century as “españolada,” and stand as negative models, examples of what Spanish cinema should not be. Almodóvar’s critics often bring up this issue in dismissing his films: the director is merely the latest incarnation of “españolada,” culminating a tradition of wrong, oppressive images of the country that are the secret of his success abroad. The fact that notions of Spanishness have been harshly and repeatedly contested within the country complicates discussion. Spanish history has been a source both of pride and embarrassment, and the latter was acutely felt by generations of intellectuals throughout the 20th century, to the extent that there remains a fundamental division between a notion of Spain as a compact country with centuries of history and an alternative notion of Spain as an oppressive concept that holds together by force a number of specific national cultures. At the beginning of the 21st century, Spanish identity seems more precarious and contested than it was even during the troubled years following the Transition to democracy. There is the official political unit, with its capital in Madrid; but at the same time, at least two regions, Catalonia and the Basque Country, have put forward claims for more independence, and others areas possess such specific traits that it is often hard to defend cultural unity. Until the 1990s, debates on how to achieve political unity proliferated, and these are far from settled now. It is as if Spain has trouble in creating the system of shared, agreed-upon mythologies that has worked so well to unite the diversity of people and cultures contained in the United States and France. The paradoxical result is that the strongest mythologies on Spanishness are still foreign ones. A wide gap has also existed between culturally specific artistic forms defended by intellectuals and those the popular classes regard as theirs, a gap that is reflected in a conflict between the kind of films Spanish au-

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diences have traditionally accepted (often falling within the españolada category and seldom of any artistic value), on the one hand, and, on the other, the kinds of films that authorities or the intellectual establishment have tried to hold up as quintessentially Spanish. Although intersections exist between both perspectives, these have proved historically distinct areas and very seldom have coincided fully. In the 1960s—a difficult time, as both these conflicting attitudes produced two distinct film industries within the country—a subsidized group of films claimed to represent the real problems in the real Spain more truthfully, although it could also be said that filmmakers chose those themes precisely because it would be easier to get funding. This was even clearer following the legislative reform of the 1980s, which made a sharp distinction between “good” and “bad” Spanish cinema, the former consisting of art film and prestigious literary adaptations. At the time, Almodóvar’s cinema definitely fell on the wrong side of this conflict: his cinema was enjoyed by audiences rather than by critics, and it expressed a perspective that seemed removed from the official dictates on a modern Spain trying to crawl out of a conflicted past. Historically, this has led to a troubled relationship with audiences. It could be proposed that, in contrast with the Hollywood model, authorities determining the fate of Spanish film seemed to be working “against” the public. Few attempts were made to find a balance between the popular and the artistic. Film as art needs strong support, and one consequence of such disregard for actual tastes is that the Spanish film industry has been underfunded and unable to recoup investment for most of its existence. With Hollywood cinema taking up between 60 and 80 percent of the box-office receipts and a small (but remarkably cinephilic) population, it was almost impossible for a Spanish film with decent production standards to break even without international distribution. Two solutions to this conundrum have been rehearsed throughout Spanish film history: the first was to make many cheap films that could recoup the investment very quickly (a practice most prominent in the 1960s and 1970s); the second was to follow official guidelines and make the kind of films that were rewarded by institutions at each stage. Finally, as mentioned earlier, the perception of Spanish film abroad is a problematic issue that has been addressed repeatedly and only in

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the past decade has been moving toward a solution. Despite repeated efforts to seek viable formulas, as we shall see, the international release of Spanish films has proved notoriously difficult. To some, quality Spanish films were too parochial, obsessed with the experience of Francoism or with internal issues that foreign audiences were unable to follow. Or, more to the point, Spanish films failed to make these issues and historical experience relevant to others (after all, the Western is, as a whole, about a specifically U.S. historical experience, but the genre is still enjoyed abroad). For others, it was rather an issue of production standards that affected the look of Spanish films. To combat this issue, measures were introduced in the 1980s to raise average film budgets, even if this meant making fewer films. Both problems—the narrow topical range of Spanish cinema and its poor production values—have been addressed in recent years. Spanish films that have been released successfully into foreign markets are moving away from memories of the war, either avoiding it altogether or inserting the experience of the war into more traditional genres (as is the case with El laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth); they also have higher production values and are becoming more polished visually, although this means that they depend more heavily on co-production funding from other European companies or institutions, making them in the process “less Spanish.” And this is the heart of the problem: for the Spanish film industry to grow and compete in the international market, Spanish cinema somehow has to renounce what experts identify as its essential “Spanishness.”

(VERY) HUMBLE BEGINNINGS: 1895–1929 Some of the woes of early Spanish cinema can be attributed to poverty and a particularly troubled history in the early part of the 20th century. Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, Spain was a backward country, with very high rates of illiteracy (up to 70 percent according to some estimates), a weak economy, and a strong political influence from reactionary institutions like the Church and the Army. The Spanish film industry first developed in Barcelona (where some industries actually flourished, in marked contrast with the rest of the country) rather than in the country’s capital, shortly after the historic 1895 Lumière projec-

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tions.* At the time, film was seen as a technological curiosity, and very few individuals could foresee its future. Indeed, 10 years would pass before specialized cinema theaters proliferated in Spain. The new invention first dazzled audiences in Barcelona on 5 May 1895, with regular showings of films by the Lumières starting in the Catalan capital a year earlier than in Madrid. Thus, film per se had an early start in Spain. But if by “Spanish film” we mean film funded with Spanish capital and employing a largely Spanish team, then the beginning of Spanish film history must be dated to Eduardo Jimeno Perorarta’s Salida de la misa del Pilar (Exit from Pilar Church Mass), first shown in 1897, although the very status of film at the time makes it difficult to decide whether this was the first film actually shot in Spain. After Perorata’s release, a series of views, mostly records of daily activities, together with some bullfighting takes, followed, parallel with the development of primitive film all over the world. Also in 1897, the first staged fiction film, La riña en el café (Brawl in a Café), was shot by camera operator Fructuós Gelabert. Spain took longer than other European countries (e.g., France, Italy, Germany, or Denmark) to develop a film industry of its own. In addition, many of the technicians who worked on film in Spain in subsequent years would be Italian. Most of the activity in the field of film production and distribution in the early decades was deployed by foreign companies like Lumière or Pathé, which further complicates the issue of the “Spanishness” of Spanish film. Also, Spanish film pioneers (Segundo de Chomón, Fructuós Gelabert, Albert Marro) actually trained abroad, especially in Paris, to perfect techniques and inventions that they then brought to their country. Later, three of the key figures of the 1930s, Edgar Neville, Benito Perojo, and Luis Buñuel, would also work in Hollywood, and the latter would develop most of his career as a director abroad. The filmmaking and exhibition business first developed in Barcelona rather than in the capital Madrid: the Barcelona film industry was at its peak in the mid-1910s. Valencia was also a center of production, and it * Lumière employee Alexander Promio was sent to Spain to record some views and subsequently study the commercial potential for the Lumière company’s new invention. In its presentation in Madrid, which took place under a circus tent, competition was fierce between similar projection systems; the Lumière technology proved more widely accepted.

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was here that the first Spanish production company was set up in 1904. Historians have attempted to explain this marked lack of cinema’s success in the capital. Competition from very well-established stage shows has been proposed as a reason. Also, Madrid’s bourgeoisie, with its close associations with the monarchy, tended to be more conservative in their tastes than the progressive and Europeanized Catalan middle classes. Among the earliest companies that dealt with film-related business (technical, artistic, or exhibition) the most important were Films Cuesta, and especially Hispano Films, a larger company that had a definite impact on the industry, and was founded in Barcelona in 1906. These were the years in which film was mainly considered a fairground attraction. Technical innovation was more important than narrative or artistic concerns: film pioneers were inventors and camera operators, rather than artists. Milestones in primitive and early cinema had little to do with narration or mise en scene. Audiences were meant to be amazed by special-effects films like El hotel eléctrico (The Electric Hotel, Segundo de Chomón, 1908), rather than intellectually stimulated, and for years they attended variety shows that included film along with singing, dancing, acrobats, and comedians. Film became established as an independent entertainment in Spain only in the mid-1910s. One of the early signs of a rising film culture was the appearance, in 1910, of Arte y cinematografía, the first specialized Spanish film magazine, which would continue to be published until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. The increasing prominence of film also aroused some interest from the authorities, and censorship regulations were introduced in 1912, demanding that film scripts be authorized before shooting begins. It is certainly indicative of the popular success of a trend when the government finds it appropriate to exercise control over it. The range of the most popular genres in the early decades of the 20th century is interesting because it points the way to future thematic concerns in Spanish cinema: filmed stage plays, including a specific kind of operetta on popular themes known as zarzuela; bullfighting; flamenco shows; and popular sainetes—the very themes, in fact, that would be recurrently dismissed as españolada in later years. Before film became a global business largely controlled from Hollywood (a process that began taking shape in the next decade), with often strong responses from

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European countries, exhibition conditions encouraged familiar, recognizable topics that had something in common with established literary and entertainment traditions. It is at this point that “costumbrismo” became central to Spanish film. Although similar traditions existed in neighboring countries like France and Italy, it is in the Iberian peninsula that populist comedy based on everyday lives achieved a characteristic supremacy. Scriptwriters took advantage of specific popular stage genres of the period. This suggests that film remained for very long an ancillary entertainment, depending on other forms of entertainment and their stars. To a larger extent than in France, the earliest personalities in Spanish film were stage stars like Raquel Meller. Literary adaptations were also becoming important, but they were often little more than tableaux illustrations of books, most from prominently best-selling author Blasco Ibáñez, who took an active interest in film as a scriptwriter and occasional director. Nobel prize–winning playwright Jacinto Benavente also put some effort into having his stage plays transferred to film. And in a country with illiteracy rates of around 60 percent in the early 20th century, it is not surprising that film did not become sophisticated or artistically ambitious. In the early 1920s, as the prominence of the medium grew, Madrid companies started to invest in film, and Barcelona lost its supremacy. For the first time, the artist-filmmaker (as opposed to technicians and inventors) rose to prominence in those years. These filmmakers were innovative in their approaches and interested in film as a storytelling medium, rather than mere spectacle. Two key figures in this evolution toward more ambitious forms of entertainment in this decade are Benito Perojo and Florián Rey. The former, who would achieve a reputation for cosmopolitism, trained in France and was increasingly interested in mise en scene. He founded one of the first Madrid set film companies, Patria Films, in 1915. After some interesting directorial efforts in the prewar years, such as the musical La verbena de la paloma (The Fair of the Dove, 1935), he continued his career largely as a producer. The latter was the driving force in the creation of a specifically national cinema, using Spanish themes. He brought together Spanish traditions (zarzuela, copla), learned from France and Germany the importance of the star system, and contributed a new sense of showmanship to the venture.

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Rey’s most famous film, La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village, 1930), is also a key title in Spanish cinema, as it suggests the consolidation of a national cinema: it was a rural drama that looked back to 19th-century traditions, but was also cinematically inventive. In spite of its old-fashioned themes, La aldea maldita suggests increasing maturity in film art, unparalleled to that moment in Spain. The film was shot as a silent in 1929, two years after the beginning of the talkies revolution in Hollywood following the release of The Jazz Singer. Given the technical limitations in Spain, when Rey decided to add sound, he had to do it in Paris studios. Film was also gaining support as a respectable artistic form. In the mid-1920s, Spanish intellectuals began taking an interest in film, but their references were mostly foreign, particularly Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton short features. The dreamlike qualities of the medium were remarked on by writers in Spain, following the interest of French intellectuals. Azorín, Max Aub, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Federico García Lorca, and Salvador Dalí joined the older Blasco Ibáñez and Benavente in grasping the possibilities of film, but it was the Aragonese Luis Buñuel, a friend of Lorca and Dalí, who focused his work on film. At the Residencia de Estudiantes, he forged links with the literary movement that would come to be known as Generación del 27. With Ernesto Giménez Caballero, Buñuel founded the first Spanish film club in 1928, another milestone in Spanish film culture. Later, he would be one of the key creative personalities (as line producer and script editor) in the Filmófono production company, before starting a fascinating international career in exile after the outbreak of the war. This support from the intellectual establishment was an extraordinary occasion for the legitimation of art film in Spain. However, the fact that most of these artists and intellectuals were identified as left wing interrupted what could have been a rich tradition of avant-garde films. Some enticing inklings on how this might have developed are Buñuel’s surrealist Le chien andalou and L’âge d’or, both made in France, early signs that some kind of relationship with foreign capital and technicians would be paramount to the development of the most innovative Spanish films.

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THE PRE-WAR YEARS (1931–1936): A SHORT-LIVED GOLDEN AGE The sound revolution was slow to reach Spain, and even slower to become a standard for films produced in that country. Different competing Spanish-patented techniques to add sound using records included Melodión, Parlophone, and Filmófono. Given the pressures for standardization with Hollywood systems, none succeeded. The credit for the first Spanish talkie generally goes to El misterio de la Puerta del Sol (The Mystery of the Sun Square, 1929), released in February 1930, but the system used would soon become obsolete. (El misterio de la Puerta del Sol was released only in a few cinemas as a sound film, given the lack of equipment.) Many of the films exhibited with sound before 1932, including La aldea maldita and Prim, were actually post-synchronized in France, and the rest had to be shot abroad (in France, Germany, or England) as co-productions. Taking the competitive lead in terms of technology was a central part of the agenda when Hollywood studios moved to sound; Hollywood talkies with high production values grew increasingly popular, and films produced in Spain lagged behind. By 1931, the lack of demand for silent films plunged Spanish cinema into a deep crisis: only a handful of films were produced in the following years. By 1932, technical and financial difficulties had been largely overcome, and sound was considered standard for production. The Second Republic had been declared on 14 April 1931, and there was a feeling of optimism for the future of the country, which coincided with the first Golden Age of Spanish cinema. This short-lived period of democracy, which would be interrupted by Francisco Franco’s coup d’etat on 18 July 1936, followed the failure of the Borbonic monarchy, social unrest, political instability, and seven years of harsh dictatorship (1923–30) under General Primo de Rivera. Film was seen as a modern, popular, democratic art form, representing the spirit of the new era. Although many films of the period have been lost, there are glimpses of a kind of cosmopolitism that would be rare in Spanish film until the mid-1990s. Sound brought new possibilities for the development of folkloric musicals, a genre that would remain central to national cinema traditions

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until the late 1960s. Also, the film industry consolidated along the lines of the European studio system. Although Spanish studios could never rival France’s Pathé or Germany’s UFA, they at least provided a framework for the creation of stars and popular genres. In this context, the key company, which would dominate and set trends in Spanish production for almost two decades was production and distribution giant CIFESA, founded in 1932 by the Valencian industrialist Vicente Casanova. Although not the only one, it is fair to say that CIFESA was the most successful at using elements of international popular cinema and adapting them to a Spanish context. From the beginning, it was set up as a vertical company that kept stars under contract and produced and marketed its own films. Among the performers, chanteuse Imperio Argentina stood out, particularly in a series of films directed by her lover and later husband Florián Rey. Literary adaptations, costumbrismo dramas and comedies, musicals, and features set in rural cultures were confirmed central items in CIFESA’s portfolio. Another important company was Filmófono, smaller and more populist than CIFESA, it specialized in working-class comedies. Although censorship has dominated debates on Spanish film, in those years, it was common in other countries as well. In Hollywood, the Hays Code had been introduced in 1923 (although it would take more than a decade before it was really enforced) as a gentlemen’s agreement between studio heads; in Europe, censorship was enforced, sometimes harshly and arbitrarily, by local governments; and in Spain, the Catholic Church had been particularly earnest in advising audiences on the potential evils of film. By the early 1930s, however, a shift in attitudes occurred, and the Church decided to use the power of film to promote religion. Popular films like El cura de aldea (The Village Priest, Francisco Camacho, 1935) were part of an agenda used to promote religious issues by focusing on the kindly priest figure who sorted out problems and brought lovers together. Film culture as expressed through magazines was also thriving, with Hollywood-style glossies, all about glamor and gossip, contributing to extend the popularity of film and its protagonists beyond the cinemas. In 1933, one of the earliest professional associations to take film seriously, the Grupo de Escritores Cinematográficos Independientes (Group of Independent Film Writers), was created. The interest on film

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as art is also evidenced in essays such as Luz del cinema, a compilation by future director Rafael Gil, which was published in 1936.

POLITICS BY ANOTHER MEANS: FILM DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND THE IMMEDIATE POSTWAR (1936–1951) The outbreak of the Civil War on 18 July 1936 meant an interruption in all of the trends that could have consolidated Spanish film in industrial and artistic terms. The film genre most extensively practiced during the war period was, as might be expected, the documentary, and many filmmakers who would be prestigious during the dictatorship years, like Gil, Antonio del Amo, Carlos Serrano de Osma, and Manuel Mur Oti trained as documentarists during the war. Like all other aspects of national culture, film became highly politicized, both for the legal Republican government and for the Franco usurpers; propaganda film was the only way filmmakers could develop anything resembling artistic ambition. The only feature film shot in Spain during the war years that is remembered today is French writer André Malraux’s documentary fiction Sierra de Teruel: L’espoir, which was actually completed and post-synchronized in France due to a lack of funds and the advance of the Francoist army. The remainder of the film activity depended on the propaganda offices of the warring factions. During the Civil War period, the Fascists began to show an interest in controlling film (and its message) that would be exercised in a series of censorship measures starting in 1939 and that would constitute the basis of censorship practice for the next four decades. Otherwise, restrictions, power cuts, extreme poverty, and difficult economic conditions made it impossible to sustain a film industry during World War II. Given the Fascists’ connections with Hitler’s Germany, Florián Rey continued making folkloric musicals in UFA studios under the company Hispano Films, although the output had a substantially lower quality than those shot in Spain. He would return to Spain after the war to try old formulas, but his films had by then lost freshness and originality. The war meant that film production in Spain ceased being viable even for some years after the conflict officially ended. And after the victory

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of the Allies in 1945, a period of isolation (known as “autarky”) commenced that was in some ways even worse than the destruction brought on by the war. The country had a very long postwar recovery period characterized by extreme poverty and international isolation, extending well into the 1950s. Rationing, one of the signs of postwar poverty, was in force until 1952. Historians have divided the early post Civil War years into two distinct periods. At the start of World War II, Spain was relatively optimistic, as the Franco government looked to join Germany and Italy in forming a Fascist alliance if the Axis won. The regime was at the time bold, showing all the external signs of a fascist country, and this was reflected on film: even General Franco himself wrote a script that would be shot by ex-combatant José Luis Sáenz de Heredia and released as Raza. By 1942, the Nazi victory began to look unlikely. The Franco government still displayed its confidence in the triumph of Fascism, but the bombastic series of war films that had characterized the immediate postwar period was interrupted. For over a decade following the end of World War II, Spain’s isolation was almost total. Only Argentina, at the time run by General Juan Perón, offered support. Excluded from the United Nations and from the Marshall Plan, Spain could not benefit from the reconstruction support enjoyed even by countries that had been dominated by fascist regimes. The domestic economy was in a precarious state, and commerce with other countries was hindered by embargoes and countless difficulties (the Spanish currency had little value). To make the isolation complete, the ambassadors from Western countries withdrew in 1946, following international condemnation of the regime, and the diplomatic crisis was not resolved until 1951. Clearly, 1944 marked a year of the keenest crisis ever for the Spanish film industry, with almost no films being produced; it was then that measures were enforced to promote its recovery. These measures dominated the next decades, and they seemed to work initially: the second half of the 1940s came to be regarded as a period of industrial consolidation for Spanish cinema. However, decisions made by the government in response to this crisis have been looked upon as the “original sin” of Spanish cinema. For the Franco government, cinema was regarded as a key political tool, and that meant the start of a process of subsidies that were not matched by box-office incomes large enough to make film profitable. As well, no demands were made on films to be

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profitable internationally either, which accounts for the parochialism that made international distribution problematic. The notion of escapism was important in a shattered country with low morale, and films about the war were discouraged. Two of the most successful directors of the period were Juan de Orduña and Luis Lucia, both specializing in historical or musical spectaculars starring singers of the period like Juanita Reina or Carmen Sevilla or glamorous actresses like Aurora Bautista or Amparo Rivelles. In a shattered country, people love to fantasize in the dark, and Spain became one of the most film-loving of European countries: when cinemas began to disappear elsewhere, attendance was still high for many years in Spain. The founding of Fotogramas in 1946 is a sign of the strength of Spanish film culture. In the following decades, the magazine (which continues to be published today) reflected changes in audiences and in the political situation. At the same time, the requirements of popular films had to be balanced with subtle ideological indoctrination. Characters and plots had to conform to the regime’s narrow guidelines on morality, Spanish history, and ethics. The Falange-influenced magazine Primer Plano is an instance of such balance between entertainment and film’s function in society. On screen, musicals regained some of their former glory (funds allowing), and a new generation of stars, including Alfredo Mayo, Amparo Rivelles, Ana Mariscal, Aurora Bautista, and Fernando Fernán Gómez (who had a successful career as director from the mid-1950s) came to prominence. They were supported by a fascinating gallery of ensemble players including such lasting personalities as José Isbert, Manuel Luna, Manolo Morán, Juan Espantaleón, and Julia Caba Alba. When the Civil War cycle was considered to have fulfilled its function, a new kind of take on national identity was encouraged: episodes from Spanish history were told in lavish films that would make up the CIFESA epics. In addition to their entertainment value, they were examples of ideological indoctrination. Overall, the economic and ideological climate made for homogeneous films that were a thematic continuation of pre-war genres. But even in this difficult period, original filmmakers like Edgar Neville or Carlos Serrano de Osma were working to make substantial films within budget and beyond conventional formulae. The Fascist-inspired Falange party had a central role in providing an ideological backbone to the regime’s long-term project. It must be

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remembered that Franco and his politicians tended to come from the military and could only articulate the simplest ideological discourse (as evidenced in Raza, for instance). It was up to the more intellectual Falange to set out, and often impose, those guidelines that would govern the everyday life of Spaniards under the regime. (As the Franco years progressed, the Falange slowly became a burden—even an embarrassment as the country tried to show a relaxed, liberal face to foreign institutions—and would be marginalized by the regime.) At the same time, the Catholic Church, whose interests had always been safeguarded (even by the Falange) following its support of the fascist insurrection, increased its importance beyond spiritual matters, acquiring increasing power on censorship boards and in setting moral agendas. Censorship is one of the areas that shows evidence of a shift away from explicit fascism. In the 1940s, censorship responsibility lay largely with the Falange, with an increasing presence by the Church and the government on censorship boards in the next decades. For many years, until explicit guidelines were published in 1962, censorship was arbitrary, and it succeeded as much out of fear as for its more immediate effects. Tight control, although systematically enforced on Hollywood and European products, was hardly necessary for Spanish films: most dissidents had by then left the country, had been sentenced to death or jail terms, or simply lived in fear. Although some ex-republicans managed to escape penalties and continued to work, only artists with clean ideological records were normally allowed in the entertainment industries or in journalism, which partly accounts for the artistic limitations of Spanish cinema in the ensuing decades. Lack of freedom was actually the prime concern for ambitious directors when they began to voice their concerns about the limitations of the Spanish film industry in the mid-1950s. After World War II ended in 1945, the realities of the Spanish film industry became clearer, and the need for urgent economic support measures became more pressing. Simultaneously, the regime’s need for indoctrination had to be supported with protectionist measures and government subsidies. These various support measures would provide the basis for future legislation on film. At this point, the preferred approach was to attach certain conditions for film to gain government funding: these worked as a complex set of checks and balances and, in addition to censorship, included dubbing, import licenses, privileged

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contents, co-productions, and exhibition or distribution quotas. Each of these categories was emphasized or marginalized to resolve the problem of funding Spanish cinema, and the situation would change greatly as producers followed government decisions. But what is most important to note is that this system of economic support to the film industry was also a system of control that eventually produced an industry whose relationship with audiences was strongly mediated by the need to gain subsidies that would enable filmmaking. Filmmakers were faced with making a choice between films that could be profitable at the box office and those that were rewarded with official support. Following the lead of other fascist countries, Franco introduced compulsory dubbing in 1942 to preserve the integrity of the Spanish language and to have a tighter control on potentially “dangerous” dialogue, only to realize that in fact compulsory dubbing was benefiting Hollywood film to the detriment of Spanish film. By the time this was pointed out by professionals, it was too late to prevent the damage, and audiences were accustomed to listening to films exclusively in Spanish, no matter how flat the actors’ voices sounded. This suggests that many measures adopted by authorities benefited exhibitors and distributors more than they did producers, and the clash between different participants in the production-distribution-exhibition chain would continue in future debates about the regulation of cinema. One way to curb the difficulties brought by compulsory dubbing was to link licenses for dubbing and showing foreign films on certain conditions: distributors were granted a fixed number of permissions to include dubbed films in their portfolios only if they also placed a given number of Spanish films. Screen quotas were the equivalent to these measures for cinema owners: guidelines were passed that forced cinemas to exhibit a number of days of Spanish films if they wanted to exhibit the more profitable foreign films. These conditions were supposed to improve the visibility of the national product, but not necessarily the quality. As the Franco period progressed, the practice of cheap quota fillers became more extended, with the problem becoming particularly acute in the 1970s: nobody cared about the films themselves as in some cases they were little more than a bureaucratic necessity. Together with forcing distributors and exhibitors to release Spanish products, the authorities attempted measures to reward certain themes. The basic intent was to link funding to a given notion of quality. One

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difficulty was that the criteria for better ratings were largely political, and this created a film industry obsessed with second guessing what politicians wanted. The demise of CIFESA as a production company is a prime example of how things could go wrong when quality criteria shifted in the early 1950s. After years of struggling to attract better funding by investing in an expensive cycle of historic epics, the company plunged dramatically into the red when a political shift doomed this same genre; few films could make enough profit to offset their expenses and high overheads. Together with censorship and a precarious system of rewards and funding, the third way in which the regime sought to use film to control public opinion was the NO-DO: a compulsory and exclusive documentary series that had to be projected before every film and that reflected the official version of the state of the nation.

SPANISH FILM IN THE 1950s: THE NEOREALIST DECADE In the end, it became impossible to ignore what was going on beyond the Spanish borders. Even during the autarky period, dubbed films continued to be shown, although often censored to avoid any negative reference to Francoism (as was the case with Casablanca) or to make them conform to strict Catholic morality. At the same time, innovations were taking place in the European film industry that impressed Spanish artists to the point that they thought the new approaches to film were the path to follow in Spain as well. Although elitist art cinema was too unprofitable to be envied, a new style, which would came to be known as “neorealism” was a revolution in film aesthetics and was having an impact on audiences’ tastes throughout the continent. These films were making a virtue of necessity and were shot cheaply on the streets of a ravaged Europe, with no stars and focusing on everyday conflicts. Although Luchino Visconti had been working along these lines since the early 1940s, the film that had the greatest impact on public conscience was Vittorio de Sica’s 1948 Bicycle Thieves. Given the supremacy of costumbrismo and the strong realist focus on national cultural traditions, Spain was a prime candidate to follow the neorealist trends. But the authorities were very aware that some prominent neorealists (most prominently Visconti, de Sica, and Rossellini) were anti-fascist and sometimes

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self-confessed communists, and the new style itself was frowned upon as a way to introduce working-class ideologies into film. Soon, neorealism became a central concern for young directors, as well as some ambitious filmmakers of the previous generation. The clash between Spanish authorities and neorealism came to a head in the competition between CIFESA’s Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña) and Surcos (Burrows, José Antonio Nieves Conde) for high funding ratings in 1951. The latter was the better film and eventually merited the subsidy, but the regime’s politicians saw the former as more emblematic of Fascist populist history and it obtained more support. This forced General Director for Cinematography José María García Escudero, a conservative army man, to resign over an issue of principle, as he believed that film needed to follow a social agenda that was not being furthered by the CIFESA mode of filmmaking. Even though it cost him the job, Surcos went on to become a model for alternative filmmakers; losing the special funding sent CIFESA into a deep crisis from which it never recovered. Several telling issues here illustrate problems in Spanish film history and which will strongly dominate the rest of the Franco period: the need that both films had for institutional funding; the “either/or vision” that forced filmmakers and critics to choose between realism or spectacular entertainment; and the importance placed on how “representative” of national identity each film was. The debate over Alba de América and Surcos put on the table the need for a change in Spanish cinema that encompassed artistic matters as well as industrial issues, distribution, and cinema ownership. One of the measures used to promote film had been the creation in 1947 of an official, government-controlled film school, first known as Instituto de Investigaciones y Experimentación Cinematográfica (IIEC) and then renamed the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC) in 1962. But from the early 1950s, when filmmakers graduating from the IIEC entered the industry, it became apparent that the school was a hotbed of dissidence. The new generation of young directors, which included Luis G. Berlanga and Juan Antonio Bardem, were and would remain outsiders, disinterested in mainstream Spanish film. It was only a matter of time before new styles were put into practice. In this sense, ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall! 1953) is a watershed film because it could be read as a film sympathetic

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to the regime’s internationally isolated situation, while at the same time presenting a new perspective showcasing the work of maverick Berlanga. The film consolidated the vision of a “new” Spanish cinema, aware of social issues. The success of Berlanga’s film and its echoes of neorealism signaled a change in Spanish cinema—all that was needed was a forum to articulate discontent and to propose measures that could contribute to improving the quality and substance of Spanish films. The 1955 Salamanca Conversations were a gathering of film professionals (including some close to the regime) where this need for change was first articulated. A wide range of professionals engaged in discussions on ways to improve Spanish cinema. Given the tight control exercised by the Franco government, their actual impact was small, but they galvanized Spanish film professionals and created a common front of subtle dissidence. Further films by Berlanga and the 1950s films by Bardem (who was a card-carrying communist) were examples of these new times. Films by the latter, such as Cómicos, Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955) and Calle Mayor (Main Street, 1956), are mature visions of some the pressing dilemmas of the time, especially for intellectuals. Other films throughout the 1950s, although not exactly dissident in spirit, assimilated some of the stylistic elements of neorealism, and the style’s impact is obvious in some of Ladislao Vajda’s and Manuel Mur Oti’s films of the 1950s. The culmination of Spanish neorealism came from an Italian: In the late 1950s Marco Ferreri directed two films that are regarded as milestones of Spanish black humor: El pisito and El cochecito. This also marked the debut of Rafael Azcona, who would go on to become the most respected scriptwriter in Spanish cinema history. Still, most films of the 1950s were not ambitious, aiming to fit snugly into the demands of the regime, while occasionally pushing the limits for permissiveness, as illustrated by the rise to stardom of Sara Montiel toward the end of the decade, an actress who set new standards of eroticism in repressed Spain. As the political situation began to shift, social unrest grew and the country was gaining a normalized international presence: in 1951 Western ambassadors returned, in 1954 Spain was admitted into UNESCO, and in 1958 into the United Nations. By the end of the decade, the Civil War seemed far behind, and politicians set aside ideologic differences to concentrate on modernizing the country.

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NEW COUNTRY, NEW CINEMA: 1961–1982 The 1960s in Spain were (in some ways, like the 1950s in Europe and the United States), a time of growth and consumerism that has come to be known as desarrollismo (developmentalism). At the time, the Franco government held a somewhat contradictory position, on the one hand trying to keep control over increasing social unrest and intellectual dissidence within the country and, on the other, displaying a sense of balance and tolerance to the rest of the world. This sense of a new order not only allowed Spain entrance into international institutions, but also increased the confidence of visitors, in time making Spain one of the world’s most visited countries, with millions of tourists coming every year seeking sun and low prices. Censorship did not become more lax: the government still needed to control what was published, broadcast, or shown in movie theaters. But following a period in which censors seemed to work arbitrarily, a censorship code was introduced in 1962 that at the very least gave clear guidelines on the kind of materials that would not be accepted. The game changed, as filmmakers now had a set of clear guidelines that they could try to transgress in subtle ways. Just as 1951 was marked by the Alba de América versus Surcos affair, with implications that would dominate the discussion of government film subsidies in the following decade, 1961 was the year of the Viridiana scandal, and the conditions under which the film was made and then released at the Cannes Film Festival reverberated throughout the last 15 years of Francoism, dominated by a convoluted dialectic between the need to trust artistically ambitious directors (in particular a generation who came to be known as Nuevo cine español) and the reluctance of the government to accept freedom of expression. By the end of the 1950s, the need to attract talent and make substantial films that could be visible in the international scene was obvious, and Ricardo Muñoz Suay (who ran the communist-leaning company UNINCI) enlisted Pere Portabella (who had just founded Films 59 and had produced some off-beat projects directed by Marco Ferreri and Carlos Saura) to produce a film to be directed by prestigious exile Luis Buñuel. As planned, Viridiana would be the first Spanish feature directed by Buñuel, who was enjoying a growing international reputation since the release of Los olvidados in 1951. But when the film opened at the Festival, an outcry followed, with complaints in the press about its alleged

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“blasphemous” elements. There were resignations over this affair, and the authorities banned the film in Spain. (The film officially ceased to be Spanish, a status that was only reinstated in 1977, and was released as a Mexican production.) Coming shortly after Viridiana, Luis G. Berlanga’s El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963), which tops most critics’ canonical lists on Spanish cinema, found all kinds of hindrances and had only limited release. Berlanga’s career for the rest of the 1960s and the early 1970s was difficult, and he became an icon for Spanish artists prevented from expressing themselves. Politically, the most important presence in Spanish cinema in the decade was García Escudero, who for the second time was made Director General de Cinematografía despite his resignation 10 years earlier over the Surcos affair. A veteran of the Salamanca conversations, he continued in his attempts to encourage quality Spanish film. For intellectually ambitious filmmakers, he was a godsend, although his agenda was political as well as artistic. In the same way that the Spanish government was trying to show openness and a spirit of reform, Spanish cinema needed a presence in international festivals. In terms of international film art, it was a momentous period following the nouvelle vague and a number of “new cinemas” in the rest of Europe and some Latin American countries. García Escudero did his best to encourage filmmakers who could be representative of a “new” Spanish cinema along European lines. He set up a fund to support the work of noncommercial filmmakers who could attempt with very little risk unusual projects, different from the more successful films of the period (desarrollismo comedy, musicals with children). This new generation of directors included talented young men like Basilio Martín Patino, Francisco Regueiro, Antxón Eceiza, Miguel Picazo, Manuel Summers, and Mario Camus. Again, the question arose about what concept of quality was being encouraged by government subsidies. Critics of the system argued that support for films did not rise naturally out of a relationship between artists and audiences, but started from political criteria that determined themes and approaches. In spite of some outstanding films (Saura’s La caza, Martín Patino’s Nueve Cartas a Berta, Picazo’s La tía Tula), the results were largely negative: Nuevo cine español did not do well, neither in the national exhibition circuits nor at international festivals. Seen today, the legacy of Nuevo cine español makes for melancholy viewing, suggest-

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ing as it does that artists were trying not to look entertaining in order not to appear too commercial, perhaps because the stories filmmakers were interested in telling were precisely those they were not be allowed to tell. Most filmmakers saw their films censored, and a fair proportion were released late or not released at all. Others may have been too influenced by a situation of intellectual gloom to make really edgy or committed films. Whatever the reason, by 1967 Nuevo cine español slowly disappeared. In Catalonia, the manifestation of the “new cinemas” spirit of the 1960s came with a series of aesthetically modern and narratively obscure films known as the Escuela de Barcelona, but these were even less popular than Nuevo cine español and failed to attract audiences. Filmmakers associated with the movement include Vicente Aranda, Gonzalo Suárez, and Joaquin Jordá. Commercial film, on the other hand, had to appeal specifically to the working classes rather than to a wider social spectrum. This made for a blatantly unsophisticated product. Spanish films in the 1960s evidence a lack of balance between commerce and art. Costumbrismo was increasingly left behind, and more and more narratives focused on the middle classes and were set in the city, even if some expressed discomfort about the democratizing and progressive elements of urban life (as, for instance, the series of comedies directed by Pedro Lazaga and starring comedian Paco Martínez Soria). As the decade progressed, musicals moved away from national song and explored the youth-oriented world of pop music. But the genre that dominates the decade is the comedy. With very few exceptions (Fernán Gómez’s El extraño viaje, Berlanga’s Plácido and El verdugo), comedies adopted very conventional patterns, and were extremely successful, particularly if we take into account the fact that they could be made very cheaply. The genre relied on a wealth of actors who became recognizable: José Luis López Vázquez, Gracita Morales, Alfredo Landa, Rafaela Aparicio, and Manolo Gómez Bur are some of the most popular. Some, like López Vázquez and Landa, reinvented themselves during the Transition, going on to substantial and critically acclaimed careers as serious actors. This was also the decade when, helped by a favorable economic climate, co-productions became more frequent. Their number had steadily increased in the 1950s as international trade became more fluid, and by the end of the decade, around 17 to 20 films every year were classified as co-productions. The golden age of this industrial mode started in

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the late 1950s, when Spain introduced measures to encourage foreign films being shot on national soil. Hollywood epics such as Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961), produced by Samuel Bronston, were shot in Spain. But mostly there were several cycles of European popular cinema in which Spanish producers and personnel had strong input. The three most important cycles were the “peplum” (sword-and-sandal epics) cycle, the spaghetti Western cycle and, in the late 1960s, the new wave of horror films. On the one hand, European countries had found that co-productions were a way to make films that would be popular in several countries, thus multiplying box-office income with little outlay. On the other, improving economic conditions meant Spain was increasingly able to participate in international funding operations. Considering that legislation rewarded such participation, in many cases the objective for producers was simply to put their names on big-budget films with minimal financial participation so that they could claim official subsidies back in Spain. By the end of the 1960s and during the following decade, the Spanish film industry was in a worse state than in any previous period. Funds set up to support film during the mid-1960s by García Escudero (who had resigned again in 1967) simply ran out, and Spanish cinema had yet to find an audience for its less blatantly commercial products. Increasing political uncertainty also meant that medium-term issues had to be put on hold until conditions could guarantee that more ambitious schemes could be applied. At this point, audiences consciously avoided “Spanish films,” which they saw as synonymous with low production values, repetitive plots, and ordinary filmmaking. Although some cheap comedies attracted very large audiences, they were not the kind of films that could be defended critically or that could bring prestige to anybody involved in them. This, in the middle of a golden age of the art film in Europe, when artists like Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, and a host of others were turning out their best work. The dissatisfaction with the state of Spanish cinema extended to a deeply disappointed critical profession. There were reasons for concern when the only industrially viable (indeed, thriving) genres were determined by budget limitations: in addition to the Western and horror cycles that lasted well into the 1970s, there was the incipient “sex” cycle. Although nudity and explicit sex was banned until

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1975, a series of cheap comedies that would later be labeled “landismo” after the actor who starred in many of them, started to fill the cinemas. As permissiveness increased, these evolved into the extremely popular, reactionary series of sex comedies written, produced, and/or directed by Mariano Ozores and often starring comedians Andrés Pajares and Fernando Esteso; these movies dominated box-office returns for Spanish film during the latter part of the 1970s. Most interesting filmmakers, like Gonzalo Suárez or Francisco Regueiro, worked in off-beat films that were difficult to release, poorly distributed, or instantly shelved, and attempts to find compromises between the commercial and the substantial, such as the Tercera vía, were short-lived and precarious. Art film barely survived in a few films by a handful of established directors. The work of Carlos Saura, supported by producer Elías Querejeta, between 1965 and 1979 constitutes a corpus of ambitious, auteurist pieces created against the grain and always struggling to keep within the limits allowed by censorship, even if this meant obscurity and uncommercial narratives. Saura kept the highest international profile for Spanish cinema in those years. With Almodóvar and Buñuel, he remains one of Spain’s most prestigious international filmmakers. Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, also supported by Querejeta) came as a surprise in 1973. In fact, the director’s awards at international festivals (including San Sebastian), the formal sophistication of his work, and the attention of critics suggested that he could single-handedly rescue Spanish art films from the doldrums. El espíritu de la colmena was, like Saura’s output of the period, elusive and beautiful, hiding secrets and a sense of understated pain. But Erice’s artistic ambitions and careful methods meant he was unable to direct another film until 1984’s El sur (which he did not manage to complete), and he finished only a documentary and some short works after. Other directors attempted projects that went against the grain in the final years of Francoism, but their results were marred by external pressures. Most remarkable among them was José Luis Borau, whose bold Furtivos remains, at least from a historical perspective, one of the key Spanish films in mixing metaphorical elements, rural drama, realism, political satire, sex, and violence. The story of how it managed to circumvent official obstacles reads like an epic and is a tribute to Borau’s uncompromising stance.

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General Franco died in 1975 after a long illness, to a great display of relief on the side of intellectuals and artists, who would remain staunchly anti-Franco for the next decades. Anti-Francoist sentiment dominated the arts (and eventually the media) for at least a decade, to the point where even right-wing politicians were at pains to avoid being linked to the dictatorship. It was this unpopularity that actually prevented the Partido Popular from reaching power until 1996. In theory, the Transition to democracy was the artists’ long-awaited opportunity to express themselves freely, to be able to write or film whatever stories they had been keeping inside, out of caution, fear, or external obstacles. But artistic self-expression is just one aspect of filmmaking. A solid industrial setup is needed, and Spanish industry was hitting, in terms of quality and viability, an all-time low, with few but significant exceptions. In fact, the government had stopped funding cinema when the money set aside for this ran out. Although it was generally recognized that filmmakers were entitled to official support to resist Hollywood imperialism, just like their colleagues in other European countries were, how to get hold of the funds was altogether another matter, as they were hindered by a slow bureaucracy, numerous legislative changes, and other unforeseen obstacles. Given the bad reputation of Spanish cinema both domestically and abroad, it took a very adventurous producer to risk producing minority quality films in those years. Only Querejeta went on supporting uniformly worthwhile films throughout the 1970s by keeping budgets reasonable, and he created a “factory” of talent that included directors like Saura and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and cinematographers like Luis Cuadrado and Teo Escamilla, who were responsible for the look of the most challenging Spanish films of the period. Otherwise, most of the cinema in those spectacularly momentous years belonged to a few genres like the sexy comedy, horror, or issue-centered films. Audiences were hungry for images of sex and sensationalism, which they sought on screen and off. There was a frenzy in those years to represent what had until then been forbidden, and a new exhibition category, known as “S” classification, was introduced to refer to films with potentially offensive sexual or violent content. They proved remarkably popular: 44 out of 118 Spanish films released in 1982 were “S” films. Measures that could address this depressing situation had to wait, and for almost a decade, Spanish cinema was left basically on its own, re-

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flecting social change in a series of sometimes hard-hitting, artistically modest, and often low-budget films, a continuation of the market-led late-Francoism period. Meanwhile, the political situation changed in just two years from a para-fascist regime to an enthusiastically democratic one, a very complex political process largely completed between 1977 (the year of the first general elections) and 1978 (when a constitution was approved), with official censorship of scripts, a kind of symbolic bête noir for artists, disappearing in 1977. Whereas the Franco regime had taken the blame for the ills of Spanish cinema, it became apparent that things would improve miraculously in the years following the death of the dictator. As one might expect, there were positive signs. The period saw the return of some filmmakers who had been unable to do personal work under the old regime, most prominently Luis G. Berlanga, who made a series of three “state-of-the-nation” films: La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun), Patrimonio nacional (National Heritage), and Nacional III, which worked as satirical comments on the transition process. Other directors, such as José Luis Garci and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, came to prominence in the period, representing aspects of the “new” Spanish society with new outlooks and obsessions. Garci came from the cinephile middle classes and his films, increasingly commercial, achieved some popularity. His Volver a empezar (To Begin Again / Begin the Beguine) won the 1981 Academy Award for best foreign film, to a loud outcry from Spanish critics who wanted more daring films representing “Spanishness”; the award remains a watershed event in the international recognition of national Spanish cinema. Gutiérrez Aragón, who had co-scripted Furtivos (Poachers), was the torch bearer of the metaphorical cinema tradition before it became outmoded in the mid-1980s.

THE SOCIALIST YEARS, OR EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN (1982–1996) After five years of social, political, and artistic turmoil (including an attempted coup d’etat in 1981), the victory of the Socialist Party in the 1982 elections seemed to guarantee, finally, a new era of stability. Politically and culturally, the Socialists represented the face of gentle

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dissidence during the last Franco years, and as a party they had been waiting for their chance to take the reins. “For change” was, indeed, the central slogan of the Socialists’ electoral campaign, and this extended to all areas of Spanish life, including the film industry. Filmmaker Pilar Miró, who had run into trouble with reactionary authorities for her allegedly slanderous portrayal of the military in her 1979 film El crimen de Cuenca (Cuenca Murder), and was the last filmmaker to be explicitly censored, was made general director for film. It was a symbolically charged decision. In addition to her anti-Franco stance, she had strong personal links with some of Nuevo cine español filmmakers and had expressed her sympathies for García Escudero’s policies and aim to protect quality film. Although the orientation was different, the gist of her proposals to achieve a new relationship between the creative personnel, producers, distributors, exhibitors, administration and, last but not least, audiences ran along similar lines to those introduced to support Nuevo cine español: the government would support Spanish cinema with funds (this could easily approach 60 or 70 percent of a film’s budget). This support came at a price, demanding that certain conditions be met by those aspiring to get substantial help: the government was committed to quality rather than quantity. One outcome was that, although the softporn genre was in fact supporting a number of jobs in the film industry, Miró delivered a blow to the status quo when she decided to create special cinemas for hard porn, where nudies would cease to have the privilege of being Spanish. Screen quotas were also enforced variously in the coming years. In the early version of the new legislation, the government demanded one day of Spanish film for three days of foreign product; this would later increase to a ratio to one for two, and in the 1990s “European” film would also be favored by the quota: every three weeks of non-European films had to be balanced out by Spanish or European product. A demand would be introduced later to avoid Spanish film being dumped into less attractive schedules and periods. The last important piece of the Miró reform was also the most innovative and the most lasting: a number of measures were introduced to encourage television companies (only the official Televisión Española existed at the time) to support film in exchange for broadcasting rights. One issue that came under criticism was that quality is difficult to “prove,” and it is doubtful that clear guidelines could help, as the risk

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existed that such guidelines were just reinforcing prejudices on what is “good” and what is “bad.” Innovative filmmaking was bound to be marginalized in favor of safer alternatives: one effective consequence of the “Ley Miró” was that most projects submitted were literary adaptations, considered worthy and educational, often of works by authors forbidden during Francoism or dealing with the Civil War and the postwar period. To improve audience appeal, these tended to boast large casts with several star names. Mario Camus’ trendsetting adaptation of Camilo José Cela’s La colmena (The Beehive) was followed by other films that illustrated the impact of the new measures, like Camus’ Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents) or Vicente Aranda’s Tiempo de silencio (A Time of Silence) and Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell). The political situation was also dominated by a process of devolution that took place in the late 1970s and was progressively completed in the next two decades, with more prerogatives given to autonomous regions. Although the project to revive national culture was stronger in some regions than in others, Catalonia and the Basque country attempted to reinforce cultural identities by investing in film. Although the first wave of films made under the “Ley Miró” seemed promising (Los santos inocentes won awards for the cast at the 1984 Cannes film festival), the project overall faltered in the early 1990s. Audiences soon lost patience with literature and postwar trauma. There were good directors, such as Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba, whose work seemed established domestically, but Spanish cinema failed to make it in the international market and the festival circuit. Quality and quantity dropped steeply in the second half of the decade, and audiences’ prejudices against “Spanish cinema” as a whole seemed, once again, confirmed. The year 1990 was particularly bad in terms of production and also in terms of box-office receipts. Changes to legislation were introduced so that box-office success was also rewarded, but these did not seem to be enough to salvage the situation. The general drop in cinema attendance made things even worse: although overall box-office takings remained more or less the same, a very high 155 million tickets were sold in 1982, which slipped to just 70 million in 1988. It must be added that the crisis was felt acutely in European cinema at large. Spanish cinema had missed out on the good years of European art film, but by the mid-1980s, this seemed to have been left behind. The 1980s were the years of a renaissance in Hollywood popular cinema and

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a change in production procedures; special effects films were becoming more and more central to audiences’ experiences, new multiplex theaters imposed their own logic on film-goers, and the most sought-after audiences were young (and often male). The competition from America was just too strong, and liberalization of trade posed another threat as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) agreements aimed to eliminate obstacles for the release of Hollywood fare, including screen quotas and distribution limits. The French led a protectionist movement in 1993 to ensure that Hollywood film would have some limitations in the European market, and European countries supported the move. One outcome is that pan-European legislation was put in place and subsidy programs like Media and Eurimages were set up to support the work of young filmmakers and ensure wide distribution.

A NEW DEAL WITH AUDIENCES: 1995–2009 There was clearly a need for a change of outlook in Spain. Spanish films, as encouraged by the Ley Miró and subsequent efforts by Socialist Jorge Semprún, seemed to be made for bourgeois liberal middle classes who felt strongly about the Franco period. This audience profile was more typical of the 1960s and 1970s (by general agreement the golden age of art cinema), than of the 1990s. Different audiences with different interests had to be catered to, and more emphasis was put on subsidizing films by young directors who would slowly replace the old guard of the Transition period. In this context, it is easy to see why Pedro Almodóvar’s rise to stardom in the 1980s was initially resented by the establishment. Here was a filmmaker whose inspiration came from the present and not from the past, who claimed to be uninterested in the traumas of Francoism, who had a wicked sense of humor (so unusual in serious films of the 1980s), who had picked the less defensible aspects of the 1960s, who eschewed earnestness and high culture in favor of pop, who preferred expressive to repressive characters, and who gave voice to spirited women protagonists (in contrast with the gloomy, anguished males of the Nuevo cine español) and—last but not least—who seemed to have a fluid relationship with audiences despite critical hostility. On top of all that, he was readily embraced abroad (particularly in the United States). For

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historians it was just another case of the “wrong” version of Spanishness becoming popular. Almodóvar started making shorts in the early post-Franco years and became a feature filmmaker with Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom). His films were typically derided by critics, who often resorted to homophobic language to dismiss them. Still, he had faithful followers, and international critics took interest his career. It was he, and not the more conscientious followers of the “quality” guidelines, who was crowned the “new white hope” of Spanish cinema. By 1988, his ascent seemed unstoppable after Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) became a certified international hit. In spite of Spanish critics, Almodóvar had shown the way. Maybe that was the point. Instead of looking back on the past and rehashing old notions of national identity, it was time for films that worked as quality entertainment with contemporary audiences. This is what was distinctive in the new filmmakers of the 1990s, including Julio Medem, Alejandro Amenábar, Fernando León de Aranoa, Álex de la Iglesia, Juanma Bajo Ulloa, Enrique Urbizu, Manuel Gómez Pereira, and other of a successful series of hits that braced the spine of post-1996 Spanish cinema. They were the first generation who seemed to have left the past well behind. Legislation from the mid-1990s had moved away from rewarding themes, taking the more neoliberal view that only success should be rewarded. Consequently, filmmakers started to listen to audiences and producers aimed to support entertaining films rather than those simply worthy of subsidies. From an auteurist point of view, this might be regarded as bad news, as the great movement of European auteurism resolutely chose to have audiences follow them rather than the other way around. But as we have seen, attempts at producing “good art” could never on their own keep the film industry alive. The new generation was not compact, and there are no recurrent themes. Each of its members has a strong personality and may want to share a cultural background, but each is firmly rooted in the present and understands cinema as entertainment. Steven Spielberg has replaced Federico Fellini or Jean-Luc Godard in the canon. One result of this new outlook was that Spanish films in the 1990s were again popular in box-office terms. The critical establishment would claim that they

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were connecting with the “wrong” kind of audiences, but this was to be expected. Critics tended to forget that, in commercial terms, any kind of audience is the “right” audience. Almost every year there were phenomenal successes like Airbag, Torrente, La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón (The Grand Adventure of Mortadelo and Filemon), and El otro lado de la cama (The Other Side of the Bed), which sometimes generated Hollywood-style sequels (as in the case with the latter two titles). For some, this was just a return to Ozores comedies with higher production values, and more noise. But there was more than that in the Young Spanish cinema of the mid-1990s. Manuel Gómez Pereira worked on comedies that were tasteful and stylish. Julio Medem made his own version of metaphorical cinema engaging with issues of aesthetics, technology, and national cultures. Amenábar worked on thrillers and fantasy, and so did Álex de la Iglesia. Television has also been central in the last 10 years as a training ground for excellent scriptwriters who found a lifeline with soaps and then went on to work on more ambitious film projects either as directors or writers. When the right-wing Partido Popular came to power in 1996, the new generation had began to consolidate, and they produced some of the most distinctive and exportable Spanish films ever. They are, undoubtedly, more international. Almodóvar opened foreign markets, and suddenly Spanish cinema was sexy and substantial: many of the titles mentioned here have had international releases either in cinemas or on DVD. In fact, the energy of this new deal with the audience has been reflected in box-office takings. Spanish cinema took in 46 million Euro in 1997, and there has been a generally upward trend up to 86 million in 2007, with peak years in 2001 (110 million Euro), 2003 (100 million Euro), and 2005 (106 million Euro) mostly due to blockbusters like Al otro lado de la cama (Los otros / The Others), the Torrente films, and La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón. The number of viewers is less spectacular, but it has risen from 13 million in 1997 to an average of almost 20 million in the five years between 2002 and 2007. In terms of the film industry, the number of films made is probably more important than the quality of the art. The average has not changed substantially: about 75 films a year between 1970 and 1980 became 70 (with a remarkable peak of 102 in 1982, the last year of the “S” classification) in the next decade when quality criteria wiped out the excess of low-budget soft porn, sex comedies, and horror. Spanish films were

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even less prolific in the next decade, dropping to an average of 44, but with a clear increase in quality. This seems to be bringing the desired results, as production in the years between 2001 and 2007, well supported by European-wide funding programs, averaged 88 films per year. Spanish filmmakers are now encouraged to work in an international context. Some of the most popular Spanish films of the last decades are shot in English (Los otros / The Others, The Machinist, or La vida secreta de las palabras / The Secret Life of Words) or with a strong international participation. The result is that, whichever way we look at it, Spanish film has never been in better health. Along with big tent-pole films of dubious substance (like the ongoing Torrente series, which has already had three installments), we find all kinds of genres that range from the popular fantasies of El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) to more traditional art film fare that verges on the experimental, as in Smoking Room, Ficció, or La soledad. Spanish filmmakers now can deal with serious issues like domestic violence (as in Benito Zambrano’s Solas or Icíar Bollaín’s hugely successful Te doy mis ojos / I Give You My Eyes), but at the same time they have to tell their stories in ways that can be appealing to international audiences. Whether that means that Spanish film is losing its specificity is a churlish complaint. We might as well propose that, for the first time, it is really expressing it for domestic and international audiences.

The Dictionary

– A – ABRE LOS OJOS / OPEN YOUR EYES (1997). In his follow-up to the award-winning Tesis (1995), Alejandro Amenábar, an admirer of Steven Spielberg, tackled science fiction, a very unusual genre in a national cinema tradition dominated by realism. Abre los ojos was a parable on the importance of appearances, and how physical beauty can devour a life. The aptly named César (Eduardo Noriega) has everything—except scruples. After he makes a move on his best friend’s girl Sofía (Penélope Cruz), his former lover (Najwa Nimri) attempts to kill him in a car crash. He survives, but his face is completely disfigured, and from that point, his existence becomes a nightmare in which those who used to pursue him now feel apprehensive even to share a room with him. At one point, doctors claim to have come up with a miraculous cure, but after a brief respite in which he seems to be regaining his former life, strange visions threaten his mental stability and self-control. When he is taken to jail after murdering Sofía, he realizes that more could be at stake than just his bad conscience playing tricks on his perceptions. Amenábar captured the interest of young audiences with several clever plot twists, a surprise ending (audiences are left to decide what happens after a fadeout in which a voice is heard asking César to wake up), and daring use of imagery and locations (three strategies that would be deployed again in Los otros / The Others). This film became one of the box-office hits of the year. The film had a Hollywood flavor, and audiences who would normally avoid Spanish films flocked to see it. A co-production with France (Les Films Alain Sarde) and Italy (Lucky Red), the film cost just over two million Euro, and made 1

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over six million in Spain alone. Unusually for a Spanish mainstream film, it was distributed worldwide, including in the U.S. There, it was snapped up by Tom Cruise’s company shortly after its release, for an American remake, Vanilla Sky (2001), which was scripted and directed by Cameron Crowe. Penélope Cruz reprised her role, Cruise played the protagonist, and other parts went to Kurt Russell, Cameron Diaz, Timothy Spall, and Tilda Swinton. ABRIL, VICTORIA (1959– ). Victoria Abril’s vocation as a performer was evident since childhood, and her early career resembled that of thousands of other star-struck girls. As a teenager, she trained to be a dancer and a singer, but it was cinema that beckoned: in 1974, she made her debut in Francisco Lara Polop’s Obsesión (Obsession). She has returned occasionally to her first vocation (claiming that acting is “too easy” when compared to other performing arts). Two years later, she could be glimpsed in an early cameo in Richard Fleisher’s Robin and Marian, an international production shot in Spain. In 1976, she became a stewardess in a hugely popular television contest (Un dos tres . . . Responda otra vez) every Friday night. During this period, a publicity stunt about getting married against her mother’s wishes made her into a household name. In 1977, she was chosen by Vicente Aranda for a starring part in Cambio de sexo (Sex Change), a film in which she played a shy boy, José María, who undergoes a sex change. It was a courageous choice, the first in a long series of collaborations with the director, which has lasted more than 20 years, and an early sign of her dedication to her acting career. Her continuing roles for Aranda in the 1980s defined her screen personality and revealed a versatile actress, committed to exploring the dark side of human existence, as evidenced by her willingness to take on highly charged sexual scenes, a key aspect of her collaboration with Aranda. She matured as an actress in titles like La muchacha de las bragas de oro (The Girl with Golden Knickers, 1980), La noche más hermosa (The Most Beautiful Night, 1984), Tiempo de silencio (Times of Silence, 1986), El lute (1987, which earned her a best actress award at the San Sebastian Film Festival) and, most importantly, Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell. . ., 1989). If, in the early titles, she could be taken for just one more “destape” actress (her predominant quality at the time was a certain

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innocence, and her artistic name translates as “April”) trying to extend her range, the last title was an astounding tour de force in which she played a prostitute used and brutally humiliated in Barcelona’s post Civil War underworld. In 1989, Pedro Almodóvar, who had recently ended his professional relationship with Carmen Maura, chose Abril as the protagonist for ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, 1990), in which she played a drug-addicted porn actress. This role opened the door to a glittering international career during the 1990s. The steely determination and sheer power that characterized her roles of that decade were also demonstrated in Amantes (Lovers, 1991), one of Aranda’s biggest hits, in which she played a sexually predatory woman who seduces innocent Jorge Sanz and destroys his and his fiancée’s lives in the process. Abril had been taking roles in France and Italy since the early 1980s (for instance, she was in Jean-Jacques Beineix underrated La lune dans le caniveau [The Moon in the Gutter], 1983), but it was only a decade later that she became a recurring presence in European film. She even attempted a Hollywood career (Jimmy Hollywood, 1994) but was reportedly unhappy with the conditions; her appearances in American films have been very rare. Her roles for Aranda continued, with Intruso (Intruder, 1994), a film that Aranda saw as a reworking of Amantes in a different social context, and Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, 1996), where she accepted a supporting role. She also played two more roles in Almodóvar films: the teary, vulnerable, wounded daughter of the diva in Tacones lejanos (High Heels, 1991) and the trashy TV presenter Andrea Caracortada in Kika (1993), one of the few of his characters Almodóvar openly despised. Another milestone in her career was her Gloria (yet another prostitute) in Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Talk about Us When We Die, Agustín Díaz Yanes, 1995), a raw, painful performance that earned her a well-deserved Goya award and, again, the San Sebastian Film Festival Silver Seashell. In the film, Abril plays the wife of a paralyzed bullfighter who struggles to escape poverty by any means possible, getting into trouble with international criminals and supported by her mother-in-law, Pilar Bardem. Abril’s international career continued strongly into the 1990s and 2000s, in titles as varied as Gauzon Maudit / French Twist (Josiane

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Balasko, 1995), playing a spunky housewife who discovers the joys of bisexuality, La femme du cosmonaute (The Astronaut’s Wife, Jacques Monnet, 1998), and 101 Reykyavik (Baltasar Kormákur, 2000). In those films, she became more a character actress, comfortable taking on substantial supporting roles. Other striking performances of the 2000s include Díaz Yanes’ Sin noticias de Dios (No News from God, 2000) where, cast against type, she plays a good angel against devious Penélope Cruz (and got the chance to show her skills as a cabaret diva); Incautos (Miguel Bardem, 2004), and a short but intense part as a revengeful country woman in Carlos Saura’s rural drama El séptimo día (The Seventh Day, 2004). In 2008, she collaborated again with Díaz Yanes, playing again the resilient Gloria Duque involved in a robbery with three other women in Sólo quiero caminar (I Only Want to Keep on Walking). She has won an impressive list of European prizes, including the Silver Bear for Amantes and the 2002 Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema award. ACADEMIA DE LAS ARTES Y LAS CIENCIAS CINEMATOGRÁFICAS DE ESPAÑA. The Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (Academy of Film Arts and Sciences) was founded in 1986 as an independent institution with the stated aims of promoting the film art and industry in Spain, developing networks among professionals, supporting advanced study of film, gathering statistical information, and engaging in dialogue with the Government. The idea came of an informal gathering organized by producer Emiliano Piedra at a well-known Madrid restaurant with representatives from the industry including Charo López, José Sacristán, José Nieto, Carlos Suárez, Carlos Saura, and Luis G. Berlanga. In the course of a meal, ideas were floated to give the Spanish film industry a sense of direction, and proposals built toward the creation of an independent institution that would attempt some balance between different voices and factions within organized professional bodies and unions. The result followed closely the Hollywood Academy of Film Arts and Sciences, and has been functioning since 1986. At present, the post of President of the Academy is held for three years, which can be renewed, and all members vote for the position among a series of candidates. Recent presidents include actors Mercedes Sampietro, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, and Marisa Paredes, and

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directors José Luis Borau and Gerardo Herrero. The Academia is made up of film professionals who affiliate voluntarily, and members are grouped by profession. At the time of writing, 14 areas were represented: producers, directors, actors, scriptwriters, art directors, cinematographers, editors, film composers, animation, sound, costume design, production directors, special effects, and make-up. Each profession has two representatives in the General Board. The Academia also has an honorary president. Since 1987, the post has been held by Luis G. Berlanga. The Academia is particularly active in the dissemination of reports and discussions on the film industry. Between 1991 and 2004, the Academia published the journal Academia (supplemented since 1997 with Cuadernos de la Academia, a series of monographs on specific topics) and supported film-related statistical reports. Its most visible task is the organization of the Annual Goya Awards Ceremony, for distinguished achievements in various areas of national and international cinema. The Academia also awards the Gold Medal for Merit in Film Art, which every year goes to a respected personality for the whole of their career in the film industry. Recipients include Ana Belén, Calos Saura, Fernando Rey, and Alfredo Matas. AGUIRRESAROBE, JAVIER (1948– ). Javier Aguirresarobe is one of the most inventive, skilled, and widely recognized Spanish cinematographers. In his work, he creates worlds of light that are often unusual, even striking, but also pertinent to the development of fictional spaces. His feature-length debut, came in 1979, after a period of training with Imanol Uribe’s El proceso de Burgos (The Burgos Trial), which was only the first in an ongoing series of collaborations with that director. He quickly established himself professionally as photographer for many of the most important Basque films of the 1980s, including La fuga de Segovia (Escape from Segovia, 1981), La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, 1984), La luna negra (Black Moon, 1989), all with Uribe; as well as Eloy de la Iglesia’s El Pico II (The Fix II, 1984) and Montxo Armendáriz’s 27 horas (27 Hours, 1986). In all of these instances, there is an obvious attempt at literal realism that is in synchrony with the films’ social content. His work for Pilar Miró’s Beltenebros (Prince of Shadows, 1991) signaled the start of Aguirresarobe’s mature period, as he moved

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away from realistic atmospheres into more creative, expressionistic approaches to light and atmosphere. The film’s narrative shifted between two periods, the 1940s and the 1960s, and conveyed an impression of Spain as a submerged world, flooded with reflected lighting, muted grays, and washed out-colors, invoking a noir mood. At this point, his style was becoming intensely distinctive (not always a positive aspect of cinematography), and he had become established, together with José Luis Alcaine, as the cinematographer of choice for filmmakers who wanted to devise original light patterns. He collaborated with Juanma Bajo Ulloa in providing an unbalanced sense of space for La madre muerta (The Dead Mother, 1993), again with Uribe for Días contados (Running out of Time, 1994) and Bwana (1996), and then, in a change of key, he conveyed the richness of earth colors in Julio Medem’s Tierra (Earth, 1996). His work in the 1990s also includes Secretos del corazón (Secrets of the Heart, Montxo Armendáriz, 1997), Tu nombre envenena mis sueños (Your Name Poisons My Dreams, Pilar Miró, 1996), and a warm recreation of film studio limelight for Fernando Trueba’s La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998). Increasingly through these titles, one can appreciate Aguirresarobe’s taste for working with muted light and experimenting with chiaro oscuro, together with a feeling for cold moods and unreal spaces. One of his masterpieces in this sense was Amenábar’s Los otros (The Others, 2001), a film in which light is a narrative theme and something of a protagonist. Other films in recent years include Pedro Almodóvar’s Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002), David Trueba’s Soldados de Salamina (Salamina Soldiers, 2003), Alejandro Amenábar’s Mar adentro (The Sea Inside, 2004), Armendáriz’s Obaba (2005), and a further Uribe collaboration, La carta Esférica (The Nautical Chart, 2007). His international career is also becoming more substantial after his participation in The Bridge of Saint Louis Rey (2004) and Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). ALATRISTE (2006). Alatriste was the biggest box-office hit of 2006 in Spain. A spectacular epic starring Viggo Mortensen in the title role, this historical yarn followed Spain’s decadence as an empire through the eyes of a melancholy 17th-century adventurer caught up in court intrigue, battles, and love affairs. It was directed by Agustín Díaz

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Yanes, who had started his career as a scriptwriter and had directed the character-centered thriller melodrama Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Talk about Us When We Die) in 1995. In spite of his limited experience with the genre, Díaz Yanes managed to deal with complex technical issues and introduced an exquisite visual sense, helped by the Velázquez-inspired cinematography by Paco Femenia, which contrasted pools of dust-filled lights with deep shadows. The extensive supporting cast was a veritable who’s-who of Spanish cinema, including Ariadna Gil, Elena Anaya, Javier Cámara, Juan Echanove, Eduard Fernández, Unax Ugalde, and Blanca Portillo: the well-known faces helped audiences to follow the intricate, sometimes obscure, plot. Alatriste was based on a series of five best-selling novels by Arturo Pérez Reverte, eventually condensed into a two-and-a-half-hour film. In many ways, as many reviewers pointed out, this was not a wise decision for those not acquainted with the originals. The attempt to include the highlights from the books to keep the fans happy made for a sense of fragmented narrative with characters turning up or disappearing unexpectedly, narrative threads being unresolved, and some plot twists not fully explained. But whatever the film lacked in terms of a smoothly flowing plot, it made up for in terms of extraordinary production values and images. With a budget of over 24 million Euro, Alatriste was the biggest production effort in Spanish cinema: with lavish battle scenes, sets, and costumes. As with Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) the following year and the earlier Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes, Alejandro Amenábar, 1997), a recurring theme in the press was the film’s Hollywood-like production values, and there were suggestions that technical maturity had finally been reached by the Spanish film industry. The film was treated as a cultural event by the media, receiving the kind of attention seldom devoted to a Spanish film: on one hand, it was promoted as a pertinent history lesson for young audiences (at a time when politicians were arguing about which version of the past should be taught at schools), but it was also hailed as the flagship of the Spanish film industry in a period of growth. Hard as it was to recoup the investment, by the end of the year, it had over 3 million admissions, and had earned over 16 million Euro. See also GOLDEN AGE; HISTORY.

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ALBALADEJO, MIGUEL (1966– ). Writer-director Miguel Albaladejo specializes in large canvasses with several finely characterized parts played by well-cast ensembles, and an effective mixture of comedy and melodrama. Warmth and generosity are important aspects of the overall effect of his films. Good laughs, sharp wit, and a very original outlook are achieved in collaboration with strong scriptwriters like Elvira Lindo, who co-wrote the director’s first four films. Albaladejo started his feature film career with a touching network comedy set on the first day of the new millennium, La primera noche de mi vida (The First Night of My Life, 1998), which included various story lines concerning a disparate group of characters involved in the birth of a baby. His next film, Manolito Gafotas (Manolito Four-Eyes, 1999), was based on Lindo’s popular series of novels and set in a workingclass suburb, a background that became a speciality of sorts for the director. Albaladejo’s skills at bringing out engaging performances from a young cast are prominent here, as well as a touch of popular Spanish costumbrismo and an approach to comedy that recalls Pedro Almodóvar in freshness and rhythms. Ataque Verbal (Verbal Attack, 1999) was little more than a witty collection of sketches featuring intelligent repartee (by Lindo), but El cielo abierto (Ten Days Without Love, 2001) remains his best film and one of the most polished romantic comedies in recent Spanish cinema. Mariola Fuentes is note-perfect as the working-class girl who starts a relationship with a troubled doctor (Sergi López) who has just been dumped by his wife. The film features a gallery of engaging supporting characters (including the doctor’s assistant, played by Albaladejo’s sister Geli and the young actors playing Fuentes’ siblings) and a wealth of vivid situations inspired by a positive working-class outlook. Rencor (Rancour, 2002), which Albaladejo wrote on his own, had good performances (in particular an intense lead by singer-actress Lolita) and a return to old themes, but the melodramatic plot did not succeed in moving audiences. Even worse, Albaladejo seemed to have lost his former generosity toward his characters. Failing to find the balance between tears and laughter flawed the otherwise intriguing Cachorro (Bear Cub, 2004), a film about a seven-year-old boy brought up by his uncle’s group of gay friends when his mother is imprisoned in India after attempting to smuggle drugs out of the

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country. The film’s best moments come early, when we are shown the kid’s curiosity for his uncle’s lifestyle. But when Albaladejo decides to pursue the story of the kid’s grandmother claiming her rights over the boy, it makes for uncomfortable viewing, as the director attempts not to follow the narrative to its logical conclusion and make it into a “gay” film; it is easy to understand his sympathy toward his characters, but hard to know where the story is leading. The film had a muted response and did poorly at the box office, although it has gained interest from gay audiences after its DVD release. In 2006, Volando voy (I’m Flying / My Quick Way Out) again had a working-class boy as a protagonist and provided more evidence of Albaladejo’s skills as an actors’ director. It tells the story of a young delinquent who is already running from the police at the age of 10. ALCAINE, JOSÉ LUIS (1938– ). José Luis Alcaine is one of the most versatile cinematographers in contemporary Spanish cinema, and in a career extending over four decades, he has pushed his range through close associations with filmmakers as varied as Vicente Aranda, Fernando Trueba, and Pedro Almodóvar, in each case adapting himself not just to particular visual styles, but also to the needs of plot, mood, and character. Alcaine was born in Tangiers, and he was an early lover of films. He ran the local film club as a young man and soon started working in film processing. He came to Spain in 1962, to study at the Official Film School (Escuela Oficial de Cine) while doing small jobs as a still photographer in some Nuevo Cine Español projects, such as Basilio Martín Patino’s landmark Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, 1966). He trained as a cinematographer with directors like Jaime Chávarri (Los viajes escolares [School Trips], 1974) and José Luis Borau (El puente [The Holiday], 1977), before establishing a close working relationship with Vicente Aranda. One of his most successful contributions of the 1980s was Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, 1984), directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. Like Alcaine, Aragón likes to create specific, distinctive atmospheres to convey emotions, and his lighting in this film perfectly reflects the repressed feelings of the immediate post Civil War period. Alcaine first received unanimous critical acclaim for his work in Víctor Erice’s El sur (South, 1983). His achievement for this film

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was indeed remarkable: he created evocative, contrasted lighting between the north that the characters inhabit and the south of their dreams. During that decade, he became Spain’s most favored cinematographer. He reinvented Almodóvar’s visual style, flooding a studio set with his brightest colors yet in the comedy Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988), and also challenging himself by going for the flat surfaces and floods of shadowless light in the style of American 1950s comedies, in sharp contrast with the three-dimensional atmospheres created for Aragón and Erice. In a similar vein, he contributed to the subtle mood of ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, 1990) by suggesting a touch of fantasy with his brightly lit interiors. His work for Vicente Aranda throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the distinctive color palettes for El lute (1987) and documentary-like images of Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, 1996) are also emblematic of his range. Other distinctive titles with Aranda include Intruso (Intruder, 1991), La pasión turca (Turkish Passion, 1994), and Celos (Jealousy, 1999). ¡Ay Carmela! (1990) and El pájaro de la felicidad (Bird of Happiness, 1993) are two exquisite examples of his work in the 1990s, for, respectively, Carlos Saura and Pilar Miró. The latter, mostly set in a house by the sea, features a particularly beautiful use of Mediterranean light. He worked for Almodóvar again in creating flawless and colorful images for La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004) and Volver (2006). Also in the 1990s, he established a creative partnership with Bigas Luna, working on the images for his “Iberian trilogy,” as well as Son de mar (Sound of the Sea, 2001), which featured an approach to Mediterranean light radically different from the one deployed for Miró. Next in his series of close collaborations with key Spanish auteur-directors was Fernando Trueba. Alcaine won praise and a Goya award for his nostalgic, sun-drenched images in Belle Epoque (1992) and also Two Much (1995). He did some work in Hollywood projects (Blast from the Past, Hugh Wilson, 1999), but it was in Spanish cinema that his work continued to be particularly original and creative. Other films of the last decade include La vida de nadie (Nobody’s Life, 2002); Roma (Adolfo Aristarain, 2004); La vida perra de Juanita Narboni (Juanita Narboni’s Wretched Life, Farida Belyazid, 2005), in which he photographed his native Tangiers, gorgeously

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bringing out all her moods and colors; and 13 rosas (13 Roses, 2007), as well as Tirante el blanco (2006), another Aranda collaboration. ALDEA MALDITA, LA / THE CURSED VILLAGE (1930). Florián Rey’s first version of La aldea maldita is among the earliest undisputable classics of Spanish cinema. The project of a serious rural drama was ambitious for the time and so different from the usual genres that Rey found it impossible to get it funded by the existing producing companies. With the help of future director Juan de Orduña and leading man Pedro Larrañaga, he contributed the budget and set out to shoot on location in Ayllón, Pedraza, Sepúlveda, and Segovia. The film tells the story of Juan Castilla (Larrañaga), a laborer in a small village in Castille that is considered “cursed” because the crops are systematically destroyed by weather conditions year after year. Driven to madness to see a wealthy man thrive when he, his son, and his wife Acacia (Carmen Viance), who live with his blind father are starving, he attempts to murder him. He is taken to jail, and Acacia is forced to seek a living in the city, where she becomes a fallen woman. A few years later, Juan is released from prison and finds her in a café. He takes her back for the sake of his old father, but when the latter dies, she is forced to wander around the frozen moors, crying for her son. At the end comes forgiveness and reconciliation. In spite of the rural setting and the melodramatic plot, Rey worked to avoid costumbrismo and any sense of trivial entertainment, and concentrated instead on effective editing and camera movements to tell the story. Critics remarked on its similarities to UFA films in terms of framing and lighting, and it was agreed that the social content of the story was close to certain Soviet films of the period. Rey also used ideas on woman’s virtue that came directly from Spanish traditions, as featured in Golden Age drama. In spite of the limited budget, La aldea maldita remains one of the most carefully photographed films of the pre–Civil War period in Spain. Shot in early 1930, its completion coincided with the introduction of sound films in Spain. Rey decided to add dialogues and sound, but synchronization and some extra shooting had to be carried out in Paris studios. Although the sound version was the only one released,

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it has been lost for decades and the silent version, as shot, is the only one available today. In 1942, Rey shot another sound version with different actors and more in tune with the new state ideologies: the social aspect of the film was almost gone and the melodrama tuned down. The 1942 version is unanimously regarded as far less interesting than the first one. ALMENDROS, NÉSTOR (1930–1992). Néstor Almendros was born in Barcelona, but migrated to Cuba in 1948 to meet his exiled father. He studied film in New York and Rome, and came back to the Caribbean island in 1959, shortly after Fidel Castro entered Havana. He then became an early supporter of the Cuban revolution, and in 1960, shot several documentaries, including Gente en la playa, that ran into trouble with the Castro regime. Soon his enthusiasm for the Revolution waned, the situation became increasingly difficult for him, and Almendros returned briefly to Barcelona before settling down in Paris in 1964. In the Catalan capital, he became friends with Spanish intellectuals of the period like Jaime Gil de Biedma and Terenci Moix, but also had difficulties as a political dissenter at a time when international left-wing artists in Europe had expressed support for Castro’s policies. Almendros was called by Eric Rohmer, and became the latter’s favorite cinematographer in the late 1960s: his training in documentaries was important in creating the apparently artless images required by the director. With Rohmer, he did La collectionneuse (The Collector, 1967), Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night with Maud, 1969), and Le genou de Claire (Claire’s Knee, 1970) among others. At the same time, he started a creative collaboration with François Truffaut in a series of films including L’enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970) and Les deux anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls and the Continent, 1971). By the mid-1970s, he had built an international reputation, but in spite of his personal impact on Escuela de Barcelona filmmakers, he did not return to mainstream Spanish cinema. Still, he assisted Vicente Aranda with the cinematography of Cambio de Sexo (1977). For the rest of the decade, he alternated between France (in particular, he continued to work with Rohmer and Truffaut) and Hollywood.

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Almendros’ most influential work was for Hollywood maverick Terrence Malick: he experimented with atmospheric lighting and pastoral style in Days of Heaven (1978), shooting with very little natural light at dawn and dusk, and received an Oscar for his effort in conveying serene, open spaces that were more than just background for the Depression-era drama. Other famous films of the period were The Blue Lagoon (Randal Kleiser, 1980) and Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979); the latter the beginning of a substantial collaboration with Robert Benton that extended over three more films. In a more political vein, he worked with Orlando Jiménez Leal on Conducta Impropia (Improper Conduct, 1984), a film in which different testimonies described the injustices and cruelties of the Castro regime. He died of complications from AIDS. ALMODÓVAR, PEDRO (1949– ). If there is a continuous line in Almodóvar’s long career as a filmmaker, it is the need to express an indomitably independent outlook and a refusal to compromise on his vision. This impulse has paid off in a series of very idiosyncratic stories and an engaging gallery of off-beat characters, but it has been a long and difficult road—along with huge international popularity, he is often openly dismissed in his native land. Spanish critics (barely) respect Almodóvar’s success, but cannot forgive him for his individualistic films, so removed from the realist orthodoxies prevalent in Spanish film. Almodóvar was born in Calzada de Calatrava, a small town in La Mancha. Early reports, carefully disseminated, portray teenager Pedro as a born storyteller who listened to older women’s gossip and tales and wrote letters for them. He studied in a religious school. He was never nostalgic about this period (traces of those years resurfaced in his 2004 film La mala educación / Bad Education). During his early years, he developed both a fascination and dissatisfaction for rural Spain that frequently recurs in his work. That the apparent contradiction is not presented as paradoxical within the narratives is probably key to understanding the relationship between the director and his culture: Almodóvar loves village life as a spectator, but cannot stand being immersed in its rituals. Almodóvar left for Madrid in 1969 and was thoroughly impressed and inspired by the big city and its people. In the early 1970s, he

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discovered David Bowie, glam rock, and the American artistic underground: stylistically, his early work partakes of Warhol as well as John Waters and the Kuchar brothers. As the period of political change known as The Transition approached, he discovered the fun and variety of night-life, as wells as its off-beat denizens. He found a steady job with the Spanish National Telephone Company (Telefónica), but never cared much about his career there, preferring to shoot short narrative fictions with his Super-8 camera. These were mostly parodies of biblical movies (he calls this his “Cecil B. De Mille phase”), and experimental films that he showed in various underground Madrid night spots, aiming to impress potential investors; to these he added live narration, dialogue, and sound effects. The storyteller and performer are both at the heart of his development as a film director: during the mid-1970s he tried writing, acting, and a career as a singer before settling into directing. After several years of experimentation, Almodóvar embarked on his first feature, Pepi, Luci Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, 1980). This was a fragmentary ensemble narrative, brimming with colorful characters (inspired by the stories he heard from acquaintances) often played by friends, in which one can already see some of the main themes of his work: a focus on the lives and rituals of women, a strong sense of style, a personal mythology of pop cultural references and certain Hollywood genres (melodrama, musical, screwball comedy), a certain taste in dress and decoration rooted in punk, and a cheeky sense of humor. The film became an event with younger “modern” audiences and was praised by a small contingent of critics who enthused about its “freshness” and spontaneity. His second film, Laberinto de pasiones / Labyrinth of Passions (1982), was even more “Almodovarian.” He repeated the formula (a network narrative, a gallery of odd types immersed in excessively convoluted plots, sexual omnivorousness, Madrid as a playground, tongue-in-cheek treatment of sex), but the result was more compact. He still managed on a shoestring budget, asking loans from friends but bravely resisting the siren call of the industry to pursue intensely personal narratives. By this time, his projects were becoming more ambitious, his plots more articulate, and he was working with more accomplished collaborators.

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In this sense, the evolution of his cinematic style over the next six years is remarkable. Each of the ensuing films (Entre tinieblas / Dark Habits, 1983; ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! / What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984; Matador, 1986; La ley del deseo / Law of Desire, 1987) was more accomplished than the preceding. On the other hand, dependence on external producers became a necessity, and he was began to believe that his creative instincts were compromised to get funding. After financial problems with Matador, he set up with his brother Agustín his own production company, El Deseo S.A. (which translates as “Desire,” a key thematic element of his films of that period). Given the distinctiveness of his humor, it is interesting to remark that Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), the first film produced fully under the new company, is his only outright comedy in years (and the last to date). Carmen Maura, who had appeared in most of his features until then (giving a particularly strong performance in ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!), was again the protagonist, although at this point their professional relationship soured. The film was a spectacular success in Spain, cementing his international reputation and winning many awards and even a foreign-language Academy Award nomination. Almodóvar’s films of the 1990s experimented with mixing genres, exploring the conventions of the thriller (Kika 1993; Carne trémula / Live Flesh, 1997), the melodrama (La flor de mi secreto / Flower of my Secret, 1995), or both (Tacones lejanos / High Heels). They all boast a wealth of distinctive performances by actresses like Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes, or Verónica Forqué. This was a decade of widespread international recognition, but backlash in Spain: his films, it was said, were becoming repetitive, losing the by-now cliché “freshness.” To many film critics, Almodóvar was taking himself more seriously than he deserved; to others, frivolity was always too apparent. He reached a critical low point with Kika, and neither La flor de mi secreto nor Carne trémula were particularly well received in Spain. Still, in 1999, Almodóvar shot what many, even in his home country, still consider to be his most fully realized film: Todo sobre

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mi madre / All About My Mother. The originality or emotionalism of previous films may be better appreciated, but with this film he approached a rare perfection in the balancing of comedy and melodrama, emotion and aesthetics, originality and convention, without losing his by-now recognizable voice. With the new millennium, his films became darker, focusing on men and masculinity, rather than the central female figures in many of his previous films. He has said that the darkness in Hable con ella / Talk to Her (2002) and in La mala educación has to do with changes in his lifestyle and his outlook, and age, insisting that the well of inspiration might dry at some point. Exploring the masculine soul does not come easy for Almodóvar: Shooting La mala educación was reportedly a bitter experience, and Almodóvar has on many occasions expressed his dissatisfaction in the process, although it is one of his best films. After this experience, he returned to familiar ground with Volver (2006), a film focusing on women and family that balanced drama and comedy. Into his sixth decade and his fourth as a filmmaker, Almodóvar’s reputation is still going strong and his fan base continues to grow. Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces), his last film to date, was released in 2009. A beautiful drama in the noir tradition, co-starring Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, and Penélope Cruz, in which human emotions are contained but background settings and landscape are eloquent. The story is set in different periods, and features a blind film director shattered by the death of the woman he loved. Responses in Spain were generally good, but the main film critic at El País, Carlos Boyero, wrote a hostile review illustrating that Almodóvar is still judged more for what he is and how he behaves than for his cinema. It is, however, clear that Almodóvar’s exceptional body of work will outlive his less-talented critics. See also HOMOSEXUALITY. ALTERIO, HÉCTOR (1929– ). Born in Buenos Aires, Alterio has had a long and substantial career both in Spain and in his home country. He started as a stage actor, and debuted in small film parts in the late 1950s, but his career only consolidated in the late 1960s with a starring role in Don Segundo Sombra (Manuel Antin, 1969), followed by work for great Argentine auteurs like Leopoldo Torre Nilsson (La mafia, 1974) and Héctor Olivera (La Patagonia rebelde / Rebel Patagonia, 1974).

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Alterio migrated to Spain in 1975, to escape from Jorge Rafael Videla’s dictatorship and threats from the terrorist group Triple A. He did not work again in Argentinean cinema until the 1980s. In Spain, he worked hard, sometimes appearing in five or six films a year. He became a regular in the films of Spanish auteurs, often playing menacing patriarchs. His most significant roles of the mid-1970s were for Carlos Saura in Cría cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1976), where he portrayed the protagonist’s military father as a ghostly presence; for Ricardo Franco in Pascual Duarte (1976); and, especially, his starring role in Jaime Chávarri’s A un dios desconocido (To an Unknown God, 1977). Here he gave a subtle, complex performance as a homosexual magician who tries to come to terms with his past, and he won a best actor award at the San Sebastian Film Festival for it. Another defining role was as the middle-aged teacher who falls in love with a teenage girl in Jaime de Armiñán’s 1980 El nido (The Nest), a performance many critics rate his best. Other important parts in Spanish film include: ¡Arriba Hazaña! (Hail Hazaña! José María Gutiérrez Santos, 1978), Don Juan en los infiernos (Don Juan in Hell, Gonzalo Suárez, 1991), El detective y la muerte (Gonzalo Suárez, The Detective and Death, 1994), Plata quemada (Burnt Money, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2000), Sagitario (Sagitarius, Vicente Molina Foix, 2001), and Noviembre (November, Achero Mañas, 2003). Back in Argentina after the end of the dictatorship, he played, among many other roles, the corrupt protagonist of the controversial and awardwinning La historia oficial (Luis Puenzo, 1985) and, more recently, an engaging role in the box-office hit El hijo de la novia (Son of the Bride, Juan José Campanella, 2001) and a sour grandfather in Marcelo Piñeyro’s Kamchatka (2002). He is actor Ernesto Alterio’s father. AMENÁBAR, ALEJANDRO (1972– ). Director Alejandro Amenábar is one of the great mavericks of Spanish cinema. With only a handful of films to his name, he has established himself as an ambitious, original, audience-friendly genius-auteur who can explore an increasingly wider range of genres and still triumph at the box office. Comparisons with Orson Welles are probably excessive, but the name of the director of A Touch of Evil (1958) has been mentioned in numerous columns and reports in connection with Amenábar: Like Welles,

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he writes and directs his features, composes the music, and has a strong input in editing, but (unlike Welles), he also has a tight grip on every aspect of production and disciplines his talent to be able to complete complex, even risky projects that perform financially well in the marketplace. Amenábar was born in Chile, but moved to Madrid with his family in 1973. He fell in love with the movies when he saw ET (1982) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) for the first time. This is typical of other directors of his generation: the canon had shifted in those years, and now Steven Spielberg’s place in the pantheon of great directors is more secure than that of John Ford, Howard Hawks, or Roberto Rossellini; like Álex de la Iglesia, Amenábar is unconcerned with the past and the Civil War, uninterested in costumbrismo as an aesthetic, and fascinated by horror, fantasy, and popular culture (genres that Spanish critics are notoriously reluctant to value), and again this marks him out as a representative of the new wave of Spanish directors of the 1990s. As a teenager, Amenábar started shooting film with a home video camera. He studied communications and journalism at the Universidad Complutense. Growing impatient with uninspiring teachers and the lack of practical work carried out in his degree he never completed his studies. After an attention-grabbing short, Himenóptero (1992), a horror film about students locked in a high school, he wrote a script that was considered good enough for director José Luis Cuerda to offer funds and assistance in production. Tesis (Dissertation), which was presented in February 1996 at the Berlin Film Festival, was a striking first film about a communications student involved in the world of snuff movies. It starred Ana Torrent and two actors who would go on to have strong careers: Eduardo Noriega and Fele Martínez. It was co-written with Mateo Gil, Amenábar’s collaborator and personal adviser for most of his work. Although not a box-office hit in its initial release, it went on to win six Goyas, including best film and best new director, which made possible a second and more successful run in cinemas. In 1997, he directed Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), which became a certified hit and impressed Tom Cruise, who would produce and star in the Hollywood version Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001). Some of the themes of his previous film are here, in particular

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the dynamics of the relationship between handsome Noriega and geeky Martínez. Penélope Cruz, whose international career would be launched with the 2001 Hollywood version (Vanilla Sky), also starred. This was a high-budget science fiction film that acknowledged Amenábar’s cinephilia and his sources of inspiration (particularly Hitchcock and Spielberg). Cruise also contributed funding to Los otros / The Others (2001), an international production starring Nicole Kidman. It quickly became the highest grossing film of the year and soon became one of the most successful in Spanish film history to date. This was a fantasy story, with strong inspiration from Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, but also from The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999), about a mother living in an isolated mansion trying to protect her children from ghosts. The theme of life as illusion, already present in Abre los ojos, was also prominent. Amazingly, Amenábar’s mastery only seemed to improve in his next project, also co-scripted by Mateo Gil. Mar adentro / The Sea Inside (2004). With an impressive, luminous central performance by Javier Bardem, it told the story of a quadriplegic who spent most of his life bed-ridden. Although an unpromising project, Amenábar extracted extraordinary performances not just from Bardem, but also from an engaging supporting cast, including Lola Dueñas, Jose Maria Pou, Belén Rueda, and Tamar Novas, and found a way to articulate a strong narrative around the relationships among a large group of characters and the protagonist. In the Goyas that year, it beat Almodóvar’s La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004) in most categories (winning 14 awards out of 15 nominations), and pundits suggested that the crown of Spanish cinema had passed. It also won the Academy Award for best foreign film, and best film at the European Film Awards, along with numerous other prizes at international festivals, including Bangkok, Nantes, Sofia, and the Grand Special Jury Prize for Amenábar at the 2004 Venice Film Festival. Ágora (2009), his last film to date, is an expensive historical epic set in Alexandria and starring an international cast led by Rachel Weisz as scientist Hypatia, which had an excellent critical reception and quickly became a box-office hit. As well as a well-crafted spectacle, the film is intended as an indictment on religious fundamentalism. In the context of A.D. 391 Egypt, it was the Christians who constituted a threat to the status quo of a more relaxed set of beliefs.

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This political controversial aspect of the film earned the writerdirector the enmity of right-wing Catholics, who had already criticized him for his views on euthanasia in The Sea Inside. AMIC / AMAT (1999). In terms of performances, intensity, and mood, Amic / Amat (Friend / Beloved) constitutes the best expression of Ventura Pons’ talent. Based on a play by Catalan playwright Josep Maria Benet i Jornet that took up from classical poetry the theme of passing on experiences to recontextualize them in modern times, the film takes place in one day. It is structured as a series of dialogues, each featuring two characters from a cast of five: an old homosexual professor who sees death approaching (an extraordinary Josep Maria Pou), the man he loved in his youth (Mario Gas), the latter’s wife (Rosa Maria Sardá), their pregnant daughter (Irene Montalá), and her lover, a student who earns a living as a rent boy (David Selvas). The professor becomes infatuated with the rent boy and decides to pass on his best work to him as a kind of inheritance, but the boy refuses. Against a knowledgeable use of visually striking Barcelona locations, the characters discuss generational changes and make important decisions. The city remains a silent witness, a character more than just a backdrop. The film was an excellent example of independent production in the 1990s, made by Pons’ own production company, Els Films de la Rambla, which has continued to produce one film a year since the mid 1990s, aiming for the festival and arthouse markets. With an estimated tight budget of under 1 million Euro, it has made around 2 million since its release. ARANDA, VICENTE (1926– ). Vicente Aranda was born in Barcelona, but started his professional life as an immigrant in Venezuela, in the world of business. He returned to Spain in 1959, and took on different office jobs before settling on cinema, which was, as he claimed, his real vocation. His earliest films show the influence of the Catalan artistic avant-garde of the 1960s that would later manifest itself cinematically as Escuela de Barcelona. His earliest films were Fata Morgana (Left-Hand Fate), a film that prefigured elements from the Escuela avant-garde and Brillante porvenir (Promising Future; co-scripted with critic and historian Román Gubern), both made

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in 1965, as well as Las crueles (Cruel Women, 1969). These films evidenced a playful awareness of popular literature and had a strong literary input. Fata Morgana, co-written with Gonzalo Suárez, is a science fiction-cum-thriller art film about innocence, murder, and the end of the world, and is regarded as one of the most important films of the decade in Spain. With the demise of the Escuela de Barcelona in the late 1960s, Aranda was forced to move on to less artistically ambitious films. For a decade, he worked on the margins of the film industry, even trying his hand at cheap horror and thrillers. La novia ensangrentada (The Blood-spattered Bride, 1972) was an offbeat vampire film based on Sheridan LeFanu’s story “Carmila.” It was his first real literary adaptation, and literature would remain a recurring source of inspiration throughout his career: over the years, he tackled some of the best novels of contemporary Spanish literature, for instance Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell, 1989) and Tiempo de silencio (Time of Silence, 1986), as well as thrillers by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and other noir writers (Asesinato en el comité central / Murder at the Central Committee, 1982), and other properties with literary sources such as Juana la Loca (2001), Carmen (2003), and Tirante el Blanco (2006). As the Transition brought a new permissiveness, he moved into more issue-centered (and often sex-themed) films. At this stage, he began to concentrate on a transparently realistic style rather than the stylish aesthetics most prominent in Fata morgana. One of his earliest successes was Cambio de sexo (Sex Change, 1977), his first collaboration with Victoria Abril, who would go on to become his favorite actress and was featured in 11 of his films. Sexuality and the past were two key themes in the remainder of his career, and they recur centrally throughout his films of the 1980s, including La muchacha de las bragas de oro (The Girl with the Golden Knickers, 1980), El amante bilingüe (Bilingual Lover, 1993), and Si te dicen que caí, all of them based on novels by Juan Marsé, as well as in Tiempo de silencio, which takes inspiration from Luis Martín Santos, one of the greatest Spanish novelists of the 20th century. Where this novel used modernist stream of consciousness to convey a story of poverty and survival during the postwar era, Aranda decided to present the grim locations (a brothel, a dump, a prison) in exacting detail. In that decade, he also directed some of the best instances

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of Barcelona noir, such as Asesinato en el Comité Central, Fanny Pelopaja (1984), and a two-part biopic on an ex-terrorist, El Lute / El Lute II (1987, 1988). Amantes (Lovers), in 1991, came as something of a revelation to critics and audiences. Based on a real murder case that took place during the postwar era, it featured a love triangle with shifting allegiances and complex power relations, and a restrained style that contrasted with the emotional excesses portrayed. During the 1990s, Aranda alternated between taut thriller-melodramas such as Intruso (Intruder, 1993) and Celos (Jealousy, 1999), and historical frescoes. Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, 1996), one of his most cherished projects, was a wide-ranging narrative on the shared experience of a group of radical left-wing women during the Civil War. In the 2000s, he has insisted on a historical perspective, making Juana la Loca, Carmen, and Tirante el Blanco consecutively. Desire and betrayal, themes that have obsessed him since the 1970s, are still present in his most recent films. ARGENTINA, IMPERIO (1910–2003). Imperio Argentina was the greatest star of the first decade of Spanish folkloric musical films. Born Magdalena Nile del Río in Buenos Aires, despite her origins, she would go on to become a very specifically Spanish icon, playing cultural types such as Carmen and Morena Clara. She started in show business as a song stylist, specializing on tangos, and soon added Andalusian copla to her repertoire. She was introduced to film by Florián Rey, who would later become her husband. Her first film was La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpicio, 1927), and with the arrival of sound, Rey put her at the center of a series of copla musicals, including Nobleza baturra (Aragonese Aristocracy, 1935), a second (sound) version of La hermana San Sulpicio (1934), and Morena Clara (1936). In the latter, she plays the lively gypsy who would become her signature role. This series was the most successful of its time. In 1933, at the peak of her fame, Argentina took part in a musical with Carlos Gardel, Melodía de arrabal (Melody from the Old Quarter), shot in France. During the Civil War, the star and her mentor traveled to Germany, where she starred in four co-productions at UFA studios (Fernando Trueba’s La niña de tus ojos [The Girl of

ARIAS, IMANOL

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Your Dreams] took inspiration from the shooting of Andalusische Nächte in 1938). After her return to Spain, Argentina integrated with relative success into the Francoist film industry, and although she became something of a personality, times had changed and she never regained her former popularity as an actress: these were tough years and audiences were not in the mood for light-hearted Andalusian musicals. Still, she enjoyed a healthy career as an international singing star and recording artist, albeit tainted by her association with the Nazis (in 1949, her concert at Carnegie Hall was boycotted as Argentina was rumored to have been Hitler’s lover). During the 1960s and the Transition, she was relatively forgotten, until José Luis Borau revived her career in Tata Mía (My Granny, 1986). After that, she appeared sporadically in small roles that contained echoes of her iconic image as musical star. ARIAS, IMANOL (1956– ). Although born in León, Arias lived in the Basque country until 1976, when he settled in Madrid. Arias studied electronic engineering, but left to work in the independent Basque theater before moving to Madrid. In his earliest film roles, his presence was oddly unremarkable, and it was hard to guess that this lean, swarthy man was a star in the making: he appeared in Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, 1982) and featured in a small role in the star-studded La colmena (Mario Camus, 1982). In 1982, he also worked with Pedro Almodóvar in Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passions), his most substantial part in those years, and he became very popular in 1983 with Anillos de oro (Golden Rings), a television series in which he played a divorce lawyer: The part was his real breakthrough. In the mid-1980s, Imanol Arias was considered the epitome of the postFranco period’s “new man” and was featured in numerous interviews and on magazine covers. With a career untainted by the dictatorship, he boasted strong working-class and left-wing credentials, and showed political commitment in his career choices. Although his dark looks contributed to his sex-symbol status, earnestness as an actor became his dominating characteristic. Whereas Alfredo Landa or Fernando Esteso had been representatives of masculinity under Franco, in Arias audiences had a more European version of male allure: cool, self-controlled, verging on inexpressiveness.

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Arias played an odd, confused homosexual in La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, 1984), as if to prove his commitment to difficult roles. It is with his work with Vicente Aranda that he reaches maturity as an actor, particularly as the ex-terrorist in El lute and the medical doctor involved in a gritty plot in Tiempo de silencio (Times of Silence), an adaptation of one of the greatest novels written under Franco. From the late 1980s, he became a strong presence in Spanish film, earning four Goya nominations, but television gave him his greatest popularity: his work for Cuéntame (Tell Me. . . ), from 2001 onward, has earned him more recognition than anything in his previous career. On screen, he was excellent in a brief scene as the unemotive distant husband of Marisa Paredes in Almodóvar’s La flor de mi secreto (Flower of My Secret, 1995), another example of his adeptness at brooding masculinity. ARMENDÁRIZ, MONTXO (1949– ). Montxo Armedáriz’s career as a film director was launched thanks to producer Elías Querejeta’s support and the new funding schemes introduced by the Basque autonomous government in the 1980s. This was very appropriate, since his early shorts had had a distinctively Basque flavor, with a deep concern for the landscapes and cultural aspects of his land. The last of them, Carboneros de Navarra (Coal Traders of Navarra, 1981), was the origin of his breakthrough film Tasio (1984), a story covering three generations of a rural family. Tasio, the protagonist, is intended as a Basque everyman, a rebellious poacher who lives immersed in the mountains and lush forests that characterize the region’s landscapes. He becomes involved in the historical processes taking place in Spain, mostly as a victim, but always preserving his dignity and cultural identity. The film also showcased key aspects of films funded by autonomous regions: it was originally spoken in the Basque language (euskera), and a substantial proportion of the team were born in the region (following guidelines set up by the regional government to guarantee funding); it dealt with historical and cultural events; and it contributed to reinforce a traditional Basque identity. Unlike other regional projects elsewhere, Tasio became a success in the rest of Spain, too. For his next project, the thriller 27 horas (27 Hours, 1986), Armendáriz continued articulating a sense of cultural identity,

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although this time he moved to the city and dealt with more contemporary issues: drugs, youth, and unemployment. In 1990, his perspective changed completely. With Las cartas de Alou (Alou’s Letters, 1990), he adopted a semi-documentary approach to tell the story of a very different everyman figure: a black illegal immigrant seeking a livelihood in Spain and overcoming obstacles that were central to the experience of other foreigners in similar situations. The film was bold, unadorned, and identified with Alou’s uncompromising perspective by introducing in a voice-over the letters the immigrant man wrote home, in which he explained, sometimes baffled, sometimes insightful, his experience of his adopted country. Armendáriz took his time before directing another project, Historias del Kronen (Stories from the Kronen, 1995), based on a literary source about disaffected, wealthy youth in Madrid, which touched again on drugs and social problems. The film was a great boxoffice success and allowed him to move on to a more serene, intimate story, Secretos del corazón (Secrets of the Heart, 1997), set in the aftermath of the Civil War. It told the story of a village, with its secrets and denials, as seen by a child. The follow-up was Obaba (2005), a return to familiar terrain, both in its reflection on Basque identity and the portrayal of rural life. It was almost inevitable that Armendáriz, with his interest in the lives of ordinary people and his identification with Basque historical traditions, produce this version of one of the masterworks of Basque literature by Bernardo Atxaga. In Obaba, Armendáriz weaves a rural tapestry of lives in a “mythical Spanish land,” introducing elements of magical realism in a number of vaguely interrelated stories. ARMIÑÁN, JAIME DE (1927– ). Jaime de Armiñán was already an established playwright and film and TV writer when he directed his first film, the trite comedy Carola de día, Carola de noche (Carola by Day, Carola by Night, 1969) starring ex–child star Marisol. But Mi querida señorita (My Dearest Miss, 1971), a strange story about a man who is brought up as a woman and only finds out the truth late in life was a revelation and showed his skill with actors and a sensitivity for dealing with controversial topics. It was produced by José Luis Borau, and brought his first Oscar nomination. Two more films

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in a similar vein followed. El amor del capitán Brando (Captain Brando’s Love, 1974), a huge box-office hit at the end of the Franco dictatorship, was a cross-generational love story about a 12-year-boy who falls in love with his teacher, played by Ana Belén. A reverse version of the same topic of infatuation between a grown-up and a teenager was featured in El nido (The Nest, 1980), about an old professor played by Héctor Alterio falling in love with Ana Torrent’s young girl. The intense lyricism and lack of prejudice Armiñán projected into the story made this his best film, and earned him another nomination for an Academy Award as best foreign film. The rest of Armiñán’s career includes a few remarkable titles like En septiembre (In September, 1982), which follows a group of friends on a camping weekend; Mi general (My General, 1987), a satiric view of the Spanish Army’s efforts to come to grips with NATO; a sensitive adaptation of Eduardo Mendicutti’s coming-of-age novel El palomo cojo (The Lame Pigeon, 1995), starring Carmen Maura, and the elegant Al otro lado del túnel (The Other Side of the Tunnel, 1994). ARREBATO / RAPTURE (1980). No Spanish film as marginal as Arrebato has ever had a comparable impact. Director Iván Zulueta wrote the script from an early version by Augusto M. Torres and Antonio Gasset, which was so completely reworked that both writers have given up any claim at authorship. The initial idea was to produce a short feature along the lines of Zulueta’s previous Leo Is Pardo (Leo Is Brown), which had premiered successfully at the Berlin Film Festival. But as he worked on the new piece, the director became more and more involved, including elements that came from his personal experience. Shot on a shoestring budget with reduced personnel and in only four locations, the film was completed in 1980 and opened to critical indifference or hostility. In a few weeks, it was withdrawn from cinemas. The filmmakers’s hopes to enter it for either Cannes or Berlin had also been dashed when the programmers in both festivals expressed doubts about the film’s alleged pro-heroin stance, and everybody connected with Arrebato resigned themselves to the disappearance of the film from exhibition circuits. It quickly achieved a reputation through word of mouth as a notorious film maudit and, by 1981, it had already reached legendary status. Assorted audiences

¡AY CARMELA!

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were captivated by this unusual mix of horror, vampirism, cinephilia, homoeroticism, and, particularly, heroin-fueled hallucination, which were felt to be relevant to that particular period of Spanish history, particularly with the Madrid movida crowd. The central story is about cynical José Sirgado (Eusebio Poncela) who has just finished shooting a horror film. As he returns home after a long absence, he finds two surprises. The first is decidedly unwelcome: his ex-girlfriend Ana (Cecilia Roth), a heroin addict like him, is back in the flat. The second is an intriguing tape and some rolls of film sent by an old acquaintance: Pedro (Will More), an infantile man obsessed with shooting film, who tells him in the tape of an extraordinary recent experience. A large section of the plot consists of flashbacks: how the two men met, were fascinated by each other and, maybe, had an affair that displaced Ana from José’s affections. The tape tells José how, after their last meeting, Pedro moved to Madrid and was sucked into a life of sex and drugs that left him dissatisfied, only to return more obsessively than ever to his film habit. Experimenting with captured images, Pedro begins to suspect that his Super-8 camera has a life of its own and that it behaves as a vampire, taking something from him but also sending him into a state of ecstasy. As the tape ends, Pedro is about to have a final experience and asks José to visit him and collect the tape. In the film’s finale, José goes to the flat and engages in the same relationship with the camera, which ends up devouring him. ¡AY CARMELA! (1990). José Sanchis Sinisterra’s 1987 play ¡Ay Carmela! was one of the biggest hits of Spanish theater in the decade. The play was a two-hander starring Verónica Forqué (as Carmela) and José Luis Gómez (as her lover Paulino) as two vaudeville performers caught up in and defeated by the politics of the Spanish Civil War. In Carmela’s brutal death when she dares to speak out in favor of a group of foreign POWs who had been brought in to see the show, the play reflected the ethos of Francisco Franco’s Spain as a repressive society in which artists were not allowed to express themselves. It was almost inevitable that the play made it to the screen. Rafael Azcona and Carlos Saura’s clever script started from the beginning, telling the story in a linear way (the play started at the end and featured Carmela coming back from the dead), using a number of

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locations to open up the narrative (the original was wholly set in the theater) and including other characters, particularly a deaf and dumb assistant to the performers, Gustavete (Gabino Diego), and a vain Italian lieutenant (Maurizio De Razza). Carmen Maura gave one of her best performances as Carmela, and Andrés Pajares, a well-known comedian, worked hard to build a reputation as a serious actor. For Saura, it was also a change of register: although the memory of the Civil War had been prominent in his filmography (most palpably in La prima Angélica [Cousin Angelica, 1974]), this was his first period film; and, after a series of melodramas, metaphorical films, and musicals, it was also the first time he tackled comedy (in spite of the tragic ending). The result was a perfectly balanced mix of entertainment, satire, and tragedy that went on to become one of the most critically successful films of the year and won 13 Goyas, including awards for best film; for Saura as director and, with Azcona, as scriptwriter; and for actors Maura, Pajares, and Diego. AZCONA, RAFAEL (1926–2008). At the time of his death, Rafael Azcona had almost 100 film credits to his name as Spain’s most respected scriptwriter, alone or in collaboration, mostly in Spain and Italy, including substantial work for Marco Ferreri, Luis García Berlanga, Carlos Saura, Pedro Masó, Pedro Olea, Fernando Trueba, José Luis Cuerda, and José Luis García Sánchez. It is safe to say that no one in Spanish cinema has had an impact on so many important productions, and very few have a comparable list of creative input. Thematically, he was something of a postwar period specialist, but more generally he was a keen observer of human foibles, possessing a special empathy for the dignity of the common man in harsh environments. Azcona arrived in Madrid in 1951, from Logroño, with the intention of becoming a writer. He spent a few years living in poverty, walking the streets and sitting in cafés, and as he observed ordinary people going about their daily tasks in difficult times, he developed a deep insight into their lives that would become the basis of his later writing. Unable to find steady work, he started collaborations with humor magazines like La codorniz. This led to the publication of a number of short novels, including Los muertos no se tocan, nene (Don’t Touch the Corpses, Kid), El pisito (The Little Flat), and El

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cochecito (The Wheelchair). Although he always acknowledged a basic difference between narrative and scriptwriting (he claimed the scriptwriter’s hand had to be “invisible”), some of his recurring themes are already present here: he was a master in the portrayal of “small men” immersed in unjust systems, stories of poverty and survival, generosity in the depiction of character, a sense of life’s absurdity (his favorite writer was Franz Kafka), and a developed sense of irony as key to survival. All of these elements are present in an early series of collaborations with Italian director Marco Ferreri. Two of them were based on his fiction. In El pisito (1958), an ordinary man (José Luis López Vázquez) is forced to marry his old landlady in order to inherit a flat and live there with his fiancée. El cochecito (1960), starring Pepe Isbert, is one of the best instances of a certain strain of bleak, satiric humor in Spanish film, a farce about an old man who will stop at nothing, not even murder by poisoning, to get himself a motorized wheelchair. He continued to collaborate with Ferreri after the latter’s Spanish period in films like La grand bouffe, Ne touchez pas la femme blanche (both 1973) and L’ultima donna (1976). These are also examples of his work for Italian directors, particularly throughout the 1970s. His next important collaboration was with Luis G. Berlanga, for whom he wrote his two satiric masterpieces, which are also among the best scripts in Spanish cinema: Plácido (1961) and El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963). The former is a masterful network narrative, developing in one day and chronicling the misadventures of the title character as he tries to get payment for the vehicle he needs for work; the latter portrays a man forced to become an executioner in order to support his family. He also wrote most of Berlanga’s post-Franco films, including La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun, 1978), La vaquilla (The Heifer, 1984), and Moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians, 1987). Starting in 1967, Azcona began a fascinating collaboration with Carlos Saura in five projects, including Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves, 1972), La prima Angélica (Cousin Angélica, 1973), and the award-winning ¡Ay Carmela! (1990). One can perceive a shift in style: humor and irony become less relevant, observation and attention to the mechanisms of memory more central. For his

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Saura films, he used his own experience of the postwar period. In the 1980s, Azcona would become the most prominent chronicler of those years in his contributions to Trueba’s El año de las luces (Year of Enlightenment, 1986) or José Luis Cuerda’s La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly Tongue, 1999), both centered around young boys struggling with a repressive society. From the mid-1980s, he developed a long collaboration with José Luis García Sánchez, characterized by a more relaxed, sometimes even surreal, approach to humor. In a series of films including La corte del faraón (Pharaoh’s Court, 1985) and Tranvía a la Malvarrosa (Streetcar to Malvarrosa, 1996), he continued to chronicle the immediate postwar era with an unmistakable sense of humor. Azcona was also a master of the literary adaptation. Fully aware of the differences between different media, his adaptations tended to be strong rewritings, as in the case of Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas (1993). The last film for which he wrote the script was Cuerda’s Civil War-set Los girasoles ciegos (The Blind Sunflowers, 2008), another adaptation, for which he won a posthumous Goya award.

– B – BAJO ULLOA, JUANMA (1967– ). Although in terms of audiences Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s fame rests on the 1997 one-joke action comedy Airbag, which became one of the highest grossing films of the decade and was particularly popular among teenagers, he had built up a critical reputation based on intriguing, slow-burning psychological dramas that revealed a deeper mind and a keener eye for disturbed, wounded individuals and unexpressed emotions. Bajo Ulloa was born in Vitoria, and music was his first vocation. As a teenager, he also wrote plays that he put on with fellow students, and he was also interested in drawing. But Star Wars was a revelation in the late 1970s, and the film inspired him to become a filmmaker. Around that same time, he started working on super-8 shorts with his brother. Their success at film festivals caught the attention of director Fernando Trueba, who helped finance his first film, Alas de mariposa (Butterfly Wings, 1991). This introspective melodrama centered on a highly charged mother–daughter relationship that shifts

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into nightmarish tragedy. The film’s critical success was confirmed when it received the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival that year. Later, it won the Goya for best new director, and Bajo Ulloa also received an award as screenwriter (shared with his brother Eduardo). La madre muerta (Dead Mother, 1993) was his second feature, and a further exploration into complex psychologies: a petty thief kidnaps a mute girl whose mother he killed 20 years before. More focused on atmosphere than plot mechanics, the film was ignored by audiences and a substantial section of the critical establishment. In it, Bajo Ulloa used the thriller as generic framework. The use of religious imagery led to a fruitless debate at the time on whether the film was blasphemous, and very few commentators were able to appreciate the exquisiteness of Bajo Ulloa’s camerawork or the pain the film’s images invoked. In this sense, Airbag baffled both critics who had been following his career with interest and those who thought him pedantic and aloof. To a large extent, it was interpreted as an exercise in artistic cynicism: a network narrative about a missing ring, a mixture of road movie, toilet humor, and broad characterizations, it was a complete departure from Bajo Ulloa’s previous work. The great success of Airbag (even with populist critics) left Bajo Ulloa confused and aimless. He directed Ben Elton’s Pop Corn for the stage and concentrated on production for almost a decade. His film Frágil (Fragile), released in 2004, told a simple love story using a fairy tale framework and was a return to moody narration, but again was largely ignored by audiences. BALAGUERÓ, JAUME (1968– ). Born in Lleida (Catalunya), Jaume Balagueró majored in communications at the University of Barcelona in 1994. By that time, he had already directed three intense, expressionistic shorts, the last of which, Alicia, won an award at the 1994 Sitges Film Festival. The following year, he worked on another fantasy short, Días sin luz (Days Without Light), which was well received by critics and prepared the way for his feature film debut, Los sin nombre (The Nameless, 1999), a horror film based on a novel by Ramsey Campbell that touched on dark cults and murdered children. From that point onward, Balagueró specialized in horror films, with high production values and an original outlook. This was certainly a

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step forward in Spanish fantasy film tradition, which had previously centered on cheaper and less sophisticated product. Both Darkness (2002) and Fragile (2005) were ghost stories with English dialog and featuring international casts. Darkness, starring Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Iain Glen, Fele Martínez, and Giancarlo Giannini, featured some themes from Los sin nombre (children, satanic cults, the past, the family). It was the story of an American family who move into a house in Spain where strange happenings take place. It was released in Spain in 2002 with excellent box-office results, and two years later in the U.S. by Miramax, in a cut version. Less successful, Fragile took place in a hospital where, once again, the memories of past murders linger to haunt the life of a nurse played by Calista Flockhart. Balagueró’s most recent project, [Rec] (2007), co-directed with Paco Plaza, is a zombie film that shares with The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield the narrative device of telling a story through the single perspective of someone documenting reality in order to produce horror. In this case, a TV reporter working on a program about a fire brigade follows them to a building where, it transpires, a strange illness is making its tenants into flesh-eating monsters. Audiences’ knowledge is at all times restricted to what is being recorded in the reporter’s camera. It was re-made in the U.S. as Quarantine (2008). BANDERAS, ANTONIO (1960– ). Antonio Banderas’s career outside his country is a case in point of the typecasting that is particularly recurrent with Spanish actors. During his early career, there was nothing particularly “Spanish” or even Andalusian (he was born in Málaga) about Banderas. In his early roles, he plays a gay man (in Laberinto de pasiones [Labyrinth of Passion, Pedro Almodóvar, 1982] or Delirios de amor [Love Ravings, Cristina Andreu, Luis Eduardo Aute, Félix Rotaeta, and Antonio González-Vigil, 1986]) or, simply, the boy next door (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pedro Almodóvar, 1988]). More to the point, there was nothing of the Latin Lover about him. After studying acting in high school, he worked for several companies of classical theater in Madrid, playing key roles in Calderón’s La hija del aire (Air’s Daughter) and in Bertholt Brecht’s

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adaptation of Christopher Marlowes’ Edward II (as the King’s lover Gaveston). Imanol Arias, who knew his theater work, recommended him to Almodóvar, who gave him a small part as the gay terrorist Sadek in Laberinto de pasiones. It was not much of a performance, but it launched a career that would take him to work with some of the most solid Spanish directors of the 1980s, including Vicente Aranda (he was the underground revolutionary in Si te dicen que caí [If They Tell You I Fell, 1989]), Carlos Saura (Walking Sticks [Los zancos, 1984]), José Luis García Sánchez (La corte del faraón [Pharaoh’s Court, 1985], which capitalized on his attractiveness), and Francisco Betriu (Réquiem por un campesino español [Requiem for a Spanish Farmer, 1985], one of his most substantial parts of that decade). Most importantly, after his debut, he became Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite actor, and it is unlikely that without that director’s keen eye Banderas would ever have realized his potential. This is obvious when one follows the evolution of his 1982 pretty but soulless Sadek into his intense, charming Ricky in ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, 1990, one of the few parts Almodóvar claims to have written with a specific actor in mind), including other roles as an obsessive, closeted gay man in La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1987), a randy bespectacled stuttering young man with a father complex in Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), and a bullfighting student fascinated by his teacher (in Matador, 1986). In 1991, he had fulfilled the early promise of his stage roles and was beginning to mature as an actor. Then, an admiring remark made by Madonna in the rockumentary Truth or Dare (Alek Keshishian, 1991) sealed his fate as “the next Valentino.” It was time for Hollywood. Maybe it was a long-held ambition, maybe it was simply an offer too good to refuse. Still, undeniably, his roles became more vapid, his acting more superficial and less detailed; he became more famous, but less interesting. After a promising American debut in The Mambo Kings (Arne Glimcher, 1992), he was unremarkable in Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993) and Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), and he merely projected the requisite strong presence in the one-note characterizations of The House of Spirits (Bille August, 1993), Evita

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(Alan Parker, 1996), The Mask of Zorro (Martin Campbell, 1998), Desperado (Robert Rodriguez, 1995), or The 13th Warrior (John McTiernan, 1999). He lent his voice to the Puss in Boots in Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Ashbury, Conrad Vernon, 2004). Only rarely has Banderas returned to Spanish cinema. In 1995, he starred with his wife, Melanie Griffith, in Fernando Trueba’s Two Much, which he directed. In America he shot Crazy in Alabama (1999). He returned to Spain to direct a coming-of-age story, set in Málaga in the 1970s, connected with his own adolescence, El camino de los ingleses (Path of the English, 2006). BAÑOS, RICARD DE (1882–1939). Ricard de Baños was one of the pioneers of the Catalan film industry. During his first years as filmmaker, he specialized in very popular silent adaptations of zarzuela, including El dúo de la africana (African Duet) and Bohemios (Bohemians), both made in 1905. These were projected as a record was playing. He studied in Paris, where he trained at the Gaumont company and focused on a career as a producer. On his return to Spain in the early 1910s, he started working for Hispano films, where he collaborated with his cinematographer brother Ramón de Baños in a series of costumbrista projects. The great success of the Jacinto Benavente adaptation La malquerida (The Wrongly Loved Woman, 1914) meant that the Baños brothers were able to set up their own production company, Royal Films. At that time, they started focusing on feature length films, and they became skilled theater adaptors. This was followed by other hits in a similar vein, including the bullfighting drama Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand, 1916, a collaboration with best-selling novelist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez), Juan José (1917), and Fuerza y nobleza (Strength and nobility, 1918). Arlequines de seda y oro (Silk and Gold Harlequins, 1919), based on a romantic melodrama by José de Zorrilla, is one of the most important films of the silent period in Spain, and has been regarded as Spanish cinema’s first true classic. It was an ambitious film divided into three sections and, in its first version, almost four hours long. Arlequines de seda y oro is thematically typical of certain traditions in Spanish cinema: it features a bullfighter, a temperamental gypsy singer (played by torch singer

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and international recording star Raquel Meller), an outlaw, and a plot involving passion and jealousy. The film was recut and rereleased in 1925, in a shorter version that was synchronized to Meller’s recordings, which by then had become very popular throughout Europe. Royal Films’ successes continued into the next decade with titles like Don Juan Tenorio (1921, also based on Zorrilla). Baños’ career flagged in the late 1920s. He returned to bullfighting, and worked with Meller again in El relicario (The memento, 1931), his only sound film and the last in his career. He retired after the film failed at the box office. BARDEM, JAVIER (1969– ). During his first 10 years as a film actor, Bardem’s body was displayed fetishistically, almost obsessively, by film directors, who used him to convey quintessential Spanish fleshly masculinity. Instances of this from his early films include his uncouth bullfighter and underwear model in Jamón jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992), a lover holding a shoe with his penis (in El amante bilingüe / The Bilingual Lover, Vicente Aranda, 1993), the well-endowed protagonist of Huevos de oro (Golden Balls, Bigas Luna, 1993), the rentboy specializing in fisting in Las edades de Lulú (The Ages of Lulu, Bigas Luna, 1990), and, most iconically, his naked detective coming out of the sea, Ursula Andress–like, in El detective y la muerte (The Detective and Death, Gonzalo Suárez, 1994). So much emphasis was put into his muscular physique that it was difficult to realize that there was more to Bardem than testosterone. His early roles contrast with the those of the second half of his career, which present a more complex portrayal of Spanish machismo and its flawed core. Javier Bardem was born into a show business family: his mother is actress Pilar Bardem and his uncle was acclaimed director Juan Antonio Bardem. With such credentials, he was almost fated to become a performer. In his early roles physicality was his most remarkable quality. However, his ability to submerge himself into his characters made him one of the most versatile actors in Spanish film history. One early sign of this was his supporting role as a drug addict in Imanol Uribe’s Días contados (Running Out of Time, 1994), but other great roles followed from the mid-1990s. Bardem also showed an aptness for comedy in Boca a Boca (Mouth to Mouth,

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Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1995), where he played a slightly nerdy unemployed actor who takes up a job for an erotic hotline. Later, he was excellent as the bitter paraplegic policeman in Carne Trémula / Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar, 1996; a performance that suggested depths of frustration in the impotent macho) and the laid-back homosexual doctor in Segunda piel (Second Skin, Gerardo Vera, 1999). At this point, he was called for a number of international projects. He gave a straightforward, honest performance as Cuban dissident Reynaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel, 2000, an Oscarnominated turn), and played a tough drug dealer in Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004). By the late 1990s, he was one of the undisputed stars in Spanish cinema. His role as unemployed Santa in Fernando León de Aranoa’s Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun, 2002) was followed by a contrasting performance, both searing and witty, as the quadriplegic who wishes to die in Alejandro Amenábar’s Mar adentro / The Sea Inside (2004). His turn as the murderer in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men (2007) earned him almost every prestigious acting prize in the world, including an Academy Award as best supporting actor, and consolidated his reputation as one of the most in-demand international stars. BARDEM, JUAN ANTONIO (1922–2002). Juan Antonio Bardem studied engineering and worked for the Ministry of Agriculture before entering, as one in the first draft of students, the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (the first Spanish official film school) in 1947, where he was Luis G. Berlanga’s classmate friend and collaborator in film practices. He contributed to a number of scripts, uncredited, before joining forces with Berlanga to write and direct Esa pareja feliz (That Happy Couple, 1953) in 1951. This comedy about a married couple absorbed some of the lessons of neorealism, but was also imbued with a gentle humor indebted to the plays of Miguel Mihura. Although industry insiders understood the vitality and energy of these young filmmakers, the film would not be released until the success of ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall!), Luis G. Berlanga, 1953), one of the key titles in Spanish film history, made Berlanga into a household name.

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Originally, Bardem had worked on the latter project, and he had substantial input in the script, but due to financial difficulties had to move on to other tasks. His first film as a sole director was Cómicos (Comedians, 1954), which took inspiration from All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1951) with its multistrand narrative, professional dynamics, and theatrical background. It remains a vivid document of stage lives in Spain during the 1950s. Cómicos is best seen today as a mood piece, tinged with a melancholy that would become one of the director’s trademarks in the decade, and it was characteristic of a certain perception of post-war Spain as portrayed by the cinema of the period: sad, gray, populated by frustrated characters. Bardem then directed an even more personal project, inspired by existentialism and giving evidence of a reflective voice very unusual in the Spanish film mainstream. Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955), features an adulterous couple who accidentally kill a cyclist on a road trip but run away as they are afraid their relationship will be discovered. The film’s subtext is clearly about bourgeois bad conscience, inspired by Marxist thought. This issue became another key element of Bardem’s career until the early 1960s: he had become a member of the Communist Party, which was then strictly illegal; in the future, he would use some of his films to convey some of the party’s principles. The authorities soon were alerted to this, and he met many obstacles throughout his career. For instance, during the shooting in Palencia of Calle Mayor (Main Street, 1956), he was arrested and sent to jail for two weeks, in connection with recent riots in the university. In 1955, he was the most earnest critical voice in the Salamanca Conversations, demanding from the authorities more respect for artistic expression, as well as clearer censorship guidelines. For many critics, Calle Mayor remains his best film: this story of a provincial spinster who is the victim of a cruel joke was used to bring out the situation of women in a heartless society of bored men in a spirit close to Federico Fellini’s I vitelloni, made a couple of years earlier. Although the film encountered objections from the censors (particularly for its representation of priests), it was finally released with some cuts. Fortunately, it had been made as a coproduction with France, and some uncensored prints made it into release

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circuits abroad. It went on to win the FIPRESCI award at the Venice Film Festival. Bardem’s next film, La venganza (Revenge, 1958), was a very personal rural drama that, instead of dealing simply with honor, also introduced some awareness of laborers’ working conditions. At this point, out of frustration with the system and the film industry, some of his projects become less personal (but not necessarily more commercial). After a flawed adaptation of Valle Inclán shot in coproduction with Mexico (Sonatas, 1959) and an unconventional bullfighting drama set outside the ring, A las cinco de la tarde (Five O’Clock in the Afternoon, 1961), Bardem returned to the oppressiveness of provincial life in Nunca pasa nada (Nothing Ever Happens, 1953), which is the last among his quality projects before he devoted himself to commercial films and star vehicles. It tells the story of a French chorus girl who stops in a small town in rural Spain, eliciting different reactions from the inhabitants. For some critics, this retreading of some themes present in Calle mayor is among his best films. The rest of his filmography is largely unremarkable. Disappointed with official obstacles, Bardem attached himself to a number of commercial projects, including the sensationalistic La corrupción de Chris Miller (The Corruption of Chris Miller, 1973) and Varietés (Variety, 1971), a revision of Cómicos starring Sara Montiel. With the Transition, he was once more able to make more incisive films, but 10 years of uninteresting projects had taken their toll, and his efforts at personal filmmaking with El Puente (The Holiday, 1977) and Siete días de enero (Seven Days in January, 1979) were disappointing, both critically and commercially. BARDEM, PILAR (1939– ). Since 1965, Pilar Bardem (sister of director Juan Antonio Bardem) has been featured in over 60 films, mostly in very small supporting parts, before earning audience awareness in 1995. Among the list of mostly mediocre films are a few well-known titles (Los claros motivos del deseo [The Clear Motives of Desire, Miguel Picazo, 1977], La Regenta [The Regent’s Wife, Gonzalo Suárez, 1974], El libro del buen amor [The Book of Good Love, Tomás Aznar and Julián Marcos, 1975], El puente [The Holiday, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1977]), but it is hard to remember Bardem in any of them, and the mixture suggests the aimless ca-

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reer of a character actress struggling to make ends meet and taking insignificant parts in cheap horror and Ozores factory Landismo comedies. She was used convincingly for the first time in Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, Enrique Urbizu, 1991), and in spite of the brevity of her appearance as an old woman in a derelict tenement house, she projected a stunning raw intensity. Bardem’s talents were finally given due credit with Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Talk About Us When We’re Dead, Agustín Díaz Yanes, 1995), in which she played an old Republican teacher, mother of a sick bullfighter and motherin-law to Victoria Abril’s alcoholic loser. Her Doña Julia was justly praised as a beacon of serenity in a corrupt world, as emblematic of the “best Spain” still alive and triumphant after being buried for over 40 years. One can feel both the regret of Bardem’s character in the face of a life that started so promisingly and the essential dignity of a woman who may have been crushed by material circumstances, but whose soul was never conquered by the corrupt regime. After this, she became very much a popular character actress, always in demand, alternating comic caricatures and more fully realized parts. Age and an austere physique made it hard for her to find good starring roles, but she shone in a number of brief appearances, often as a mother figure in Airbag (Juanma Bajo Ulloa, 1997), Carne trémula (Live Flesh, Pedro Almodóvar, 2006, where she has a memorable cameo as surrogate mother to Penélope Cruz), Pantaleón y las visitadoras (Pantaleón and the Call Girls, Francisco J. Lombardi, 2000), or 20 Centímetros (20 Centimeters, Ramón Salazar, 2005), as among the most popular. Her most heartfelt starring performance and a part to which she was particularly committed was María querida (Dear Maria, 2004), a Rafael Azcona–scripted project of love in which she played Spanish exile philosopher María Zambrano and was directed by José Luis García Sánchez. In a detailed and moving performance brimming with intellectual dignity, she recaptured the achievement of her breakthrough role. She won the best actress award at the Valladolid Film Festival and was nominated for the best actress Goya, among other acting prizes. She is the mother of actor Javier Bardem, and, like other members of her family, has been a forceful defender of left-wing causes and is a supporter of Izquierda Unida.

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BARRANCO, MARÍA (1961– ). María Barranco’s hilarious Candela, a supporting character in Pedro Almodóvar’s Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988), was an overnight sensation among audiences. She played a tense, naive, talkative model from Andalucía who had been led astray by a group of terrorists and was in trouble with the police. The combination of sexiness and innocence proved irresistible. It is one of the great comedy performances in Spanish cinema, and it made Barranco, who had interrupted her studies of medicine to turn to acting, into a hugely popular actress. Although she continued to exploit her Andalusian accent and her Candela persona (in, for instance, in Las cosas del querer [Jaime Chávarri, The Things of Love, 1989] and Rosa Rosae, Fernando Colomo, 1993), very early on she showed signs of being a very committed, versatile performer who could take on a range of roles, and who could project pain, wit, and sensitivity. Barranco chose her projects wisely throughout the 1990s, punctuated with her collaborations with her long-term partner Imanol Uribe (who appeared briefly next to her in Almodóvar’s film as a bridegroom). She took supporting roles in Bigas Luna’s Las edades de Lulú (The Ages of Lulu, 1990) as a transsexual prostitute and again in a popular register as the maid to a high-class prostitute, in Uribe’s costume film El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, 1991). Her greatest part of the decade was Azucena in Enrique Urbizu’s Todo por la pasta (Everything for the Dough, 1991), where she played a nervous strip-tease dancer who gets involved in a murky robbery and murder plot and becomes friends with ruthless manager Kitti Manver. Barranco’s comic persona was crucial to balancing the thriller and comedy aspects of the film: she was intent on getting the money, but at the same time fearful and needing the support offered by her friend. Her central role in Bwana (Imanol Uribe, 1996), as the wife of a taxi driver who is forced to reconsider her racist prejudices, remains her best work. As the film progresses, audiences can see her fear of the black man the couple meets on a beach turn into sympathy. In spite of substantial appearances in art films like Julio Medem’s La ardilla roja (The Red Squirrel, 1993), comedy remained the genre in which she was most comfortable. She starred in Urbizu’s Cuernos de mujer (1995), in Joaquín Oristrell’s Novios (Fiancées, 1999), and in Fernando Colomo’s El efecto mariposa (1995), and

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she had important supporting roles in Manuel Gómez Pereira’s Boca a boca (Mouth to Mouth, 1995), in the international Tardes de Gaudi / Gaudy Afternoon (Susan Seidelman, 2001), and in El oro de Moscú (Moscow Gold, Jesús Bonilla, 2003). Her pace has slowed in recent years, and she has turned to television sitcoms. Her best film performances of the period were in El viaje de Carol (Carol’s Journey, Imanol Uribe, 2002), the disturbed wife in Tiempo de tormenta (Stormy Weather, Pedro Olea, 2003), and in El carnaval de Sodoma (Sodom Carnival, Arturo Ripstein, 2006). BASQUE CINEMA. For most of its history, Spanish cinema has been dependent on institutional support for its existence. It is not surprising, then, that when the funding of culture was largely devolved to the newly created autonomous regions in the early 1980s, regional institutions had an impact on film production. Although the Basque film industry did not take off as quickly as its Catalan counterpart, the series of measures put into practice by the autonomous government from 1981 onward have been more fruitful and had a more lasting effect than in Catalonia. Among other things, it produced a fascinating generation of filmmakers who trained in the region, including Montxo Armendáriz, Julio Médem, Enrique Urbizu, Daniel Calparsoro, Álex de la Iglesia, and Juanma Bajo Ulloa, in addition to the older generation of directors associated with Basque culture, including Pedro Olea, Eloy de la Iglesia, and Imanol Uribe, who turned to their homeland during that decade in search of inspiration and institutional support. Before the political Transition, there were hints of nationalistinspired interest in making films that reflected regional culture. The most remarkable was Ama Lur (1968), a film in the region’s language funded by means of a popular subscription. In the decade that followed, there were no other instances of such projects until the autonomous government took control of cultural matters. In the popular imagination, the Basques were trapped by clichés and represented as stern, earnest, humorless, and traditional. It was time for Basque artists to tell their own stories, to place the problems of the region into more complex cultural and historical contexts. Initially, the agenda was in part nationalistic, and in part economic. The earliest instances of films that focused on specifically regional

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historical concerns are Uribe’s El proceso de Burgos (The Burgos Trial, 1979) and La fuga de Segovia (Escape in Segovia, 1981), two strongly realistic films dealing with aspects of the ETA organization, which at the moment was regarded by some intellectuals in the region more as an uncompromising nationalist group than a terrorist organization. Given that the nationalist Partido Nacionalista Vasco was in power, strengthening a sense of Basque identity became a priority in terms of cultural policy. One consequence is the setting up of a bold scheme for supporting films that dealt with specifically Basque issues. Although releasing a version in the Basque language was encouraged, this was not enforced, given that only some 20 percent of the population actually understand the language. Institutional funding would contribute 25 percent of the total budget. Some conditions were attached to obtaining the subsidy: a version in Euskera had to be released in the region (even when the shooting took place in Spanish), no less than 70 percent of the personnel must live and work in Basque country, and preference would be given to films that display the Basque landscape. The scheme was very successful: 35 films made by 28 different filmmakers were completed in the 1980s. Some directors from the region who had settled in Madrid, like Eloy de la Iglesia and Pedro Olea, saw this as an opportunity to return to their homeland, but they found the scheme was not very useful to established filmmakers. Both returned to Madrid after frustrating experiences with cultural authorities (Otra vuelta de tuerca [The Turn of the Screw, 1985] in the case of De la Iglesia, Akelarre [1984] in the case of Olea). One of the earliest achievements derived from the scheme was Montxo Armendáriz’s Tasio (1984), which remains emblematic of the approach: a film that reflected on the vicissitudes of the territory by focusing on a family of peasants living in a village surrounded by deep forests. Julio Medem’s Vacas (1992) is a modernist variation on this kind of family saga. In 2006, Armendáriz came back to reflect his homeland’s tradition with the folksy Obaba (2006), based on one of the most important post-Franco fictions in Euskera, written by Bernardo Atxaga. A serious discussion of politics in the region cannot leave aside issues of drugs and terrorism. Ana Díez’s Ander eta Yul (Ander and

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Yul, 1989) is one of the most uncompromising Basque titles of the 1980s, a story about a drug dealer who finishes his prison sentence to find his old friend Yul is a member of ETA. Imanol Uribe returned to stories about members of ETA with La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, 1984) and Dias contados (Few Days Remaining, 1994), the latter about a terrorist who moves to Madrid to prepare a bombing. A non-Basque director, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, directed Todos estamos invitados (We Are All Invited, 2007), one of the most consistent explorations of the atmosphere of everyday fear in unexceptional backgrounds. Finally, Julio Medem’s La pelota vasca (The Basque Ball, 2003) is a sustained debate on Basque nationalism and violence, intended as a forum for a wide range of voices, in which both university professors threatened by ETA and members of the political representatives of the organization articulated their points of view. The conservative Partido Popular refused to participate, as they saw any attempt to make sense of ETA activity as publicity. The younger generation have left the mountainous landscapes for the city and tend to sidestep nationalist concerns in their films, to concentrate on urban stories. Daniel Calparsoro has taken inspiration from the postindustrial wastelands of the big city for his despairing Pasajes (1996), and Enrique Urbizu adapted for his debut film Todo por la pasta (Everything for the Dough, 1991) noir conventions to industrial Bilbao (a grim, derelict city designed by Álex de la Iglesia). Other than these two films, the new generation of post-1990 Basque directors have no common outlook or themes. In some cases, like that of Álex de la Iglesia, they have progressively focused on non-Basque stories and backgrounds (his latest film to date, The Oxford Murders [2007], was set in England; before that he had shot Perdita Durango [1997] in the United States). Although some of the most original cinema in Europe today comes from Basque country, it is hard to see its practitioners as a compact group: the only thing in common is talent, originality, and the pressures of exceptional circumstances. BAUTISTA, AURORA (1925– ). Aurora Bautista was born in Valladolid. Her father was a Republican who was jailed after the Civil War, a fact that would be carefully silenced by producers and the press during her years as Francoism’s most glittering film star. Her acting career started in Barcelona in the mid-1940s, where she worked for

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prestigious theater companies. Her great opportunity came when she was chosen by Juan de Orduña to star in Locura de amor (Madness for Love, 1948), a historical melodrama about a Spanish queen unlucky in love. Her enormous success led to other similarly flavored collaborations for Orduña under the CIFESA label. In Agustina de Aragón (1950), she played a brave Zaragoza patriot who earnestly harangued her fellow citizens to stand up to the French invaders. In Pequeñeces (Small Things, 1950) she was a 19th-century society lady led astray by frivolity, who loses her son as a narrative punishment. Bautista’s acting in these films was emphatic and campily overdone, but something in her style (or maybe in the roles she specialized in) fascinated audiences. In those years, Bautista became the closest equivalent Spanish cinema ever had to a Hollywood star. However, she felt uncomfortable about being fêted by the authorities she had been brought up to fear, and she disliked the kind of heroic roles she was given. During the decadence of CIFESA, she used her box-office momentum to turn her career around and tackle more complex roles. Condenados (Condemned, Manuel Mur Oti, 1953) was a rural melodrama in which she played an unkempt, hardworking, fiercely independent landowner, in stark contrast with her former patriotic heroines. The film was a flop, and she decided to return to the stage. She would play roles like Federico García Lorca’s Yerma, Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and in the William Faulkner adaptation Requiem for a Woman. Bautista’s career in film intermittent after that. She starred in the first Spanish film in color, La gata (The Cat, Margarita Alexandre and Rafael María Torrecilla, 1956) playing a character very close to a Williams’ heroine, who struggles not to be conquered by her emotions. In the next decade, eclipsed by a new kind of rising star (girlnext-door types, strictly nonbombastic), she kept a low profile, but her work had matured, revealing a hard-won humanity and vulnerability. Although her last collaboration with Juan de Orduña (Teresa de Jesús, 1961) was largely ignored by critics and audiences, she successfully underplayed in La tia Tula (Aunt Tula, Miguel Picazo, 1964), a subtle Nuevo cine español drama of repression and provincial life, based on a novel by Miguel de Unamuno. Here she played a woman living in a small city who cannot acknowledge her feelings for her husband’s brother. In spite of the personal success the film

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brought to her, Bautista’s time had passed. Although she had become an icon and was continually called upon to do advertising and special appearances on television, her style and her image as one of Francisco Franco’s favorite actresses were wrong for the period. She was rediscovered in the late 1980s, always in small roles. She was very good as the Mother Superior in Extramuros (Outside Convent Walls, 1985), another Miguel Picazo film. Later she had small supporting roles in Basilio Martín Patino’s return to Salamanca Octavia (2003) and as the miserly madwoman in José Luis Garci’s Tiovivo c. 1950 (Carousel c. 1950, 2004). BELÉN, ANA (1951– ). Ana Belén was born María del Pilar Cuesta Acosta and started out as a teenage actress in 1966, in sentimental fare like the musical Zampo y yo (Zampo and Me, Luis Lucia), in which she starred as a neglected teenager who invents an imaginary clown-like father figure (played by Fernando Rey, no less). Soon she showed more discernment, doing a number of film plays for television and accepting roles in off-beat Tercera Vía films like Roberto Bodegas’ Españolas en París (Spanish Women in Paris, 1971). Her risk-taking image was consolidated with Jaime de Armiñán’s El gran amor del capitán Brando (Captain Brando’s Great Love, 1975), Pilar Miró’s feminist debut La petición (The Request), Eloy de la Iglesia’s La criatura (The Creature, 1977), and the obscure metaphorical melodrama Sonámulos (Sleepwalkers, 1978), directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. At this time, she also became a wellknown pop singer, with a number of chart-topping singles. She often teamed up with her husband, Victor Manuel, one of the more emblematic late-Francoism songwriters, and she had a hugely successful recording and concert career. Both were politically committed, publicly supporting the Communist Party in the first general elections. Belén was one of the key performers of the Transition, appearing in earnest zeitgeist films including La petición (The Request, 1976) and Jordi Cadena’s adaptation of Juan Marsé, La oscura historia de la prima Montse (The Obscure Tale of Cousin Montse, 1978). Other roles of this period include her portrayal of a woman who marries for money in Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1982) and the poor girl forced into prostitution in La colmena (The Beehive, Mario Camus, 1982). Then, around the

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time of her roles in Sé infiel y no mires con quién (Be Wanton and Tread no Shame, Fernando Trueba, 1985) and La corte del Faraón (Pharaoh’s Court, José Luis García Sánchez, 1985), she discovered glamour, and a particular kind of haughty sophistication became the most remarkable part of her image. In a number of films during the next two decades, Belén specialized in the cool, elegant, glamorous woman, flawlessly attired and with a certain unemotional coldness, and some audiences perceived unresolved contradictions between her mask and her avowed political ideas. She alternated between singing and acting, but by the early 1990s, her film roles were becoming less committed and more rote. When, as in El amor perjudica seriamente a la salud (Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1996), aloofness suited the role, she was note perfect. But her range suffered, and she found it hard to regain former versatility, particularly when called upon to emote. In 1991, she directed the unremarkable Cómo ser mujer y no morir en el intento, (How To Be a Woman and Not Die in the Attempt) starring Carmen Maura. In films like Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, 1996), she was eclipsed even by Victoria Abril’s supporting turn and in La pasión turca (The Turkish Passion, 1994), also directed by Aranda, she failed to show the passion required by the role. She missed the opportunity to play the protagonist in Pedro Almodóvar´s La flor de mi secreto / Flower of My Secret, in 1995, which suggests that her interest in movies was waning. Her film appearances have become rare since the mid-1990s. In 1995, she received the Gold Medal for Professional Achievement in Film, awarded by the Spanish Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas. BELLE ÉPOQUE (1992). In terms of popularity and domestic critical reception as well as for its international impact, Fernando Trueba’s Belle Epoque is one of the key Spanish films of the 1990s: it came as a confirmation of the strength of the Spanish cultural industry in a period of momentous changes. Not only was the film a healthy box office hit (it cost just under 2 million Euro and, by the end of 1993, the box-office take was estimated at over 4 million Euros), it also suggested a new attitude to the past that definitely left behind what

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some audiences were beginning to regard as excessive focus on grim memories of the Civil War. It opened in December 1992 to almost unanimous praise. Critics were generous with the performances, the luminous cinematography (by José Luis Alcaine), and the script (by Rafael Azcona, from a story by Trueba and José Luis García Sánchez). Its success was confirmed abroad: the film was subsequently presented to great acclaim at the London Film Festival in November 1993, and went on to open in the United States. It was Spain’s candidate for the 1993 Oscars, was nominated in January by the Academy, and won the best foreign film Award in March 1994. The story is set a few months before the proclamation of the shortlived Spanish Republic (1931–39), rather than in the actual belle epoque (the pre-1914 years), but reflected the hopes for a peaceful future that could overcome the conservative ideals that had been imposed on Spanish identity by religious authorities and totalitarian politicians. Audiences may be aware of the threat of civil war as a shadow hanging over the characters, but the film’s protagonists are given a last chance at utopia. In this contrast largely lies the effectiveness of the film. At the start, Fernando (Jorge Sanz), an exseminarist, has just deserted from the army in the early days of 1931, seduced by ideals of freedom. He wanders into the country house of Manolo (Fernando Fernán Gómez), an old libertarian painter and intellectual. The older man represents an open attitude toward politics and sex (he has a zarzuela actress-singer wife who is happily living with her lover and only visits once a year) and also the possibility of dialogue with representatives of the church (the intellectual priest Don Luis played by Agustín González). The old stoic and the young man become good friends, but when the arrival of Manolo´s daughters is announced, he tries to convince Fernando to leave. It will be too late: as soon as he sees them getting off the train, the young man decides to stay. From this moment, the script shifts its focus to the daughters. Having been brought up by Manolo and his eccentric wife, they represent different types of “new” womanhood: Clara (Miriam Díaz-Aroca) is a young and still-attractive widow who only misses her husband as a sex object; Violeta (Ariadna Gil) is a veterinarian characterized in terms of a dry wit and sober dress-sense; Rocío (Maribel Verdú) is sensual and frivolous; and Luz (Penélope Cruz), the youngest sister,

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a curious and naïve nymphet. Although intended as instances of liberated women, they are constructed to a large extent as the projections of a male heterosexual gaze, rather than autonomous characters. The women are as interested in handsome Fernando as the boy is excited by all of them: One narrative thread of the film shows Fernando being seduced in turn by each of the women. Other characters contribute to a rich frieze in which several motives typical of the historical period of the film are represented. For instance, the narrative includes Don Luis, a liberal priest who likes to play cards and is obsessed by food, but who is also a man with intellectual leanings, who has exchanged epistolary correspondence with such luminaries as Miguel de Unamuno. Another strand of the plot concerns Juanito (Gabino Diego), who is in love (or in lust) with Rocío. He belongs to a wealthy and strongly traditional family in the village, and is constantly nagged by his mother (Chus Lampreave). Juanito will renounce his beliefs and become a Republican in order to be accepted by Manolo’s daughter, but is rejected when he suggests to Rocío that, in tune with the new times, they can practice “free love.” Eventually, it transpires that Rocío has been using Fernando to make Juanito jealous, although she does intend to marry the latter. Fernando will eventually marry young Luz and leave for America with the girl’s mother, a professional singer who makes an appearance toward the end of the film. BERLANGA, LUIS G. (1921– ). Among the key Spanish auteurs, Luis G. Berlanga’s greatness as an artist and his place in Spanish cinema are the hardest to convey to foreign audiences. Some specialists have claimed his sense of humor is “too Spanish,” his world too reliant on culture-specific traditions like costumbrismo and sainete. In his own country, he has remained the most admired of directors for his wit, his keen eye for human behavior, and his mastery in building up complex plots using many characters. His professional trajectory has also become iconic of Spanish film history: although never a cardcarrying communist (leaning more toward “sensualistic anarchism,” as he would claim), his skill for caricature and his lack of respect for convention made him into the filmmaker most mistrusted by censors during the Franco period, to the point that he remained largely inactive in Spain after El verdugo (The Executioner, 1964).

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Luis García Berlanga was born in Valencia, to a Republican family, and from the start, this was a shadow hanging over his relations with the authorities. Still, rather than resentment and a confrontational stance, his work evidences an ironic attitude and a deep mistrust for any kind of power structure. After the Civil War, his father was sent to prison, and he joined Francoist forces to fight on the side of the Nazis at the Russian Front in order to make good with the regime. He studied philosophy, and painting was his first artistic vocation, but soon he turned his attention to film criticism; he spent much of his time frequenting literary cafés in his hometown, an activity which is an obvious source of inspiration in his work. Berlanga took a directing course at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC), starting in 1947, the year of the film school’s foundation. As an early admirer of neorealism, he took inspiration from everyday life, although always with a gentle sense of humor and empathy that balanced the often grim experiences of his characters. This was apparent in the first feature he co-directed with Juan Antonio Bardem, Esa Pareja Feliz (That Happy Couple, 1951, but not released until 1953), starring Fernando Fernán Gómez, a film that distributors found difficult to place in cinemas but that was well received by selected professionals. He was invited to direct ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome Mr. Marshall! 1952) on his own (it was going to be a collaborative effort again, but Bardem begged off after co-writing the script). This film follows the inhabitants of a small Castilian village who pretend to be Andalusian to ingratiate themselves with Marshall Plan representatives. It remains one of the key titles in Spanish film history: at a time when films had turned their backs on reality (the late 1940s had been characterized by big CIFESA epics), Berlanga dealt with real dreams of real people and with the frustrations of everyday life. A similar outlook is present in his next film, Novio a la vista (Finacée Ahoy! 1954). In 1955, together with other directors, Berlanga publicly deplored the state of Spanish cinema at the Salamanca Conversations, stating the need to create discussion groups in order to circumvent official obstacles and set up a solid film industry. Such outspokenness at a time of tight government control turned against him, and he became officially an “enemy of the regime.” Although he was not, he could

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not be, explicitly critical in his stories, his films were closely studied for signs of dissidence and censored throughout the 1950s. Calabuch (1956), a gentle story about a Mediterranean village in which a nuclear scientist seeks refuge, was a return to Mr. Marshall’s outlook and themes. Los jueves milagro (Miracle Each Thursday, 1957), his next film, was more problematic because, in the line of some Federico Fellini films of the period, it seemed to satirize religious rituals. It was rendered almost incomprehensible by censors, and similar obstacles were encountered with each successive film. Plácido (1962), his first collaboration with Rafael Azcona, was made at a moment in which the authorities were trying to appear as moderate and was relatively untouched by censorship in spite of its critique of false middle-class charity; but El verdugo, made two years later, came in the wake of the Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961) scandal and suffered numerous cuts and hindrances. Winning the FIPRESCI prize at Venice elicited the wrong kind of attention, and the government did all it could, short of banning it, to bury it; it was consequently little seen for decades. It remains one of the most powerful indictments of the regime and is often regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films. Over the next 10 years, as Berlanga became internationally respected, he worked very little in his home country; he was closely watched and was unable to finish a project he could rightly claim as personal. ¡Vivan los novios! (Hooray for the Marrying Couple! 1970), one of his greatest films was yet again scarcely seen by Spanish audiences. Finally, he moved to France, where in 1973 he shot Tamaño natural (Natural Size), a strange tale of erotic obsession in which a man develops a fascination with an inflatable doll. Eroticism, pornography, and fetishism had been personal hobbies to Berlanga, but he had been unable to give free rein to this kind of imagery under Francisco Franco. Offbeat sexual habits appeared as a trademark in films of his later career. Berlanga returned to regular filmmaking after Franco’s death with the successful “Nacional” series: La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun, 1978), Patrimonio Nacional (National Heritage, 1981), and Nacional III (National III, 1982), a series of satirical multicharacter films in which he criticized political attitudes during late Francoism and the Transition. In 1977, he became a

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lecturer in the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC, as the former IIEC was renamed), became president of the newly founded Filmoteca nacional, and was involved as a series editor for an erotic literature collection with Tusquets publishers. With his reputation well established, he received numerous tributes and honors. In 1987, he became honorary president of the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. In 1980, he was awarded the Premio nacional de cinematografía and, in 1986, the Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes award, one of the highest forms of institutional recognition for artists in Spain. One key title of his post-Franco period was La vaquilla (The Heifer, 1985), based on a script he had written with Azcona 20 years earlier, in which Berlanga claimed he was seeking to overcome the division that the Civil War had caused. His career in the 1990s was irregular: he continued to satirize social issues in films like Moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians, 1987) and Todos a la cárcel (Everybody to Prison, 1993), but with a less malign enemy to confront, his critiques were losing their edge as his traditional antagonists seemed to have vanished. His last film, Paris Timbuctú (1999), was a return to the location and some characters of Calabuch, a fitting self-referential farewell to filmmaking with a typically strong cast. ¡BIENVENIDO, MÍSTER MARSHALL!/ WELCOME MR. MARSHALL! (1953). This is one of the best loved productions in Spanish cinema and historically a key title in the evolution of Spanish film, marking a watershed between the mainstream of the 1940s and the “new” films by dissident filmmakers in the new decade. ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! started out in 1952 as a proposal for a folkloric musical with clear roots in the “costumbrismo” outlook, meant as a vehicle for second-string singer Lolita Sevilla. The producers, including Ricardo Muñoz Suay, who was the main force behind the project, had enjoyed Esa Pareja Feliz (That Happy Couple, 1953), and called up Berlanga and Juan Antonio Bardem to complete the script (with some assistance from playwright Miguel Mihura) and direct. Since this was a small production company, they were invited to become associates and get a percentage of the profit, but when Bardem could not follow through with the project, Berlanga decided to direct on his own.

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At the time, it had just been made public that Spain would be left out of the Marshall Plan, which was funded with U.S. capital to assist European countries in reconstruction after World War II. The government expressed outrage and was keen in supporting the project when Berlanga and his co-script writer decided to concentrate on this decision as their central anecdote. Many saw the story as confirming the official view of the isolationist Franco regime, suggesting that the country did not need any external help (or interference), blessed as it was with an essential goodness and a myriad of hardworking inhabitants. In line with this, Berlanga’s film was awarded the “Interés Nacional” category, which entailed a substantial subvention. Some critics would for years claim that Berlanga’s project was made in support of the Fascists. On the other hand, the film was at the time seen as a slap in the face by some American audiences, most prominently actor Edward G. Robinson, who expressed outrage when he saw it as a member of the Jury at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival (Berlanga would go on to win the International Prize that year). The story takes place in a poverty-stricken Castilian village whose inhabitants get their hopes up when it is suggested that they could be recipients of American munificence. The mayor (Pepe Isbert) seeks the assistance of Manolo (Manolo Morán), a smart entrepreneur who is the agent of a folkloric singer (this gave Lolita Sevilla a good opportunity to showcase her performing talents). To maximize their chances, Manolo advises the villagers to pretend to be Andalusians, as the Americans seem fascinated by the exoticism of Andalusian style (rather than the duller Castilian culture). Most of the narrative is taken up with the preparations for the welcome festivities and the dreams of the villagers. Of course, the Marshall Plan representatives pass by, leaving nothing, and the villagers must return to their former lives. A political message was conveyed in the very last scenes: it starts to rain as the narrator (voiced by Fernando Rey) reminds audiences that hard work and not magical solutions ensure progress and a comfortable life. One main influence on the film’s approach was neorealism. Although it may seem removed from the urban stories told by De Sica or Rossellini, Berlanga sets his fable (narrated in fairytale style) among common people with modest dreams and in a very precise historical moment: with José Antonio Nieves Conde’s Surcos, the film

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was an early attempt to look at real lives and real social concerns. More generally, it was among the first films to shift from official bombastic versions of Fascist triumphs and put the small lives and dreams of people in a social context. BIGAS LUNA (1946– ). In the wake of the political Transition and the subsequent end of censorship of sexual matters, a group of new directors made the exploration of sex and sexuality a central part of their artistic concerns. Barcelona-born Bigas Luna had trained as an industrial designer, and had been featured in design exhibitions in the early 1970s before he decided to explore his fantasies on celluloid. Although this aspect was marginal in his first feature, Tatuaje (1978, based on a thriller by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán), at that time he was working on a series of more personal super-8 porn shorts, some of which he collected and released under the title Historias impúdicas. His first full-blown film was Bilbao (1978), a story about the relationship between a prostitute and a psychopath, which featured very prominently his fetishistic fantasies with food and sexual tools. The film was shot in the style of some early Andy Warhol films. The protagonist’s voice-over narration provides a weird example of male obsessions against the background of Barcelona. The film obtained an “S” classification, as did his next project, Caniche (1979). The pornographic elements in both films are really part of a wider picture on the limits of representation and a sign of new freedom recently achieved in Spain. After the success of these two films, Bigas Luna moved to the United States, where he shot the flawed Reborn (1981), removed from the personal obsessions in his earlier canon. The story focuses on small religious sect preachers and the commercialization of the idea of redemption. It was a box-office failure, and Bigas Luna returned to Spain to direct Lola (1986), a variation on the man-eating Lola-Lola character first played by Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel (Josef Von Sternberg, 1930). The success of this film both in Spain and Italy allowed him the freedom to change gears with Angustia (Anguish, 1987), a horror thriller which was also an exploration of voyeurism, although this time the narrative content was decidedly asexual. It featured themes from Alfred Hitchcock (particularly Psycho) and in some ways it recycled images from Bilbao, pushing them

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into darker areas. At one point well into the story, audiences realize they are seeing a film within a film, and the connections between their voyeurism and that of the featured audience at the fictitious cinema makes for a fascinating experience. Back in Spain, Bigas Luna sought Italian funding for an adaptation of Almudena Grandes’ erotic novel Las edades de Lulú (1990), which would be done in co-production and with an Italian protagonist (Francesca Neri). In many ways, it was a return to familiar ground. It follows the story of the protagonist from the moment she discovers sex in early adolescence to her experimentation with increasingly extreme practices as she matures. Through the 1990s, Bigas worked mostly on his hugely popular “Iberian Trilogy,” focusing on different images and motives of a specifically Spanish culture: the first title, Jamón, Jamón (1992) featured food very prominently; the second, Huevos de oro (Golden Balls, 1993), was about machismo and, the third, La teta y la luna (The Tit and the Moon, 1994), centered on mother obsession using woman’s breasts as a metaphor. Jamón jamón, the most successful of the three, was built around a heavily symbolic erotic triangle, and it launched the careers of its three main protagonists, Javier Bardem, Jordi Mollá, and Penélope Cruz. The film’s international success guaranteed completion of the other two and also provided offers for further co-productions. The trilogy was a substantial effort, but Bigas seemed to run out of ideas as it progressed, and critics and audiences were increasingly sceptical. La teta y la luna is uneven, and it articulates its main point on mother fixation less clearly than the other two. In the most recent period of his career, Bigas has returned to his interest in women as erotic objects, both explicitly, as in Bambola (Doll, 1996) and Son de mar (Sea Music, 2001), and more subtly, as in La camarera del Titanic / Femme de chambre du Titanic (The Chambermaid on the Titanic, 1997). The latter is his best post-trilogy project, a co-production with France, and constitutes a captivating postmodern twist on fantasies and realities centering on a woman who might or might not have been a waitress on the Titanic. For his latest film to date, Yo soy la Juani (I Am Juani, 2007), Bigas Luna has turned to a woman of the younger generation. Juani, the film’s protagonist, is disappointed with her faithless boyfriend and moves

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to Madrid to fulfill her dream of becoming an actress. As Bigas stated, he wanted to represent the kind of strong, bright, and socially marginal adolescent who is immersed in the difficulties of contemporary urban life. He saw it as a tribute to women’s resilience and resourcefulness. BOLLAÍN, ICÍAR (1967– ). Iciar Bollaín debuted in film as the inquisitive young protagonist of Víctor Erice’s El sur (South, 1983), and has occasionally continued to appear in films, most notably in Chus Gutiérrez’s Sublet (1991), Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom (1995), and José Luis Borau’s Niño nadie (Child No One, 1997) and Leo (2000). After two short features in the early 1990s (Baja corazón [Come Down, Heart, 1992] and Los amigos del muerto [Dead Man’s Friends, 1993]), Bollaín directed Hola, ¿estás sola? (Hi! Are You on Your Own?), in 1995, a witty road movie about two women. Flores de otro mundo (Flowers from Another World, 1999), her second feature, was a complex story about masculinity and racism set in rural Spain. The setup was intriguing: given the scarcity of women, a group of men organize a festive gathering to bring “marriage candidates” to a small Castilian village, most of them immigrants. The film follows the story of the lucky ones who attempt a new life in socially complex conditions. The most heartfelt story is that of a Dominican girl married to an introversive farm laborer who lives with a disapproving mother. Eschewing a vindictive version of feminism and sensationalism, Bollaín’s approach is compassionate and attempts to understand all sides. The film also showed her skill to get realistic, subdued performances from a group of actors and a confidence that no long dialogues or flashy camera positions are needed to communicate the emotional content of a scene. An equally restrained approach, more detailed and moving, was at the heart of Te doy mis ojos (I Give You My Eyes, 2003), Bollaín’s film about a woman who is recurrently beaten up by her husband. Throughout the film, Pilar (Laia Marull) tries to escape from what audiences see as a dangerous relationship, but she can only go on returning and suffering. Only by concentrating on a career does she find the strength to start a new life. The film became a sociological phenomenon, going on to win seven Goya awards, including best

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director and best film. Again, Bollaín avoided easy manicheism, presenting the husband Antonio (Luis Tosar) as man trapped by a violent temper, who also tries to change. In 2007, she directed Mataharis (Mata Haris), which focused on a group of women implicated in an industrial espionage plot. BORAU, JOSÉ LUIS (1929– ). After finishing his law degree, Borau decided to pursue his real vocation and concentrate on film. He began as a critic and completed the directing course at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC). His career as a filmmaker began with two commercial projects: the conventional spaghetti Western Brandy (1964) and the thriller Crimen de doble filo (Double edged murder, 1965), both heavily influenced by American cinema (at the time, ambitious directors preferred showing their allegiance to European film). Later, he would claim these were only training exercises. Disappointed by the results, he turned to teaching, and he supported work by some of his brightest students, including Pilar Miró, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Antonio Drove, Iván Zulueta, and Jaime Chávarri, who would all go on to have solid careers as scriptwriters and directors. In 1966, Borau founded El Imán, a production company that would specialize in advertising and also produce offbeat projects like Iván Zulueta’s wacky pop musical Un dos tres . . . al escondite inglés (One Two, Three. . . Gotcha!, 1970), and, especially, Jaime de Armiñán’s Mi querida señorita (My Dear Miss, 1972). For the latter, he had to fight censors in order to preserve the integrity of the story. Hay que matar a B. (B. Must Be Killed, 1975) was his first film as director in 10 years, a sparse, clockwork plot about a group of losers that was intended as a tribute to Hollywood noir. Furtivos (Poachers, 1975), co-scripted with Gutiérrez Aragón, a box-office sensation in terms of Spanish film and one of the undisputed critical successes of the 1970s, is representative of his early work, not just in terms of thematic concerns, but, particularly for the effort it took to get it released on Borau’s own terms. Its opening at the San Sebastian Film Festival and its international success, as well as its themes (incest, repression, and a metaphor of Spanish life under the shadow of Franco) created an aura of scandal which guaranteed enormous box-office returns. La sabina (The Sabine, 1979), a Swedish co-production

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set in Andalucia, followed a similar line of metaphorical cinema. Rather than the story itself, Borau was interested in the symbolics of femininity. He then tackled what for years had been his pet project: Rio abajo (Downstream, 1984), a film on illegal immigration shot in the United States and starring Victoria Abril (in one of her many roles as a prostitute). It was a difficult shoot, in which he experienced serious financial problems that would impact his later career. Tata mía (My Granny, 1986), a family comedy with surrealistic touches, was meant as a more commercial project: it starred Carmen Maura and Alfredo Landa, and also featured Imperio Argentina, the iconic star of 1930s musicals. In 1996, he directed Niño nadie (Boy No One, 1997), starring Icíar Bollaín, Rafael Álvarez “El Brujo,” and Adriana Ozores. His last film was Leo (2000), centering on a group of marginal characters. Borau has been a key presence in the institutional shaping of Spanish cinema through the post Transition years. He was president of the Academia de Ciencias y Artes Cinematográficas between 1994 and 1999. In 2007, he was made president of the Sociedad General de Autores (SGAE), the Spanish Society for Intellectual Property. He also belongs, since 2008, to the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (Royal Academy of Spanish Language), an institution which only recently has started to consider filmmakers as members. BUCHS, JOSÉ (1896–1973). Born in Santander, writer and director José Buchs started in the film industry as actor assistant to playwright Jacinto Benavente in the latter’s filmed version of his stage hit Los intereses creados (Vested Interests) in 1918. The following year, he co-directed three films with Julio Rosset, and in 1920 he made his first film as sole director: Expiación (Expiation, 1920). From that moment, he became one of the most innovative directors of the 1920s, and he is often credited with the consolidation of zarzuelas, folkloric films, and costume dramas as popular genres in the silent period, even at a time when the film business was failing to take off in Spain. Of the early pioneers, he was the first to develop film’s potential in Madrid, rather than in Barcelona, and throughout his career we see the clearest attempt to adapt specifically Spanish themes and approaches

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into film. He realized the box-office potential of costumbrismo on film, directing a number of sainetes, including El pobre Valbuena (Poor Valbuena, 1923) and Curro Vargas (1923). Always focused on the spectacular potential of film, he embarked on a series of historical dramas, mostly set in the 19th century, including El Conde Maravillas (Count Wonders, 1927), Pepe-Hillo (1928), and especially Una extraña aventura de Luis Candelas (Luis Candelas’ Strange Adventure, 1926), which critics consider his most accomplished film. One particular Spanish theme he drew on was the mythology of Sierra Morena outlaws (the setting of Merimée’s Carmen), who held the status of popular heroes in the previous century. Music was another passion for Buchs, and he decided he could bring costumbrismo and popular song together in a series of folkloric song–based silent films, which were later synchronized. Carceleras (Prison Women, 1922), a play with songs that takes place in Córdoba, was one of the earliest Spanish box-office hits. He also directed a successful series of zarzuela adaptations, including La verbena de la Paloma (The Fair of the Virgin of the Dove, 1921) and El rey que rabió (The Raging King, 1929). In 1929, Buchs directed Prim, based on the life of a 19th-century general who was very active in the complex political events of the mid-19th century, and who achieved a brief change in the ruling dynasty and the first republican experiment in the country. For this feature, he perfected the system of synchronization with records, and Prim has come to be regarded by some historians as the first Spanish talkie. He continued making films into the 1930s, including versions of his previous films. He made a second version of Carceleras (1932). His career became less remarkable after the Civil War. Although he remained active in the 1940s, making up to eight films, he mostly retired after two films in the 1950s. BUENA ESTRELLA, LA / THE LUCKY STAR (1997). Ricardo Franco’s intimate melodrama La buena estrella was one of the most critically praised films of the 1990s, and it won a number of awards that year, including the Goya for best film and best director. It was seen as Ricardo Franco’s return to form after a few dark years, and a revelation of Antonio Resines’ talent as a serious actor.

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The story was not immediately appealing, and its success underlies the potential of Spanish (indeed European) audiences to accept a more realistic take on relationships and emotions than the version manufactured by mainstream Hollywood film. La buena estrella’s protagonist is a castrated butcher (Resines) who gives shelter to Marina, a one-eyed beggar (Maribel Verdú) who has a difficult relationship with Daniel (Jordi Mollá), a petty thief who has been sent to prison. Their relationship soon becomes love and they settle into married life, but then Daniel returns and decides to stay in the house with them. This could have easily turned into a soap opera. But Franco and his scriptwriters did not shy away from complex emotions, and achieved a film of rare psychological depth, unafraid of engaging with pain, extreme joy, and faithfulness. The Resines character is presented both as insecure and loving, and his essential goodness is counterbalanced by a degree of selfishness: he does believe in Marina’s love, but is also jealous of Daniel. The latter is presented as a charming criminal who is finally defeated by prison life. Mollá’s performance movingly plays up the cocky, sexy young man only to make him tumble in the last section. And Marina is a woman who feels love in different ways and is honest enough not to deny any of them: although she feels deep affection for her husband, she knows she would be incomplete if she did not come to Daniel’s assistance when he needs her. BULLFIGHTING. In Spain, the art of bullfighting is known as “fiesta nacional” (which can be translated as “national celebration”), and, even if, since Francisco Franco’s death, it has not been politically as central to Spanish identity and culture as it used to be, it remains alive and a source of inspiration for filmmakers. The earliest manifestations of what would become the “corrida” date back to ancient times, when killing a bull according to a certain ritual had deep symbolic meaning for Iberian communities. But by the 18th century, the ritual had lost most of its magical meaning and acquired a format that emphasized the sense of a game in which both participants and audiences have fixed roles. Symbolically, this particular entertainment remained closely linked to some aspects of the national identity, as it touched on ideas of masculinity, death, and the

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combat with the beast (in this case a particular breed of bull known as “toro bravo”). A whole mythology has been shaped around bullfighting, and it brings with it a series of themes, plots, and images that are epic in their resonances. In this sense, it is not surprising that “corridas” were already important in the beginnings of Spanish cinema: when Lumière employeé Alexander Promio first came to Spain to showcase the new invention in 1896, “corridas” were among the first images he exhibited. What mattered here was the event, recorded as a documentary, with no attempt being made at extracting its epic resonances in narrative terms. This approach dominates early bullfighting films, and there is an undeniable attempt to present bullfighting as a pleasingly aesthetic and distinctive aspect of Spanish cinema. Later on, rich imaginative traditions around the fiesta began to have an impact, and Spanish filmmakers show an interest in other aspects, which are presented in a costumbrismo key, most centrally the lives and careers of bullfighters (and the colorful backdrops against which they take place), but also the fascinating cultural and psychological implications of artists who are always risking death. Early films like Ricard de Baños’ Arlequines de seda y oro (Silk and Gold Harlequins, 1919) build up their narratives around the world of “toreros” and their lovers. The cooperation of real bullfighters, who were heroes for Spanish crowds, remained vital to the tradition of bullfighting films. A fascinating star system articulated around the main figures, and the narratives associated with them, with their tales of ambition and petty rivalries, were not dissimilar to those set in the theater in Anglo-American cultures. Some of these films are records of the bullfighters’s best performances, but during Francoism, they become protagonists of fiction films (both in Spain and abroad: Mario Cabré was featured in Albert Lewin´s 1951 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman). The most frequently filmed novel with a bullfighting background is Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand), which was filmed three times in Hollywood (1922, 1941, and 1989), and had an early Spanish version in 1917. The foreign versions (particularly Rouben Mamoulian’s garish 1941 effort starring Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth) stress the visually striking aspects, but in the Spanish version we already perceive more concern for the bullfighter as a real individual. A second source of bullfighting images is, of

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course, the Carmen story, which has been filmed countless times, both in Hollywood in versions by Cecil B. DeMille (1915), Charles Chaplin (1916), and Charles Vidor (1945), for instance, starring, respectively, Geraldine Farrar, Edna Purviance, and Rita Hayworth, and in Europe, for instance Ernst Lubitsch’s with Pola Negri, shot in 1918, Jacques Feyder’s 1926 adaptation with Spanish singer Raquel Meller, and Francesco Rosi’s version of Bizet’s opera with Julia Mighenes. Among the Spanish versions, Florián Rey’s Carmen la de Triana (1938), with Imperio Argentina as the eponymous gypsy, Tulio Demichelli’s Carmen la de Ronda (1959), starring Sara Montiel, Carlos Saura’s musical version with Laura del Sol, and the recent Vicente Aranda adaptation Carmen (2003), with Paz Vega, remain the most popular. All of them illustrate different approaches to the “torero” mythologies. In the 1950s, bullfighting films represent an effort to make the kind of topical films that could be exported abroad. Even a rather conventional effort by Ladislao Vajda, Tarde de toros (Bullfighting Afternoon, 1956), focuses on what is at stake for each of the men taking part in a particular event. The film follows the background to a single corrida, including audience reactions, friends’ gossip, economic considerations, and particularly the fates of a rising maverick, an experienced figure whose career is almost over and who is beginning to consider retirement, and an established, publicity-hungry star of bullfighting. Other fictional attempts to portray the feelings of bullfighters include Los clarines del miedo (Bugles of Fear, Antonio Román, 1958), A las cinco de la tarde (At Five O’Clock, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1961), and Currito de la Cruz. The latter is a biographical tale about the rise of a bullfighter based on a novel by Luguín, which was put to film four times, in 1926, 1936, 1949, and 1965 (the best is Luis Lucía’s 1949 version starring matador Pepín Martín Vázquez). These approaches present bullfighters as representatives of an honest, conflicted, but nevertheless fearless and dignified masculinity. In less idealistic times, the men became more flawed, and some marginal figures became the focus of films. One early example of this trend is Ladislao Vajda’s Mi tío Jacinto (My Uncle Jacinto, 1956), about a retired second-rate bullfighter. But the tradition continued strong with examples like the documentary Juguetes rotos

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(Broken Toys, Manuel Summers, 1966) and El monosabio (Ray Rivas, 1977), where the “national celebration” was presented as less than heroic and a rather tawdry event. Like the other genre focusing on national cultures, the folkloric musical, the bullfighting film entered a period of decadence in the mid-1960s with the rise of desarrollismo and international projection. After the end of Francoism, the crisis in the construction of bullfighting as a symbol of Spanish culture was accentuated. It was perceived as a remnant of the past, and it reinforced an image of Spain that was felt to be created to fulfill the expectations of tourists. Still, the rich symbolic vein and aesthetics of the corridas were used in original ways by Pedro Almodóvar (in Matador [1986] and, more recently, in Hable con ella [Talk to Her], 2002), Bigas Luna (Jamón Jamón, 1992), and Agustín Díaz Yanes (Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto [No One Will Talk About Us When We Die], 1995). Belmonte (1995), on the other hand, was a straightforward biopic of a real-life matador starring future director Achero Mañas. BUÑUEL, LUIS (1900–1983). Although Luis Buñuel was regarded as the foremost Spanish film director for over three decades, his actual Spanish output is surprisingly small: he produced and directed the documentary Las Hurdes, Tierra Sin Pan in 1932 (which was subsequently banned in Spain and was only released with a voice-over in France) and during the Second Republic was involved as line producer and script supervisor with Filmófono Studios. In 1960, he returned to Spain after a long exile to direct Viridiana (1961), but this film was also banned and disowned by the Spanish government after reviewers at the Cannes Film Festival (where it would go on to win the Palme d’Or) remarked on its “anti-Catholic” ideology. He then shot Tristana in 1970, his second Benito Pérez Galdós adaptation, in Spain, although this was an international co-production (with France and Italy). The main portion of his career took place between Mexico (where he shot 20 films between 1946 and 1965) and France (almost exclusively from 1966). Consequently, the best way to assess Buñuel as Spanish director is to see him as a very individual talent, with deep roots in traditional Spanish culture, who always shaped his own perspective according to a variety of cultural contexts.

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Buñuel was born in Calanda, Aragón, into a wealthy family of landowners. The memory of ancestral rituals and festivities, which he linked to primitive human impulses, would always remain part of his creative repertoire. He came to Madrid in 1917 to complete his education at the renowned Residencia de Estudiantes, a college for bright young men, where some of the luminaries of Spanish intellectual life in this fruitful period also studied. There he became friends with poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, a friendship that soured when he discovered Lorca was a homosexual. His key friendship in those years was with painter Salvador Dalí, with whom he shared an interest in the new “surrealist” sensitivity explored by Parisian artists at the time. Whereas Dalí would later become a member of the Surrealist school, who followed and reinforced some of its more doctrinaire aspects, for Buñuel surrealism became simply a method to express a unexpressed view of life. Proto-surrealist elements are present in the Hurdes documentary (for instance in the repeated images of a goat falling off a cliff). His two early experiments with a specific surrealist aesthetic in mind were shot in France: Un Chien Andalou (the title, “the andalusian dog” may have been a homophobic reference to former friend Lorca) in 1928, and in 1931 the feature length L’age d’or (Golden Age). The former, a huge success in intellectual circles, has some of the most perturbing imagery in film history: the shot of a cloud crossing over the moon edited with an eye being slit has been regarded as a sign of cinema’s power to disturb and provoke. Provocation was even more intense in the second part of the surrealist diptych. Legend has it that for L’age d’or, Dalí and Buñuel conspired to make a film in which nothing would make any “sense” in an orthodox way (whenever something seemed to follow from previous events, he claimed in his memoir, they cut it out). Thus, they explored the ability of the mind to make connections beyond the structures of realism. During the Second Republic, Buñuel returned to Madrid, and his work at Filmófono studios was extensive and varied. Although he did not sign one film as director in those years (he is credited as line producer or script supervisor), critics have found his vision imprinted occasionally in films like La hija de Juan Simón (Juan Simón’s Daughter, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia and Nemesio M. Sobrevilla, 1935) and Centinela Alerta (Watch Out, Sentinel!, Jean Grémillon,

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1937). The outbreak of the Civil War caught him in France, where he supported the loyalists with documentary work. He knew that his liberal sympathies would prevent him from returning should the Fascists win, and when the outcome was clear in 1938, he accepted a job at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He resigned the post when it was discovered that he had been a card-carrying communist. Then he went to Hollywood, where he worked on Spanish versions of studio films at Warners. But he found the atmosphere uncomfortable, and so accepted the offer to shoot in Mexico a version of his former friend Lorca’s House of Bernarda Alba. This project never came to fruition, but in 1946, he directed Gran Casino, a musical with two of the period’s biggest stars: Jorge Negrete and Libertad Lamarque. He was dismissive of the experience, but the film was a great success and allowed him to continue to work in the Mexican film industry at a breathtaking pace. In those years, Buñuel alternated commercial projects in which he had very little personal input with more ambitious films drenched in personal themes (masculinity, class issues) and imagery. The commercial films have been reevaluated in recent years. In some instances, like Susana (1951) and Abismos de Pasión (Cliffs of Passion, 1954, his idiosyncratic version of Wuthering Heights set in the Mexico sierras), critics have perceived signs of surrealism in the exaggerated approach to plot and emotions and in the use of striking and unexpected images. Others argue that this was Buñuel’s brand of realism: he did see reality in that way, and he saw the excess all around him. Like other artists, he regarded Mexico as “the most surrealist country in the world” (as he wrote in his memoir My Last Sigh), and its festivities and the obsession with death present in Mexican art were sources of inspiration in his later work. In 1950, he directed Los olvidados (The Forgotten Ones; also known as The Young and the Damned), which won both the directing and the international critics prize at the Cannes Festival the next year. It tells a story of violence and betrayal in the slums of Mexico City. Although presenting itself as a document rising out of social concerns, this was actually a very personal meditation on desire and the deep ancestral forces beneath civilized behavior. During the 1950s, Buñuel alternated strange parables on masculinity (such as Él [Him, 1953] and Ensayo de un crimen [The Criminal Life of Archibaldo

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de la Cruz, 1955], the film that opened the door to his career in the film industry) with further bread-and-butter melodramas, which were becoming more and more hysterical. Fascinating though these films were, they became increasingly difficult to market in Mexico, and Buñuel was soon aware that he had to move to a different context. Nazarín (based on a novel by Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós about a priest going through a crisis, 1958) can be seen as a definite step in that direction. He also shot two films in English: The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954) and The Young One (1960). In 1960, Buñuel was ready to return to work in Europe. He was offered Viridiana in Spain, financed in part by Gustavo Alatriste, a Mexican producer who wanted to get his wife, actress Silvia Pinal, a role that would gain her recognition in the European market. But the Spanish authorities forbade the film, and it was marketed as “Mexican.” He returned to Mexico for two further films, which now alternated with unambitious efforts in Europe. In these latter Mexican films (El ángel exterminador / Exterminating Angel, 1962, and Simón del desierto / Simon of the Desert, 1965), one finds Buñuel experimenting with plot and dramatic situations. The first of these (which he shot without a proper script) is about a group of Mexico City bourgeois partygoers who become trapped in a dining room and are unable to escape, even though objectively, nothing seems to prevent them from leaving the room. By 1965, he was settling into the French industry, where he directed a series of films closer in spirit to surrealist explorations of sex and sexuality, most of them scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere. Belle de Jour (1967) was an exploration of a woman’s sexual fantasies. Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972), which some consider his best and most radical film, was a variation on the Exterminating Angel view of the paradoxes of the decadent wealthy classes and won him a well-deserved Academy Award. His last film was Cet obscur objet du désir (That Obscure Object of Desire), a story about a man’s obsession with a woman (played by two different actresses representing two sides of her personality). He returned to Spain, where he was once again welcomed after the demise of Francoism, too late: Buñuel was not to make another film in his country. He died in 1983.

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– C – CALLE MAYOR / MAIN STREET (1956). Juan Antonio Bardem’s Calle mayor is one of the best examples of an attempt to introduce some aspects of neorealism (and an awareness of social ethics) into Spanish cinema, during a time of political and economic pressures that stifled creativity and drastically restricted the range of topics allowed to filmmakers. Chronologically, it has been discussed as a film in tune with discussions on the state of the film industry and issues of artistic responsibility that found expression in the Salamanca Conversations of 1955. It was based on a comedy by Carlos Arniches, La señorita de Trévelez, but where the latter worked within the comedy conventions of costumbrismo (making fun of an unattractive spinster), Bardem opted for earnestness, setting up the protagonist’s troubles as a critique of the stifling cultural context. Isabel, a plain single woman in a provincial town, played soulfully by American actress Betsy Blair, is the victim of a cruel prank organized by a group of young men: the most attractive among them, Juan (José Suárez), will pretend to be in love with her, just to laugh as they see her building her hopes up. The inspiration for this group was Federico Fellini’s “vitelloni,” a group of lazy provincial young men who lead similarly unproductive lives. At one point, Juan explains how much he needs to leave the place to find a more inspiring life in the big city, and there is an awareness throughout the film that the town, with all its rituals and apparent coziness, is oppressive. At the same time, the narrative shows the characters firmly in the grasp of those rituals (visualized mostly in terms of religious parades and the Sunday habit of walking up and down Main Street) that push them to hurt another human being. In a convincing twist, Juan will increasingly become interested in the woman, but at that point there are too many obstacles for the relationship to develop. Rather than being outright unattractive (as in the original play), Isabel is portrayed as sweet and timid, and it is deeply moving to see her slowly falling in love with Juan and gaining self-awareness in the process. In the end, her dignity triumphs over the cruelty of the other men, but as we last see her we cannot help feeling that her outlook is dreary: she will have to live in those conditions, as a spinster, for the rest of her life. The film was shot in real locations and engaged

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with aspects of reality, most remarkably with the actual situation of women as victims of the system: the other main feminine character was the prostitute played by Dora Bell, who is also unable to escape the restrictions imposed on her. Of course, politics could not be hinted at, but the film pushes a certain critical attitude by making the small town a kind of metaphor for the Spanish situation. CALPARSORO, DANIEL (1968– ). Daniel Calparsoro comes from a wealthy Basque family; he traveled widely, trying any number of jobs before settling down in Madrid to study simultaneously politics, drawing, and film. He showed a particular interest in certain strands of the European and American avant garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s. He has also mentioned Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu as early influences, and their aesthetic rigor can be recognized in Calparsoro’s slow rhythms, punctuated by silences and the use of empty barren spaces. In his early films, taciturn characters wander around urban wastelands, as if lost. Salto al vacío (Jumping into the Void, 1995), Pasajes (1996), and A ciegas (Blindly, 1997) constitute a kind of aesthetic trilogy with Nawja Nimri as protagonist. In all of them, she plays related roles of a marginal, strong manipulative woman. Although these landscapes refer to actual social realities, they are also metaphors, as in Bresson, for the souls of people. In Salto al vacío, inner realities and textures are more important than straightforward narrative content. Far from being a polished film, it was striking enough for El Deseo to finance his second effort, Pasajes. Asfalto (Asphalt, 2000), starring Nimri, was for Calparsoro a return to marginal backgrounds and wild urban landscapes. In 2002, he shot Guerreros (Warriors), a network narrative following the trajectories of a group of soldiers during the Iraq War. CAMUS, MARIO (1935– ). Mario Camus started in the film industry as second unit director in 1959. He contributed to the script of Carlos Saura’s Los golfos (The Lazy Young Men, 1959), even before he completed his degree on film direction at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas. Although not an innovator and lacking the personal perspective one associates with Pedro Almodóvar or Luis G. Berlanga, Camus, in his parallel careers as

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scriptwriter and director, is an emblematic figure in Spanish film history, adapting to circumstances and attempting risky, substantial projects in a variety of contexts. His first film as director was Los farsantes (The Fakers, 1963), adapted from a short story by Daniel Sueiro. In the mid-1960s, his adaptations of Ignacio Aldecoa’s Young Sánchez (1964) and Con el viento solano (With the Southern Wind, 1967) brought him into close contact with Nuevo cine español filmmakers, but whereas colleagues like Basilio Martín Patino or Francisco Regueiro experimented with form, he opted for a classical approach. When auteurist cinema hit hard times at the end of the 1960s, Camus survived in commercial genre films, including pop musicals with Raphael (Al ponerse el sol [At Sunset] 1967, Digan lo que digan [Whatever They Say], 1968) and Sara Montiel (Esa mujer [That Woman], 1969), and even a spaghetti Western (La cólera del viento [Rage of the Wind], 1970). Unlike other colleagues, he easily accepted a turn to television when he could find nothing else, adapting novels like Galdós’ Fortunata y Jacinta (1980) into quality miniseries. Two main strands run through his long career. The first is the literary adaptation, shot in a tasteful classical style. He became something of a specialist in the genre in the 1980s, when he was at the helm of both La Colmena (The Beehive, 1982), based on Camilo José Cela’s novel, and Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents, 1984), an adaptation of Miguel Delibes’ short novel. In both cases, the film version looked more carefully put together and generally clearer and less ambiguous than the background described in the books (in contrast, one could think of the work of Vicente Aranda, another master literary adaptor who dares to take risks in the transfer). Both were also linear retellings of far more complex structures. The second strand is more interesting and more substantial: a number of Camus films are about the impact of the past on the present, whether as memory or in more objectively historical terms. The best example of this in his filmography was Sombras de una batalla (Shadows of a Battle, 1993). With an impressive central performance by Carmen Maura, this is the drama of an ex-terrorist whose past catches up with her years later. Other films in this line of development are Los días del pasado (Days of the Past, 1978) and La vieja música (Old Music, 1985).

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Camus has also contributed scripts for other people’s projects. He adapted Valle Inclán’s Luces de Bohemia (Lights of Bohemia, 1985) for Miguel Ángel Díez and co-wrote some of Pilar Miró’s best films: Werther (1986), Beltenebros (Prince of Darkness, 1991), and El pájaro de la felicidad (Bird of Happiness, 1993). CATALAN CINEMA. The Spanish film industry first consolidated mostly in Barcelona rather than in Madrid: it was here that the first production companies were founded, and for several decades representatives of the powerful Lumière, Pathé, and Gaumont companies preferred the Catalan capital to Madrid as their Spanish base. Historians have explained this in terms of the period of economic buoyancy of the former in the early decades of the century, and particularly the presence of a strong and progressive bourgeoisie that could support such enterprises. It was only in 1923 that, with the new political situation brought on by the Primo de Rivera conservative dictatorship, the government started to exercise a tighter control on the film business and the industry became centralized. However, it was in Barcelona where, seven years later, sound film was first introduced, a sign of its more enterprising attitude. Still, Catalan production lagged behind Madrid through the 1930s. Although during the Franco period some films were still being made in Barcelona (for instance, most films directed by Julio Coll, made at Pere Portabella’s company Films 69, or by prolific producer, director, and distributor Ignacio F. Iquino), the golden age of Catalan filmmaking seemed far behind, and Catalan filmmakers worked within a “national” (i.e., centralized) context. The next moment of Catalan prominence came in the mid-1960s, with the short-lived Escuela de Barcelona, developed by Catalan directors like Vicente Aranda and Jacinto Esteva, but in spite of the talent of some of the participants in the movement and the support of key intellectuals, these films never took off commercially and had only limited impact among influential critics. At the end of the Franco period and during the early Transition years, a number of films, like Antoni Ribas’ La ciutat cremada (The Burnt City, 1976) and Josep Maria Forn’s Companys Procés a Catalunya (Companys, Catalonia on Trial, 1979), contributed to the reinforcement of Catalan identity. These two films are the precedent

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of the new post-Franco Catalan cinema. Also in those years, directors like Bigas Luna, Ventura Pons, Josep Anton Salgot, and Francesc Bellmunt started using their Catalan roots as the basis for their films. The intensely specific urban life of the capital was a prominent theme for Pons and Bigas. Filmmakers from the region were also for the first time telling stories about their past, their identity, in their own language. These constituted a historical vindication of a sense of nationhood that had been under threat under the Franco regime, and their ultimate agenda was political rather than, as in the case of Escuela de Barcelona, artistic. When Spain became a democracy in 1978, one key measure was devolution of certain competences, including culture, to autonomous regions. The Catalan regional government could now manage a cultural budget, but rather than supporting film simply as an artistic practice or even to develop a Catalan film industry, there was a nationalist element in supporting certain cultural practices. These were difficult times for film in Spain, and full devolution of film budgets was delayed until the end of the decade. The main condition for obtaining funding as a “Catalan film” was that there should be an exclusive release in Catalan within the Catalan territory. For years, the linguistic element, and not the intrinsic quality of the project was important, to the extent that more funds were dedicated to dubbing Spanish and foreign films into Catalan than to supporting production. At the same time, for those politicians responsible for culture budgets, the best way to promote Catalan culture was through costly literary adaptations (like La Plaça del Diamant). After the autonomous government set up an institutionally funded television company, TV3, the linguistic issue became less relevant. As in the rest of Spain, a number of agreements were signed so that television companies would participate in Catalan film funding in exchange for broadcasting rights. By 1990, the percentage of specifically Catalan funding for 17 Catalan-produced films had risen to 33 percent of their total budget. In spite of considerable support, Catalan cinema never took off artistically the way Basque cinema did in the 1990s. Still, Catalonia and Barcelona itself have become in the last decade a favorite location for a number of films, Spanish and foreign. For many, the international discovery of the city’s photogeny came with Pedro

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Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999), although the director who had represented the city most richly and consistently since the Transition was Ventura Pons, who has made it a trademark to discover Barcelona’s moods and hidden corners, bringing them to life for his films, including Caricies (Caresses, 1998), Amic / Amat (Friend / Beloved, 1999), Food of Love (2002), and Amor idiota (Dumb Love, 2004). It was also the background for Susan Seidelman’s Gaudi Afternoon (2001) and Cedric Klapisch’ L’auberge espagnole (2002), and Woody Allen shot Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), about two clueless American students, in the Catalan capital. CAZA, LA / THE HUNT (1966). Together with Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Basilio Martín Patino, 1966), Carlos Saura’s La caza is the most representative film of the mid-1960s cycle that came to be known as Nuevo cine español. Thematically, it reflected the disaffection of the new generation for the Franco regime, and it also gestured toward the past as a wound on Spanish culture, in its portrayal of a group of four friends from two generations (Alfredo Mayo; Ismael Merlo; José María Prada, whose characters had experience of the war; and the younger Emilio Gutiérrez Caba) who go on a trip to hunt rabbits on a barren landscape and do so congenially until hidden tensions come to the surface and violence erupts. The film hints at unresolved conflict in the sparse dialogue, as well as in the iconic presence of Mayo, who had played Francisco Franco’s alter ego in Raza and had become a star in the 1940s for his roles as an army hero. Aesthetically, it was inspired by new European cinemas, making central use of metaphors and strong imagery that 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. The rabbits shot at mercilessly by the hunters have been read as Republican rebel fighters, and the inspiration may have come from the rabbit hunting sequence in Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game (1939), in which the issue was the class divide in prewar France. Hunting, on the other hand, has recurrently been associated with the Franco regime, and the association is prominent 10 years

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later in Berlanga’s La escopeta nacional (1978). The sun-drenched landscape (perfectly realized in Luis Cuadrado’s photography) has dark caves (as well as warrens), pointing at hidden areas of the national subconscious. The film was produced by Elías Querejeta (the first in a long collaboration with Saura), one of the main forces of Nuevo cine español, whose personality and preference for symbol-driven films dominate Spanish art films in the 1960s and the 1970s. His and Saura’s approach has been described as “hermetic,” and privileging hidden meanings was both the sign of a passion for images rather than stories and an attempt to circumvent the obstacles set up by the censors. See also CENSORSHIP. CENSORSHIP. Official film censorship in Spain started in 1912, and remained in place as an explicit system to control artistic expression, enforced in one form or another, until 1977. The power to censor spectacles was held, in the early periods, by the central government, and later by local governors. Two main criteria marked a film as undesirable in the first four decades of censorship. On the one hand, there were references to “buenas costumbres” (“good habits”). In Spain (as elsewhere in Europe), this was manifested in the control of representations that had to do with human sexuality and marital life. For decades, even rather common behaviors like adultery (not to mention prostitution or homosexuality) were frowned upon by the authorities. On the other, the authorities were particularly concerned about the expression of dissident political opinions, and this remained a central criterion, enforced until the disappearance of legal censorship codes. This concern became more stressed in periods of unrest (so frequent in the early decades of the 20th century), such as at the beginning and end of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and the two-year right-wing Republican period between 1934 and 1936. In those periods, cinemas could be, and often were, closed and the people responsible for forbidden propaganda could be incarcerated, although the approach was not always consistent. The triumph of the Franco rebel army brought 40 years of dictatorship and a centralization of censorship (the new system was set up in 1941), which became a powerful tool to control artistic expression and the communication of ideas. Film now depended on central

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government institutions, and it was subject to severe controls. There were two different periods. Until 1963, there were no explicit and specific guidelines on what would not be allowed, thus censorship had an arbitrary element. In the 1955 Salamanca Conversations, filmmakers demanded that a set of criteria be drawn up. The second period began with the application of the 1963 code, and filmmaking became a game to circumvent explicit guidelines through suggestion, irony, or obscure references. The earliest Francoist regulations of censorship practice date from 1938; that is to say, from before the triumph of the Fascist army. Each Spanish script that sought permission to be shot and every foreign film was reviewed by a committee of four “experts” from the church, the army, and the para-fascist Falange party. They could actually forbid the script in toto or, as was most often the case, could suggest emendations to prevent “corrupt” interpretations of reality. They looked carefully into the potential ideological implications in every single instance, but since most political dissidents had left the country or were stifled by the threat of death penalties or jail, the actual amount of problematic texts was very limited. Of course, censorship worked not only by forbidding certain ideas, but also by encouraging and supporting some films that contained the “right” kind of images and themes to the detriment of others. Since Spanish film relied heavily on institutional support and government funding schemes, by rewarding certain kinds of films that gave the “right” image of the country, those who did not follow such official guidelines had no access to extra funds. Another area of concern, particularly for the Catholic Church, was representation of sex and sexuality. In discussing Spanish film censorship of sexual matters, it is often overlooked that the international situation in this sense was very similar. Until 1961, the Hays Code determined what could be represented in Hollywood studio films, and even in countries with no official censorship, the authorities frowned upon anything that went against certain notions of public morality. Besides, no matter what actual censors focused on, censorship worked particularly as a threat that led to self-censorship. Censorship could take many forms: on many occasions, kisses were shortened to reduce their passion rating, or problematic scenes were deleted; on a number of occasions, dubbing was altered to make

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the film’s plot conform to a more acceptable ideology or morality. For instance, a voice-over was added at the end of Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sicca, 1948) to guarantee that the protagonist would end up happy. Among the films forbidden in the first period were Roberto Rossellini’s postwar output, as well as Luchino Visconti’s neorealist films, Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be (1942), Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1941) and, at the end of the first period, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) and Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960). In the early 1960s, the Hays Code became more flexible, and the approach in other Western countries became less consistent. Spain, however, retained an officially Catholic and ultraconservative regime, and censorship regulations were tightened. In 1962, José María García Escudero, a right-wing reformist, became head for film policies (Director General de Cinematografía) and agreed to introduce a censorship code. In this way, a list of regulations on what could be represented on film came into force in February 1963. Every script had to be submitted to a censorship commission of 13 experts, chaired by the director of cinematography; each wrote his or her report and each case was discussed separately. In some cases, censors were very strict, especially when considering the work of filmmakers labeled as problematic, like Luis G. Berlanga. In other cases, potentially “dangerous” films simply were accepted. As the decade progressed, dissidence became stronger. The authorities were at odds to show in international venues that Spain was on the path toward modernity, and freedom of expression became an issue. Filmmakers insisted that unless censors were more flexible, it was impossible to believe in openness. One consequence is that attitudes changed from period to period. Whereas in the late 1960s a brief era of liberalization occurred, the beginning of the 1970s was one of the harshest periods. Although censorship was officially derogated in 1977, there was evidence that old habits would die hard when Pilar Miró’s El Crimen de Cuenca (The Cuenca Crime) was banned temporarily in 1979 because, it was stated, it offended the Civil Guard. CHAPLIN, GERALDINE (1944– ). The daughter of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill (and granddaughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill)

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was born in Santa Monica, California, and has a varied international career spanning six decades and several countries. She debuted as a little girl in her father’s limelight, and became noticed with her portrayal of the gentle bourgeois Tonya in the international hit Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965). She would go on to have a substantial career in Hollywood, where she gave three great supporting performances for Robert Altman in Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976), and A Wedding (1978), and she was the tough protagonist of Alan Rudolph’s Remember My Name (1978), where she played a woman seeking revenge. She also worked in Great Britain, France, and Germany, but it was arguably in Spain where her work has been more consistent. While shooting Doctor Zhivago in Spain, she met Carlos Saura, and they lived together until the late 1970s, a period during which she also became the director’s muse, with substantial parts credited in eight of his films: Peppermint Frappé (1967), Estrés es tres tres (Stress Is Three Three, 1978), La madriguera (Honeycomb, 1969), Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves, 1973), Cría cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1976), Elisa, vida mía, (Elisa, My Life, 1977), Los ojos vendados (Blindfolded Eyes, 1978), and Mamá cumple cien años (Mama Is One Hundred, 1979). Taken together, these films constitute something of a love letter to her introspective and somewhat ethereal personality, and a tribute to her expressive face. Saura’s long takes, particularly in Cría cuervos and Elisa, vida mía evidence a complexity of characterization and a storm of emotions, pain, and joy that turn these into one of the great collaborations between an actress and a director, not less intense than the one between Pedro Almodóvar and Carmen Maura or even Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. After her last collaboration with Saura, Geraldine Chaplin worked less and less in Spanish cinema, concentrating on supporting roles in commercial Hollywood productions like The Mirror Crack’d [1980], The Moderns (1988), Chaplin (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2006), or in international projects in Europe, such as La vie est un roman (1981) and Les uns et les autres (1983). In recent years, she has returned to Spanish film, where she has attained an iconic status. Pedro Almodóvar explained how he needed

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someone with a strong presence and authority to play the dance teacher in Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002). She has also given intense, supporting performances in En la ciudad sin límites (In the City Without Limits, Antonio Hernández, 2002), playing a domineering mother, a role for which she was awarded a Goya; as Mother Abbess in Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa, Body of Christ, Ray Loriga, 2007); and as a medium in El orfanato (The Orphanage, Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007). CHÁVARRI, JAIME (1943– ). Jaime Chávarri trained as a lawyer before finding his vocation in a course on directing at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (Official Film School). He was a protegé of José Luis Borau, and his first job in the film industry was as assistant director and later participations in scripts including Un dos tres al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three . . . Gotcha! Iván Zulueta, 1970), Pastel de sangre (Blood Cake, Francesc Bellmunt, 1971), and Vampiros Lesbos (Lesbian Vampires, Jesús Franco, 1971). At this time, he also shot his own short feature Estado de sitio (Siege State, 1970). His first feature was the semi-autobiographical Los viajes escolares (School Trips, 1974), which had a mixed reception when it opened at the Festival de Valladolid. Then came El desencanto (The Disenchantment, 1976), an Elías Querejeta production, one of the key attempts to examine the Franco period during the Transition. The film used interviews, family photographs, and documentary footage to follow the story of the Panero family, tracing their connections to the regime and their work as writers. The father comes across as an authority figure who represents the repressive forces that governed Spain for decades, whereas the mother, Felicidad Blanch, becomes, in accounts and personal interventions, a mythical metaphor of Spanish femaleness: smooth, elegant, manipulative. The sons both became poets and show the wounds caused by their family background. The personal becomes assembled and is translated into an image of Spanish culture under the Franco years. A second Querejeta production, the critical success A un dios desconocido (To an Unknown God, 1977), is regarded as his best feature. Again, Chávarri produces a split narrative in which memory (incomplete, distorted) is one of the keys to overcoming past wounds.

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The story features a homosexual magician who remembers the time when he used to live very close to legendary poet Federico García Lorca. The themes of family and memory are also prominent in Dedicatoria (Dedication, 1980). By the early 1980s, Chávarri moved progressively into more commercial projects, including Bearn o la sala de las muñecas (Bearn or the Room of Dolls, 1983), a costume drama produced by Alfredo Matas, adapted from a classic of Balearic literature and starring Fernando Rey, Ángela Molina, and Imanol Arias, and the successful Las bicicletas son para el verano (Bicycles Are for Summer, 1984), an adaptation of Fernando Fernán Gómez’s play of the same title, with a star-studded cast including Amparo Soler Leal, Agustín González, Marisa Paredes, Victoria Abril, and Laura del Sol, about a family during the Civil War. He took part in a memorable cameo as an exhibitionist in Pedro Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984). El rey del río (King of the River, 1985), which he also wrote, is a reworking of the Peter Pan mythology, very central to other artists of the period, from Leopoldo María Panero to Terenci Moix, and his most personal film during this part of his career. His later films include four musicals: Las cosas del querer (Little Matters of Love, 1989) and its sequel Las cosas del querer 2 (1995) are charming period pieces with attractive casts, inspired by the life of gay popular singer Miguel de Molina, who had to leave Spain after the Civil War. In Argentina, he did the tango film Sus ojos se cerraron y el mundo sigue andando (Her Eyes Closed and the World Keeps on Turning, 1997), which evoked the figure of Carlos Gardel. His last film to date is Camarón (2005), a biopic of Flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla, starring Óscar Jaenada. CHILDREN. A long tradition in Spanish cinema of films centers around children. Although there are young stars elsewhere and in some cases Spanish equivalents are reflections of other traditions (the Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney phenomena or the neorealist boy), on looking at Iberian tradition, it is surprising how frequently children are used as protagonists for films with mature content. Historically, there are two distinct traditions. The first one uses the child, normally an orphan, as a spectacular object in comedy, melodrama

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or, most often, in musicals. It has its golden period in the 1950s and 1960s. The most prominent instance of the second approach is El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973), which uses the child as a witness and as an anchor for audience identification. It remains active today. The earliest instances of the use of children in Spanish film entertainment were plain imitations of Hollywood models. Alexia Ventura was the first Spanish child star, from 1915, and in the next decade, we find short cycles of films built around personalities like Alfredo Hurtado (known as Pitusín), Antoñito Cabero, Luisita Gargallo, and Avelita Ruiz, among others. Many of the films in which they participated were shamelessly popular and made use of a certain repertoire of gestures. From the late 1940s, children begin to appear increasingly in realistic films. Indeed, their new prominence is related to the role of children in canonical neorealist films like Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Shoeshine. The most popular child star of the mid-1950s was Pablito Calvo, chosen by Ladislao Vajda to be the orphan protagonist of the huge box-office hit Marcelino pan y vino (Marcelino Bread and Wine, Ladislao Vajda, 1955), who engaged in moving conversations with a wooden image of Christ on the cross in the attic of a monastery. Audiences loved his spontaneity, soulful eyes, and his uncanny ability to cry and provoke tears. He continued his collaboration with Vajda in two further films with decreasing success, Mi tío Jacinto (Uncle Jacinto, 1956), a film inspired by Bicycle Thieves, and Un ángel pasó por Brooklyn (An Angel Passed Over Brooklyn, 1957), before moving on to work in the Italian film industry. Child protagonists were often orphans who enlightened the lives of adults who were, in turn, parental figures for them. One of the problems with this particular kind of child actor is that, no matter how they may triumph as representations of childhood innocence, their period of glory is bound to be short-lived; this happened with Calvo, who was never really accepted in teenage roles. On the other hand, the tradition almost demands replacements that may become popular for two or three films. Other instances of child actors in the period were Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (Un traje blanco, [A White Suit] Rafael Gil, 1956), Miguelito Gil (Recluta con niño, [Private with Child],

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P.L. Ramírez, 1955), and Javier Asín (María, matrícula de Bilbao, [Maria, Registration Number from Bilbao], Ladislao Vajda, 1960). In the late 1950s, the tradition was pushed to its next logical step: If child actors were spectacular objects, why not have them perform in blatantly spectacular fashion. A series of films from that moment on were structured around the discovery and rise to fame of child singing stars. Joselito was the first child mega-star in Spanish musicals. He debuted on film at 13 (although it was claimed at the time he was only nine) in a film called El pequeño ruiseñor (The Little Nightingale, 1956), and his career lasted about 10 years, with increasingly ridiculous efforts to put him in pre-adolescent roles. Similarly, when Marisol was discovered by Luis Lucia in 1960 in Un rayo de luz (A Ray of Light), she was already 12, and later she commented on how painful it was for her to pretend she was an innocent little girl well into her teens. Other instances of singing children are Maleni Castro, Isabel Rincón and, toward the end of the period, Ana Belén, who starred in Zampo y yo (Zampo and Me, Luis Lucia, 1965). In most of these films, we see the orphan figure who plays it light and comic at the beginning and tearful in the last reel, with the added feature of a triumph in show business as a singer. The last important exponent of this kind of star child was blue-eyed, curly-haired Lolo García, who debuted with great success at four with La guerra de papá (Dad’s War, Antonio Mercero, 1977), then vanished after starring in two more films that were box-office flops. In 1973, Spanish cinema was in crisis and old formulas seemed to lose strength. The child performer cycle had also become tiresome. Still, a new impulse would keep children at the center of narratives. Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena was to have focused on the Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera characters. But shooting conflicts and Erice’s inability to follow a schedule meant that shooting their scenes had to be accomplished in a very brief period. What was going to be a parallel strand in the film, the story of little Ana, became the central strand, and the narrative formula was soon reiterated in the following decades: a number of important films (starting with Jaime de Armiñán’s El amor del capitán Brando [The Great Love of Captain Brando], 1974, and Carlos Saura’s Cria cuervos [Raise Ravens], 1976) were built around a young protagonist

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who would be used to guide the audiences into the secret and darker areas of Spanish history. The most prominent examples after the mid-1970s were El sur (South, Víctor Erice, 1983), Los motivos de Berta (Berta’s Reasons, José Luis Guerín, 1985), and El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, Fernando Trueba, 1986). By the 1980s, the tradition seemed to have lost strength, but in the 1997, Montxo Armendáriz’s Secretos del corazón (Secrets of the Heart, 1997) revived this thematic core as fertile ground for narrative, and we find another wave of child-as-witness films including La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly Tongue, José Luis Cuerda, 1999) and Vida y color (Life and Color, Santiago Tabernero, 2005). CHOMÓN, SEGUNDO DE (1871–1929). An inventor and master of trick photography, Segundo de Chomón was one of the true pioneers of Spanish cinema. He has been called “the Spanish Meliés,” and indeed his most enduring impact was in the creation of magical effects (which is what cinema was all about in the beginning) in the first two decades of the film industry, although he also had a career as a producer and became one of the first film industrialists, bridging the gap between the French and Spanish film industries at the beginning of the 20th century. He arrived in Paris in 1895, just in time to see the earlier manifestation of the Lumière brothers invention. His first job in the primitive film industry was for George Méliès and the Pathé Brothers company, hand-painting frames to produce color effects in early films. He even invented a device, called a pochoir, to speed up the process. In 1902, he returned to Spain as a representative of Pathé, producing a long series of documentary shorts and fictions (he had a preference for fantasy and fairy tales) with a camera he made himself, thus working in two lines of cinematic development: the creation of illusion and the recording of reality. Between 1905 and 1909, he worked again in Paris, and his films became extremely popular: he was regarded as one of the most skilled technicians of the age and took part in many successful productions. In this period, he produced his most inventive work, including the use of primitive tracking shot as early as 1907. Some of Chomón’s special effects have become legendary, as evidenced in the remarkable Electric Hotel (1908), in which inert

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objects were brought to life through visual trickery. Also in Paris, he came into contact with artistic movements that prefigured surrealism. In 1910, after making a small fortune, he decided to set up his own company back in Barcelona. The enterprise did not work as well as he had intended, and in November of that year he was working again for Pathé. His reputation remained strong, and he was called upon to design trick photography for one of the first big European epics, Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) (among other productions with the same director, including the stories about the legendary prehistoric hero Maciste). He settled in Paris again in 1923. His last important participation was as trick photographer for Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1926). The following year, he made his last contribution for a dream sequence featuring a giant ape in Benito Perojo’s El negro que tenía el alma blanca (The Black Man Who Had a White Soul). CIFESA. CIFESA was the most important production company of the Franco years, and the only one that attempted to function as a traditional Hollywood studio. It was founded in Valencia in 1932, and soon taken over by an olive oil industrialist, Vicente Casanova, whose son had shown interest in the movies. From 1933, the company turned out a series of well-crafted, expensive costume pictures and musicals directed by established figures like Benito Perojo and Florián Rey, and acquired a solid reputation among audiences. CIFESA’s motto was “The torch of hits”; creating a logo and a house style, as well as nurturing a compact group of stars, was an important lesson Casanova learned from the U.S. film industry. Ideologically, the family were conservative Republicans, but after the Civil War, the company pledged allegiance to the Franco regime. This was a perfect collaboration, as the studio was used for propaganda purposes and benefited from a series of privileges. From 1942, against a background of absolute poverty in a country that would take two decades to recover from the conflict, Casanova was back in business producing a series of war films, melodramas, and comedies that created their own version of reality and refused to engage with social issues. The studio-like aspects of the company were reinforced: soundstages and a company of actors (for instance Amparo Rivelles, Alfredo Mayo, and, later, Aurora Bautista) and technicians, and a certain consistency in tone and approaches due to

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the presence of strong directors (like Juan de Orduña and José Luis Sáenz de Heredia) who undertook their projects following general programs and guidelines and the firm grip of head of production Luis Lucia. The general production standards were as high as the times allowed, but the emphasis was on high turnout rather than expensive individual films. The end of World War II was a blow to the Franco government, which was plunged into a situation of complete isolation as the last remnant in Europe of Fascist ideologies. But rather than compromise and benefit from the reconstruction measures introduced by the Allies, the regime decided to strengthen conservatism. The crisis this led to was reflected in the film business. The government redesigned the system of funding cultural expression (as long as it was the “right” one), and one important aspect was the introduction of a category of special support to those films that could uphold the regime’s conservative values. Casanova responded with a series of lavish historical epics. The company’s strategy shifted now to focus on a small number of expensive pictures every year, which would not only be awarded “special interest” funding, but could also turn good profits at the box office. In the beginning, the strategy seemed to work, with Locura de amor (Mad for Love, Juan De Orduña, 1948) and, later, Agustina de Aragón (Juan de Orduña, 1950), quickly becoming box-office hits. But investment in each picture was so high that disappointing box-office takings could easily have an impact on the company’s finances. This is exactly what happened with La leona de castilla (Lioness of Castille, Juan de Orduña, 1951). When one of CIFESA’s most expensive production efforts, an epic Christopher Columbus first expedition titled Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951), failed to get special interest funding because politicians decided to support José Antonio Nieves Conde’s realistic Surcos (Burrows) instead; and when the film only did average business, the company was back in the red, and this time it was unable to regain its previous prowess. By 1952, the financial crisis deepened, and by 1956 (after a run of poor films), CIFESA disappeared as a film production company. CIGES, LUIS (1921–2002). For some scholars, Spanish cinema’s most valuable assets lie not in its directors, but in its character actors.

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Even though they seldom act in starring roles, a strong gallery of supporting performers (including Julia Caba Alba, Chus Lampreave, Amelia de la Torre, Xan das Bolas, José Sazatornil “Saza,” Agustín González, and Juan Espantaleón to name a few) have become well established as popular figures for many decades. These actors grace each appearance by doing what, critically, one could only call “their thing,” but in a supremely effective way. Their whole careers can be considered one long, rich part, to which they keep on adding subtle variations. At the time of his death, Luis Ciges had one of the longest careers in Spanish cinema. Although he only played the protagonist once, in Javier Fesser’s El milagro de P. Tinto (The Miracle of P. Tinto, 1998), his first roles date back to 1958, and he appeared in more than 150 films in under 50 years. The list is impressive. Closely associated with Berlanga, he took part in some remarkable titles of the 1960s, including Plácido (Luis G. Belanga, 1962), Young Sánchez (Mario Camus, 1964), and Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965), although his roles in these films were small. He specialized (even when he younger than 40) in playing unprepossessing older men with verbal facility. In the mid-1960s, he became a supporting actor of choice for some Escuela de Barcelona films, like Dante no es únicamente severo (Dante Is Not Only Severe, 1967), Nocturno 29 (Pere Portabella, 1968), Cada vez que . . . (Each Time I . . . 1968), Ditirambo (Gonzalo Suárez, 1969), and Aoom (Gonzalo Suárez, 1970). By then he had become something of a recurrent presence in films by dissident directors, which had certain iconic connotations of relaxed nonconformity and a touch of anarchism. These were reinforced in the post Franco period. He kept on turning up to “do his thing” in several Luis G. Berlanga films of the period (Escopeta Nacional [National Shotgun, 1978], Nacional III [National III, 1981], Patrimonio Nacional [National Heritage, 1982], La vaquilla [The Heifer, 1985], Todos a la cárcel [Everybody to Jail, 1993]), and was also used by Eloy de la Iglesia (La criatura [The Creature, 1977]), José Luis García Sánchez (La corte del Faraón [Pharaoh’s Court, 1985], Divinas palabras [1987]), Pedro Almodóvar (Laberinto de pasiones [Labyrinth of Passion, 1982], Matador [1985]), Enrique Urbizu (Todo por la pasta [All for the Dough, 1991]), and José Luis Cuerda (Así en el cielo como en la

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tierra [In Heaven As in Earth, 1995] and Amanece que no es poco [The Sun Rises, Which Is Good Enough, 1989]). It was only at this point that audiences truly became aware of Ciges; he won the Goya for best supporting actor in 1995 for his first Cuerda film, and this paved the way, finally, for his first starring role. After the success of Fesser’s film, he still appeared in Berlanga’s París Timbuctú (1999) and Fesser’s follow-up to P. Tinto, La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón (Mortadelo and Filemón’s Great Adventure, 2003). CIVIL WAR IN SPANISH FILM. The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and its long aftermath has been a recurring topic in Spanish cinema and, at some stages, it became a thematic core around which many important films were built: representing the war, living with its sequels, disappearing, surviving, hiding, and remembering it seemed to dominate filmmakers’ imaginations. The best fiction film shot during the event was Andre Malraux’ Sierra de Teruel. L’Espoir / Hope (1939), about a group of heroic soldiers resisting the advance of Francisco Franco’s troops, but it was an unusual effort produced partly in French studios. Leaving aside documentary and semi-documentary work, the first wave of Civil War features came right after the event, during the 1940s, in a cycle known as “cine de cruzada” or “crusading cinema,” designed to show tales of heroism and patriotism during the conflict. There was a refusal to engage with the reasons for the war (one must remember that in its beginnings, it was just another coup d’etat), and the emphasis was on its glorious ending. Examples are the Italian coproduction Sin novedad en el Alcázar (The Siege of the Alcazar, Augusto Genina, 1940) and Raza (Race, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1942). These films were sentimental, earnest, patriotic, and profoundly ideological—their idea of Spain is traditional and limited. Still, the subject was a difficult one, and not really encouraged. Indeed, from 1943, there was a ban on films centered on the Spanish Civil War, whether they were positive or not. Not only that: there were very few films dealing with war in general in the first decade after Franco’s victory. After the end of World War II, with a changing international situation in which Spain had no allies, Spanish filmmakers seemed to forget about the Civil War, and it was clear that the authorities were not

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interested in opening old wounds. The official version, the only one that could be represented, was plainly unsatisfactory even for those artists who were faithful to the regime, thus allowing very little room for narrative maneuvering. Clearly, an event of such seismic importance cannot be easily ignored, and the shadow of the confrontation of “two Spains” (or rather two ideas of what Spain should be: a progressive modern nation, on the one hand, or the traditional religious paradise promoted by Franco) was cast upon some of the key films of Francoism even when nothing was said about the conflict. It appears symbolically as a cave with corpses in La caza (The Hunt, 1966), where explicit references were forbidden by the censors, and as the unnamed cause of wounds affecting characters in El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973). Actually, Erice’s film marks a turning point in the treatment of the Civil War. Rather than a political event, it became a ghostly memory, haunting characters until the Transition brings about the conditions for this issue to be dealt with directly. Carlos Saura’s Cria cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1975) and La prima Angélica (Cousin Angelica, 1977) are examples of this approach, and its impact is felt throughout Borau’s Furtivos (Poachers, 1975). Even a tame, sentimental film such as La Guerra de papá (Dad’s War, Antonio Mercero, 1977) gestures toward a not-so-glorious past. The need to talk about the war explodes with the Transition, and for 20 years the Civil War and its sequels dominated Spanish cinema. In many instances, rage replaced the sad regret that had tinged previous approaches. It was now the time for losers to tell their part of the story, and they did so with a vengeance. With new legislation aiming to encourage “quality” filmmaking, there was a widespread impression that by “quality” one meant “period films” (and literary adaptations, of course), and the postwar had became the period of choice in which to set a number of melodramas. Films by leading directors like Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, Vicente Aranda, 1993), La vaquilla (The Heifer, Luis G. Berlanga, 1984), ¡Ay Carmela! (Carlos Saura, 1990), and El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro, 2001) are among the most remarkable in trying to engage with the event in original ways. The postwar period received particular attention as it provided opportunities for nostalgia and historical document. Films like

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La colmena (The Beehive, Mario Camus, 1982), Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1982), Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell, Vicente Aranda, 1989), Madregilda (Mother-Gilda, Francisco Regueiro, 1995), El viaje a ninguna parte (The Trip to Nowhere, Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1987), Tiempo de silencio (A Time of Silence, Vicente Aranda, 1986), and Tiovivo c. 1950 (Merry Go Round, c. 1950, José Luis Garci, 2005) present a grim picture of the 1940s, where the memory of the war filled everyday experience. In other cases, the war was treated as a wound that could still be felt in Spanish society. Features such as Sonámbulos (Sleepwalkers, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1978) and Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject, José Luis Garci, 1977) adopted this approach. Although filmmakers from the young Spanish cinema generation of the mid-1990s are less interested in the Civil War, the vitality of the topic is underlined by a recent hit like El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2007), a fantasy film that can be read as a metaphor of the wounds inflicted by the conflict. See also CENSORSHIP. CLOSAS, ALBERTO (1921–1994). Alberto Closas was born in Barcelona to a Republican family, but a substantial period of his career, including his earliest starring roles, took place in Argentina. In 1941, he debuted as a stage actor in the company of legendary star Margarita Xirgu, and from 1943 on, he became a successful screen leading man, co-starring with Eva Duarte (the future Mrs. Perón) in her only substantial film role. His Latin American career in the 1940s includes El pecado de Julia (Julia’s Sin, Mario Soffici, 1946), Historia de una mala mujer (Tale of a Bad Woman, Luis Saslavsky, 1948), and Tierra de fuego (Land of Fire, Mario Soffici, 1948). He came to Spain in 1955. At the time, Juan Antonio Bardem was looking for an actor to play the lecturer protagonist in Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955), and Closas effectively projected an angst-ridden image that was perfect for this story of bourgeois bad conscience. In those years, he was an imposing presence in such films as the Shakespeare adaptation La fierecilla domada (Taming of the Shrew, Antonio Román, 1956), La vida en un bloc (Life in a Notebook, Luis Lucia, 1956), Distrito quinto (Fifth District, Julio Coll,

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1958), and the entertaining Edgar Neville drawing-room comedy El baile (The Dance, 1959). Unfortunately, there were few other good roles for the rest of his career, with titles that alternated between light comedy and drama. His most popular role was as the congenial patriarch in La gran familia (The Big Family, Fernando Palacios, 1962), one of the biggest-grossing titles in Spanish film history, and its two sequels (La familia . . . y uno más [The Family and One More, Fernando Palacios, 1965] and La familia bien gracias [The Family Is Fine, Thanks, Pedro Masó, 1979]). COCHECITO, EL / THE MOTORIZED WHEELCHAIR (1960). After their success together with El pisito (The Little Flat, 1959), scriptwriter Rafael Azcona and director Marco Ferreri teamed up once more for a project inspired by an unpublished novel by Azcona, about an old man who dreams of a motorized wheelchair so that he can go on outings with his disabled friends, who seemed to be having all the fun as their vehicles allowed them to get away from their families. Funds for the project were provided by Pere Portabella’s company Films 59, and the script went through a series of transformations to focus on the central character. In terms of influences, critics have underlined a clear neorealist element, with specific reference to Umberto D, but the writer and director move away from humanism or sermonizing, in order to put in front of audiences a bleak portrait of the human condition. Where neorealist precedents were hopeful and sentimental, the world envisioned by Azcona and Ferreri is grimly funny. Anselmo (José Isbert) lives in a small crowded flat with his son’s family (all played by great comic actors, including Maria Luisa Ponte as his daughter-in-law, Chus Lampreave as the grand-daughter, and José Luis López Vázquez as her fiancé). His only moments of happiness are outings to the countryside with friends, but all of his acquaintances are disabled and have adapted their wheelchairs with motorized contraptions, leaving him to follow or take the bus. He starts demanding one of his own from his son, but the latter refuses, claiming Anselmo is not ill. Getting a motorized wheelchair will become an obsession for the old man, and he attempts a lie to make

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everybody believe his legs are failing. In the meantime, he comes to an agreement with an orthopedist to pay the first installment of a new model, but he will have to steal and sell the family jewelry to keep up with the payments. When his son forces him to get the money back, Anselmo makes a big decision: he will steal the money and kill his whole family by poisoning the stew. Now he is free to join his friends, but as he tries to run away he is stopped by the police. The censors objected to a number of elements, most significantly the fact that, in the original, Anselmo actually killed his family and was taken to jail. Ferreri and Portabella changed the ending, and in the released version, he made a telephone call to warn them (this scene was shot just before the release). The film went on to win the Fipresci award at the Venice Film Festival and did well at the box office. However, even if they could not pin down the reason, the authorities were suspicious of Ferreri’s dark fable. When it came time for him to renew his work permit, it was refused, and he returned to Italy. The main force at the core of the film is José Isbert in one of his few starring parts, whose acting and movements determine mise en scene. There are few other instances in Spanish cinema of identification between an actor and a character: it is not so much a question of Isbert becoming Anselmo as Anselmo being absorbed into Isbert’s persona. A number of supporting players would reappear two years later in Berlanga’s El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963). To date, El cochecito is still considered one of the undoubted masterpieces of Spanish cinema, with a strong satiric streak, but never facile in the criticism of the social situation. Indeed, even today, the target of the satire is unclear. Azcona and Ferreri choose an oblique view of a man with an absurd dream in a society riddled with contradictions, and, as in many scripts by Azcona, the film becomes a reflection on the aspirations of small men being crushed by reality. COIXET, ISABEL (1960– ). Isabel Coixet was born in Barcelona. She studied history, and graduated with a dissertation on American cinema. She trained as script girl and participated in several productions as assistant before starting a career in advertising that led her to set up her own company. In 1988, she shot her first script, Demasiado viejo para morir Joven (Too Old to Die Young). The film was presented at

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the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it was aggressively trashed by the critics. The experience sent the director into a deep crisis of self-confidence that lasted eight years, a period during which she became a respected director of TV spots. Then, in 1996, Coixet decided on a second attempt at a feature film, traveling to the United States and shooting the low-budget, independent, nonunion Things I Never Told You in a town in the Midwest. In spite of limited resources, she was able to work with some actors who would later develop substantial careers, such as Lili Taylor, as well as with the more established Seymour Cassel and Andrew McCarthy. The film is a typically grim account of several lives dominated by frustration, which was presented at international festivals and caught critics’ attention. Her next film was the period drama A los que aman (Those Who Love, 1998), set in the first half of the 19th century and, as in her previous film, featuring a gallery of wounded, sad characters. My Life Without Me (2003) was a well-received melodrama starring Sarah Polley as a young woman who readies herself to die when she finds out she has uterine cancer. In 2006, Coixet directed La vida secreta de las palabras (The Secret Life of Words), produced by El Deseo S.A., which critics regard as her best film so far. The melancholy mood in her previous efforts was if anything exacerbated in this story mostly set on an oil drilling platform in the middle of the North Sea. Also the theme of the difficulties of dealing with painful emotions, so important in her previous efforts, was here articulated historically in the story of a young mother who becomes scarred for life when she is brutally forced to kill her baby during the Balkan war. Coixet got intense performances from Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins as two deeply wounded characters, but especially managed to convey a visually fascinating world, evidence of a strong outlook. This was one of the most critically successful films of the year, earning a number of national and international awards, including the Goya. After this, she participated in the multi-director project Paris, je t’aime (2006), a film of sketches, each focusing on one Parisian district (Coixet did the Bastille episode). Elegy (2008), was based on the Philip Roth novel The Dying Animal, starred Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley, and was set in New York; like most previous films by Coixet, it was shot in English. It

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featured a womanizing University professor who is used to flirting with ex-students but who unexpectedly falls in love with a Cuban exile. Such unplanned emotions actually interrupt the relationship. As in her previous films, Coixet brought a searing sense of pain to the realization of true love. This was followed in 2009 by Mapa de los sonidos de Tokyo (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo), a visually arresting portrait of pain focused on a frustrated love affair between a Spanish wine merchant played by Sergi López and a Japanese contract killer played by Rinko Kikuchi. Shot in the Japanese capital, it is a film of murmurs, rustle, and textures, which progresses quietly, almost tentatively, finding poetry in the relationship between the oddly matched protagonists. COLOMO, FERNANDO (1946– ). Fernando Colomo belongs to the first generation of post-Franco Spanish filmmakers. After completing a degree in architecture and then studying art direction at Film School, he was first noticed outside the mainstream with a series of mischievous shorts including Usted va a ser mamá and Pomporrutas imperiales (both 1976). His 1977 film Tigres de papel (Paper Tigers) perfectly conveys the mood of twenty-somethings who find themselves in a situation of sexual and political freedom. It was an instance of the kind of themes that would also be explored by Fernando Trueba in Ópera Prima (1979), a film co-produced by Colomo. Other comedies along similar lines were ¿Qué hace una chica como tú en un sitio como éste? (What Is a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? 1978), ¡Estoy en crisis! (Going Through a Crisis, 1982), and La línea del cielo (Skyline, 1984). By the early 1980s, the novelty began to wear thin and he sought a new direction for his work. A combination of his work as producer and director is El caballero del dragón (Dragon’s Knight, 1985), a fantasy epic starring pop star Miguel Bosé that was at the time the most expensive film in Spanish film history. It was a big box-office flop. His films of the 1990s are efficient but less personal. Rosa Rosae (1993) is an accomplished comedy that made good use of María Barranco and Ana Belén, both typecast. Alegre ma non troppo (Gay, but Not That Much, 1994) was the slightly embarrassing story of a young gay man who wants to “change.” Los años bárbaros (The Brutal Years, 1998) was received as a return to form. It was a clever

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road movie that followed two young men in the post Civil War years as they run away from prison in the company of two young American women, with engaging performances by Jordi Mollá, Ernesto Alterio, and Juan Echanove as a fascist thug. Colomo’s recent films include El cuarteto de la Habana (Havana Quartet, 1999); Al sur de Granada (South of Granada, 2003), a story inspired by real events in the life of British historian Gerald Brennan; and the multicultural comedy El próximo oriente (Near East, 2006). As a producer, he has supported the work of a young generation of filmmakers including Mariano Barroso (Mi hermano del alma [My Soul Brother], 1994), Azucena Rodríguez (Entre Rojas [Among Reds], 1995), Icíar Bollaín (Hola ¿estás sola? [Hi! . . . Are You on Your Own?], 1995), and the Albacete-Bardem-Menkes team’s (Más que amor, frenesí [Not Love, Frenzy], 1996). COSTUMBRISMO. A perspective based on “costumbrismo” shapes some key manifestations of Spanish culture, including literature, theater, painting, and film. The concept refers to the representation of a series of traditional types and activities linked to the rural and working classes in Spain, which become typical and recognizable even if they are not always “realistic.” In a country with a weak national identity, costumbrismo came to replace historical discourses of nationalist legitimation in popular art. The costumbrista approach takes for granted that audiences will see something of themselves without taking representation too literally. Everyday behaviors in a costumbrismo context become interesting, sometimes absurd, sometimes even grotesque manifestations of some essential “Spanishness.” Even though apparently realistic, types and local color predominate over psychology and cultural identity, and an explicit social agenda is often absent. This trend in Spanish art can be appreciated in the paintings of Velázquez, in the novels of Pérez Galdós, and in the extremely popular plays (known as “sainetes”) by Madrid author Carlos Arniches and the Álvarez Quintero brothers, who set their plots in a fantasy Andalusia. The rural films of Marcel Pagnol in France or even the Ealing Comedies in Britain share with Spanish “costumbrismo” a light-hearted and strictly unepic approach to a notion of common people. But in Spain, this approach has been

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identified as a specific set of stereotypes and conventions that have acquired a centrality seldom found in other cultures. On film, it has a long tradition, starting with the earliest Spanish fiction sketch, Riña en el café, shot by Fructuós Gelabert in 1897. From then on, portrayals of popular backgrounds in Zarzuelas, sainetes, and bullfighting sagas tend to fall within costumbrismo in its recreation of cultural types like the gypsy singer and the paleto (the Spanish version of the illiterate hick). Theatrical sainetes in particular were a frequent source for Spanish cinema until the Civil War. These were short plays that celebrated the lives of the working class and provided a gallery easily recognized types. Actors became hugely popular by specializing in playing one specific type, and in many instances their specialities were transferred to film. The key figure of costumbrismo in the 1940s was Edgar Neville, in a series of films including El crimen de la calle Bordadores (The Crime of Bordadores Street, 1946), El último caballo (The Last Horse, 1950), and Mi calle (My Street, 1960). Other filmmakers like Fernando Fernán Gómez, turned their wit and a keen eye to a genre that was in those years popular and unproblematic. The Franco regime saw the tradition as a way of strengthening national identity and even replacing the idea of cultural nationalism with comic particularities and regional accents. But, of course, in dealing with realities in the lives of the poor there was a potential for more politically relevant approaches. As the 1940s ended, costumbrismo began to assimilate the influence of neorealism without its critical edge, thus acquiring ironic qualities. When the idealized types and fanciful situations were linked to real events, stories showed their grounding in social reality. Given the Spanish situation in the early 1950s (a country isolated, under tight ideological control, intent on forgetting its past, with high rates of poverty and an ailing economy), it was logical that the relationship between costumbrismo and reality acquired social implications. The tradition of critical costumbrismo in Spanish cinema starts with Luis G. Berlanga: a film like ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome Mr. Marshall! 1953) starts with a costumbrista village and situation, and adds a layer of concern for a precise historical moment. Costumbrismo is also scriptwriter Rafael Azcona’s strength (he has claimed his school for writing was simply observing people in the

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streets and cafés), and his earliest collaborations with Marco Ferreri (El pisito [The Little Flat, 1959], El cochecito [The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960]) take Berlanga’s irony even further, to the extent that authorities began to show concern about such bleak comedies. Berlanga himself continued with some of the most critical sainetes in Spanish film: Plácido (1961) uses conventions of sainete to build up a tapestry on the hypocrisy of provincial bourgeoisie, and El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963) is a film that uses an absurdist sainete situation as starting point, as well as a typical sainete cast of characters, to become progressively blacker and more focused on an abstract, ethical question. After the end of the Franco period, costumbrismo was at risk of becoming nostalgia. Films dealing with the postwar, like Mario Camus’ La colmena (The Beehive, 1982), took good care to add a critical layer to the catalog of types. A new approach to costumbrismo can be found in some films by Pedro Almodóvar, including Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, 1981), ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (1984), and Volver (2006), which explore the new popular backgrounds with a particular interest for off-beat types and scant reference to political reality. CRÍA CUERVOS / RAISE RAVENS (1976). Carlos Saura’s Cría cuervos, produced by Elías Querejeta, was the first script the director wrote on his own, and one of his greatest successes as the Franco period was about to end. The title was inspired by a Spanish proverb that says “If you raise ravens, they’ll pluck your eyes out,” which is about the potentially disastrous effects of education on children. Like many films in the dissident tradition in those years, it works as a metaphorical melodrama in which audiences are encouraged to read between the lines and beyond the more literal elements of the plot. Most elements of the film, in terms of characterization or location, seem to demand such symbolic reading. The story takes place mostly in a large labyrinthine mansion in Madrid. At the start, Ana (played by Ana Torrent), a nine-year-old girl, hears her father die while having sex with a friend of the family. Later, we become aware that she has tried to kill her father with a white powder she thinks is poison. The film then proceeds to describe the family situation: Ana and her two sisters are the daughters of a civil war veteran (played by

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Héctor Alterio) and a young English woman (Geraldine Chaplin) who died a few years back. It was an unhappy marriage, and Ana has taken sides with her mother, who turns up as a ghostly presence in the house. After the father’s death, aunt Paulina (Mónica Randall), the mother’s sister, comes to live in the house and take care of the children. She is obsessed with bringing order into the house, but Ana resents discipline and starts planning her death. Another layer is added through close-ups of a grown-up Ana (also played by Chaplin) as she comments on the events and reminisces on a largely unhappy childhood. Finally, the girls’ grandmother sits silently in a wheelchair, and her expression only comes to light as she is placed in front of old pictures to the tune of an old-fashioned copla. On its release in 1976, the film was read as an indictment of the Franco regime, which had raised little conflicted monsters like Ana, and audiences were curious enough to turn it into a box-office hit. It was awarded the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and Saura was nominated as best director (he won that award at the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos in Spain). CRUZ, PENÉLOPE (1974– ). With her dark sultry looks, it was almost inevitable that Penélope Cruz became stereotyped in the role of a Latin prostitute when attempting a career in Hollywood; what is remarkable is that she managed to find a balance between such characters, the publicity pressures of a starlet’s life (she had a vague romance with Tom Cruise and for it was known as “The Spanish Enchantress” by the popular press), and more substantial choices for some important directors, including in recent years Fernando Trueba, Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Díaz Yanes, and Isabel Coixet. Cruz came from a comfortable middle-class Madrid background, and dance was her first vocation, studying conscientiously under a series of teachers. She claimed it was Victoria Abril’s performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down!, 1990), that forced her to reconsider her vocation and turn to cinema. She did some advertising and a number of small roles on television before her film debut in 1992 with El laberinto griego (The Greek Labyrinth, Rafael Alcázar, 1993), where she had a brief appearance. But it was Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992) that brought her to

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the attention of critics and audiences. Her charms at that time were largely sexual, her talents as an actress grew through the decade. In Jamón, Jamón, she came across as a shrill, stubborn nymphet who had men falling in lust with her. Indeed, shrillness was a typical feature of her early roles, one that had not been completely tuned down when she appeared in the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992), where she played the youngest of four sisters and the one who finally got her man, a role that revealed her liveliness and sense of humor. After this excursion, she selected her projects carefully, working in four roles in 1996, including a very substantial turn in Gómez Pereira’s El amor perjudica seriamente la salud (Love Seriously Damages Health). Her first collaboration with Almodóvar came as a brief cameo as a young single mother in Carne trémula (Live Flesh, 1997). Despite her youth (she was only 23), Almodóvar saw her nurturing qualities, which he would go on to explore both in Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999) and, especially, in Volver (2006). Before these came Abre los ojos (Open your Eyes, Alejandro Amenábar) in 1997, where she projected vulnerability, but without much substance. The next step toward maturity came with La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, Fernando Trueba, 1998), a charming performance that brought together all of her qualities for the first time, and which is both touching and comic. In this film, she plays a performer inspired by Imperio Argentina, and she was required to do some singing and dancing in addition to projecting a great deal of charisma: her success earned her increasing critical attention. By the late 1990s, she had become well known internationally, and after her role in Vanilla Sky (the American remake of Abre los ojos), she took roles in Hollywood. Many of them were insubstantial (Woman on Top [2000], Sahara [2005]), requiring next to no range, but she acquitted herself professionally. One important instance for which she earned numerous awards was the gritty 2004 Don’t Move, directed by Sergio Castellito. Finally, Pedro Almodóvar called her once more for the plum role of Raimunda in his hit Volver, in which she played Carmen Maura’s resourceful daughter. It was an impressive performance that displayed a range of moods and nuanced intensity. In this film, she proved she had definitely outgrown her nymphet

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phase; the role earned her a handful of international awards and an Oscar nomination as best actress (the first for a Spanish actress). Isabel Coixet’s Elegy (2008) took her to new ground. In the first half, she is the object of desire of a middle-aged professor, but her performance gains in stature as we see the authority her honesty achieves and the way she makes the older man fall deeply in love with her. She won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role of a spitfire artist in Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008). Her most recent role is again for Almodóvar, as a femme fatale in Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces, 2009). CUADRADO, LUIS (1934–1980). In the late 1960s and 1970s, Luis Cuadrado was one of the most respected cinematographers in Spanish cinema and, even today, key professionals like Javier Aguirresarobe and Teo Escamilla regard themselves as followers of his approach to light. His input in some of the best instances of Nuevo cine español was both technically innovative and intensely personal. Cuadrado studied photography at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas, graduating in 1962. He worked as a trainee in several substantial projects of the early 1960s. His first important achievement was in Carlos Saura’s La caza (The Hunt, 1966), where he was careful to capture the harsh effect of scorching sun on barren land with little technical enhancements. In the next decade, he worked closely with directors of a number of Elías Querejeta projects, coming to define the visual style of Nuevo cine español. He is responsible, for instance, for the gray atmospheres in those melancholy, metaphorical films. Inspired by the Spanish painting traditions, he chose an austere light and tended to prefer natural light. His work of the period includes other Saura films like Peppermint Frappé (1967) and La madriguera (The Honeycomb, 1969), as well as the portmanteau film Los desafíos (José Luis Egea, Claudio Guerín, and Victor Erice, 1969), Francisco Regueiro’s Si volvemos a vernos (Smashing Up, 1968), Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s Habla mudita (Speak, Little Mute Girl, 1973), and Antxón Eceiza’s De cuerpo presente (In the Presence of the Body, 1967). Besides his Querejeta collaborations, he worked for producer José Luis Borau in Un, dos, tres . . . al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three . . . Gotcha! Iván

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Zulueta, 1970), Hay que matar a B. (B. Must Be Killed, José Luis Borau, 1975), and Furtivos (Poachers, José Luis Borau, 1975). Cuadrado’s greatest achievement was the atmosphere he created, in collaboration with Víctor Erice, for the Querejeta-produced El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973). The amber light in that film can be seen both as a literal expression of the beehive-like world the director describes and a metaphor of a period of repressed emotions. His last important film was Ricardo Franco’s Pascual Duarte (1976), where he attempted an extremely contrasted chiaroscuro style. At that time, he was going blind and during the shoot of Angelino Fons’s Emilia, parada y fonda, he understood he would be unable to work as a cinematographer. He committed suicide in 1980. CUERDA, JOSÉ LUIS (1947– ). José Luis Cuerda was born in Albacete and studied law before settling on an arts career. From 1969, he worked for Spanish Television as news producer, scriptwriter, and, eventually, director. His first big-screen effort was Pares y nones (Even and Odd, 1991). The film that earned him critics and audiences’ attention was El bosque animado (The Animated Forest, 1987), an ensemble piece set in the woods that added to traditional rural narratives an element of fantasy. It featured an engaging performance by Alfredo Landa (as a bandit) and was scripted by Rafael Azcona. In 1989, he directed the film that best represents his personal contribution to Spanish cinema: Amanece que no es poco (It’s Dawn, and That Should Be Enough), a story set in an imaginary village with whimsical, surrealistic elements. The film, however, did not make an impact at the box office. Next came La marrana (The Sowie, 1992), a more conventional film and Cuerda’s personal take on the celebrations of the Columbus 1492 expeditions featuring a couple of Spanish tricksters who roam the country at the end of the 15th century. Así en el cielo como en la tierra (In Heaven as in Earth, 1995) was another fantasy along the lines of Amanece que no es poco, this time set in a village representing “heaven.” The impressionistic, slow-burning La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly’s Tongue, 1999) is Cuerda’s most critically praised film so far, and also his most heartfelt. Co-written with Azcona, it tells

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the story of a young boy influenced by a liberal teacher on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. The director returned to his beloved rural setting and displayed an understanding of a child’s uncomprehending perspective. La educación de las hadas (The Education of Fairies, 2006), which used similar themes, had less impact on critics and audiences. The postwar was the background to the Azcona-scripted Los girasoles ciegos (The Blind Sunflowers, 2008), about a priest’s passion for the wife of a Republican intellectual, which was very well received. Besides his credits as writer and director, Cuerda was the first professional to encourage and support young Alejandro Amenábar. He has a cameo on Amenábar’s Tesis (Dissertation, 1996), a film he produced. He also worked as producer of Amenábar’s next two films: Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes, 1997) and Los otros / The Others (2001).

– D – DESARROLLISMO COMEDY. In political terms, desarrollismo is the prevailing political and economic ideology of the mid-1960s in Spain. After two decades of strict austerity imposed by the Spanish support to Fascist regimes during World War II (which prevented Spain from participating in international organizations), measures were introduced to revitalize the regime structures through the introduction of a new generation of “technocrats” who were more concerned with economic progress than ideological integrity. The process started in 1956, but its consolidation was slow and only became a palpable reality in the next decade. The promotion of tourism was a key strategy for economic development, but it also presented cultural challenges. A number of contradictions had to be dealt with: how to keep a tight grasp on society (through censorship and penalties for dissident artistic expression) while presenting a friendly face to visitors and potential customers; how to protect the integrity of the regime while letting in as many visitors as possible. Such contradictions are present in most mainstream films of the period, but are particularly articulated in the comedia del desarrollismo or desarrollismo comedy.

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These popular, artistically unambitious stories show an awareness of the need for (and inevitability of) modernity, and take one of two positions. A minority of them focus on the regret for the disappearance of traditional Spanish culture, which was being crushed under modernizing pressures just as dirt roads were transformed into asphalt. These films tend to present an antithesis between rural and urban Spain, which is resolved in favor of the former. Paco Martínez Soria was the star of this variety of desarrollismo comedy in films like La ciudad no es para mí (The City Is Not For Me, 1966), El turismo es un gran invento (Tourism Is a Great Invention, 1968), and Abuelo Made in Spain (Grandfather Made in Spain, 1969), all directed by Pedro Lazaga. In these films, modernity leads to disaster and broken families, and even if one has to end up accepting it as a compromise, they suggest that it is always good to keep some awareness of traditional roots. Most of the desarrollismo comedies, however, tried to find a less reactionary balance between the need for modernity and the demands of tradition that could be accommodated by official discourse. Seen today, these films seem to come from a parallel universe for their lack of engagement with social realities as described by historians, and their logic is often hard to follow. Women could now take a more active role and even a narrow range of jobs, but too much feminism was ridiculed. And although access to the workplace was not frowned upon, the best professions were traditionally female ones (maids, nurses, teachers). Technology was slowly accepted: cars and appliances, for instance, had growing visibility and centrality in terms of plots, although characters were often seen grappling with them. The image the country was meant to project was relaxed and colorful, welcoming to visitors, but there was a sharp divide between the baffled and inarticulate, tall blonde foreigners and the average Spaniard. Examples of this strand of desarrollismo comedy are Las chicas de la cruz roja (Girls of the Red Cross, Rafael J. Salvia, 1958), Vuelve San Valentín (Saint Valentine Returns, Fernando Palacios, 1962), Historias de la televisión (Tales of Television, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1965), Sor Citroen (Sister Citroën, Pedro Lazaga, 1967), and the Gracita Morales-José Luis López Vázquez comedies, including Operación cabaretera (Operation Cabaret Singer, Mariano Ozores, 1967), which remains one of the most

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popular Spanish films ever; Objetivo Bikini (Target: Bikini, Mariano Ozores, 1968); and Operación Mata Hari (Operation Mata Hari, Mariano Ozores, 1968). These films never engaged even with the possibility (not to mention aptness) of political change, and sexual freedom seemed to be the only thing that Spaniards envied of countries (one instance of this is Lo verde empieza en los Pirineos [Smut Begins Across the Pyrinees, Vicente Escrivá, 1973]). Toward the end of the period, at the end of the decade, the influence of tourism and foreign films made a certain vision of sex increasingly important. At this point, desarrollismo had completed its cycle, and the central impulse of mainstream films turned to either landismo or tercera vía comedies, depending on whether sex or social change was more prominent. DÍA DE LA BESTIA, EL / DAY OF THE BEAST (1995). Day of the Beast was the film that established Álex de la Iglesia internationally as a popular director after the promising Acción mutante, produced by the Almodóvar-owned El Deseo S.A. Although it follows the story line of many old horror films (with satanic motives culled from the likes of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, for instance), this was filtered through teenage humor. The film was the confirmation of a new mood in Spanish cinema, one that took inspiration from comics and the trashier reaches of popular culture (hard rock, demonic possessions, occultist television programs, action movies, gore, and violence), consciously removed from the “quality” tradition that dominated mainstream auteurist film projects in the 1980s. The story takes place in little more than 24 hours and follows a bereted Basque priest (Alex Angulo) who has discovered that the Anti-christ is being born in Madrid, on Christmas day of 1995. To prevent this from happening, he is assisted by a heavy-metal freak (Santiago Segura) and an occult broadcast host (Armando De Razza). Rather than a coherent narrative following the principles of economy and necessity, De la Iglesia and co-scriptwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarría seem to work within the conventions of comics, stringing together a series of episodes, each focused on achieving certain effects, rather than contributing to the whole: the death of one protagonist’s mother (Terele Pávez) seems to have no impact on him, and the whole idea of a satanic pact does not make much sense when

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one thinks about it. Neither does the resolution, in which a parafascist group who have been killing beggars end up exterminating the Anti-christ just as it is being born in the construction site of one of Madrid’s most emblematic buildings. In an explosively postmodern vein, serious issues are undercut with ironic humor at every point: the connection between the names of hard rock groups and the lexicon of satanic rites is used time and again for comic purposes, as is the culture built around trash television. Action scenes were very carefully storyboarded, and the film was a success with younger audiences. With an estimated budget of 1.5 million euros, it made three times as much in a year. At the 1996 Goyas, it won in six categories, mostly technical but also including best director and best newcomer performer (Santiago Segura), and ultimately it jump-started the careers of De la Iglesia and Segura, who from then on became two of the most popular figures in Spanish film, developing a strong fan base. DÍAZ YANES, AGUSTÍN (1950– ). Díaz Yanes’ family background is relevant to some aspects and thematic strands of his filmmaking. His father was a bullfighter; his mother had been a teacher and a feminist in the 1930s, who kept a library of books forbidden by the Franco regime and instilled in her son a taste for reading. Their presences are keenly felt in his most personal film, Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Talk About Us When We Die, 1995). They were both staunch Republicans who found Francoism stifling, and prepared their children for a better life beyond the narrow limits of the Francoist education system. Agustín, the middle son, was sent to a British school and then was awarded by the government a grant for higher education in the United States. He became a specialist on the Spanish Civil War. On his return to Spain he wrote some scripts that were made into interesting films: Barrios altos (Wealthy Suburbs, José Luis Berlanga, 1987), Baton Rouge (Rafael Monleón, 1988), and Demasiado corazón (Too Much Heart, Eduardo Campoy, 1992). In all of them, his interest in noir-inflected plots is prominent, as well as his skill in delineating characters for strong women (Victoria Abril starred in Demasiado corazón). For years, he had been developing the project that would become Nadie hablará de nosotras . . ., a script about an

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illiterate prostitute adopted by an ex-Republican school teacher (a character inspired by his mother). He sought funding and ended up directing it himself. Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto was a critical and box-office hit, and was awarded eight Goyas, including best new director. Critics admired the personal perspective, the raw intensity of the performances in a cast headed by Abril and Pilar Bardem, and its subtle engagement with historical and social issues. His next project was to shoot a script inspired by the experiences of women during the Civil War, but two similarly themed films (Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias [Freedom Fighters, 1996] and Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom [1995]) had just been released, and he could not find a producer. Finally, he found support for the more whimsical Sin noticias de Dios (No News From God, 2001), a fantasy fable starring Abril and Penélope Cruz about angels who mingle with the living. In spite of not earning the same critical respect as his previous directing effort, the film retained an original outlook, sharp visual and verbal wit, and evidenced his great skill in handling performers (a large international cast including Fanny Ardant, Gael García Bernal, and Gemma Jones among others). Díaz Yanes’ next project was, again, a shift of trajectory: he was chosen to put on screen a series of hugely successful historical novels revolving around the figure of 17th-century adventurer Alatriste. This was the most expensive production in Spanish cinema to date, and yet Díaz Yanes’ vision remains true. The exquisite detail of the costumes and art direction, the spectacular effect of the battle scenes and the cast, including Viggo Mortensen as the protagonist, guaranteed the film´s success. Sólo quiero caminar (I Only Want to Keep on Walking, 2008), starring Ariadna Gil, Victoria Abril, Pilar López de Ayala, and Diego Luna, was a return to contemporary drama and also to some of the themes and characters of Nadie hablará de nosotras . . . . Again, the director’s compassion for strong women, involved now in an operation to rob Mexican drug traffickers, shines through: below the action-thriller surface beats an intensely emotional story of survivors and solidarity conveyed through Gil’s sad gaze. DIEGO, JUAN (1942– ). An actor’s actor, respected and admired by the profession (Javier Bardem considers him his hero), Juan Diego

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had a long career on stage and television before he was widely recognized as an established screen presence. Since the late 1950s, he had been a regular in various TV roles, particularly in filmed plays. From the late 1960s, he was featured in a number of low-budget films, including some by Eloy de la Iglesia (Algo amargo en la boca [Something Bitter in the Mouth, 1969], La criatura [The Creature, 1977]), but remained primarily a stage actor. During the Transition, he was very committed to left-wing causes and owed his reputation to activism rather than acting. This began to change in the mid-1980s. Paradoxically, it was his part as a heartless Francoist landowner in Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984) that first brought him to film audiences’ attention. He was also the first Spanish actor to play General Francisco Franco on screen, in Dragon Rapide (Jaime Camino, 1986). These two roles were a first measure of an outstanding versatility, displayed in a variety of protagonist and supporting roles. A selective list of his most remarkable parts would include his Saint John of the Cross in Carlos Saura’s Noche oscura (Dark Night, 1989); a very funny and cannily drawn nervous monk in El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, Imanol Uribe, 1991); the castrated father in the testosterone-fuelled Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992); a nudist libertarian in Paris Timbuctú (Luis G. Berlanga, 1994); a highly strung and uncommunicative boss in Smoking Room (Roger Gual y Julio D. Wallowits, 2002); a low-life boss in La virgen de la lujuria (Virgin of Lust, Arturo Ripstein, 2002); the menacing head of a publishing company in trouble (Torremolinos 73, Pablo Berger, 2003); and a failed actor bonding with his son in Vete de mí (Go Away From Me, Victor García León, 2006) for which he won a Goya award. DIPUTADO, EL / THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT (1979). Eloy de la Iglesia’s El diputado is emblematic of a certain line of development in Spanish cinema during the Transition years. The end of censorship dominated the scene, and it was important to focus on issue-led films that dealt with matters forbidden until then. Eroticism, violence, the past, and politics were privileged motifs, and El diputado boldly gestured toward all of them. With the earlier Los placeres ocultos (Hidden Pleasures, 1977), it forms a diptych of De la Iglesia films centered on homosexuality. Los placeres ocultos

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had been written at the end of Francoism, under apprehensions of censorship, so for the director El diputado was an opportunity to set his central theme in a wider context that could take for granted the new freedoms achieved with the 1978 Constitution. And this wider context included almost everything that was going on in Spain’s troubled streets circa 1979: prostitution, the crisis of the Left, street violence, engaging with the past, fascist thugs, and the discovery of sexual freedom. El diputado dared to articulate all of these elements, and the result was undeniably sensational (critics claimed it was a morbid interest for the forbidden that made De la Iglesia’s films so popular). Still, if one concentrates on the central story of a rising star of the political left, who finally discovers love and decides to come out of the closet as a gay man in spite of the homophobia around him, it was well written and had political and cultural implications never before explored in Spanish film (and only seldom abroad). The main character is played by José Sacristán, and there are no external signs of homosexuality: De la Iglesia is interested, in a time dominated by strong (homophobic) assumptions on what a homosexual was like, in projecting an idea of complete “normality.” Narrated in flashback, Roberto tells audiences how he discovered his inclinations but kept them secret, and even married his friend Carmen (Maria Luisa San José). Fascist opponents decide to blemish his reputation by outing him just as he is about to take on higher responsibilities within the party. The notion of a married, closeted homosexual who could potentially become the president of the Spanish parliament was unimaginable at the time, and even today seems an odd proposal. To bait him, the Fascists put in his path curly-haired cherub Juanito (José Luis Alonso). But what is little more than an exchange of sex for money at the beginning will become a full-blown emotional relationship that forces Roberto to reconsider his life. When Juanito is murdered in his flat, Roberto feels he has to come out before the truth is revealed. DUBBING. Dubbing foreign films was introduced in Spain in 1932, and was carried out for years largely at Trilla-La Riva, a Barcelona company. It was in the Catalan capital that the practice flourished in the prewar years. The practice of shooting “alternative versions” (often with different actors) in Hollywood and in European studios,

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which had prevailed as a standard in the early years of the talkies, was costly and soon abandoned in favor of simply adding a different soundtrack. Dubbing took off quickly in a country where rates for illiteracy were around 50 percent. Inspired by recent measures introduced by Benito Mussolini in Italy, Francisco Franco’s government made it compulsory for (misguided) political reasons: following a 1941 decree, every foreign film released had to be dubbed into Spanish first and required a license only government institutions could award. The explicit rationale was that in dubbing, the Spanish language (and the essence of Spanish culture itself) would be “protected.” But from the very beginning, even directors closest to official ideologies disagreed: it was claimed that what was introduced as a way of protecting the language could have a detrimental effect on the Spanish film industry as a whole, since one way that Spanish films could compete with U.S. products was that they could be more easily understood. Clearly, dubbing benefited exhibitors and distributors, but had a negative impact on Spanish producers and filmmakers. When it ceased to be compulsory in 1947, audiences were used to it and there was no going back. During the late 1940s, new measures for the protection of Spanish cinema were introduced, and dubbing was integrated in the scheme. Since dubbed Hollywood films could bring in more money, it was decided that permission to exhibit the Spanish version would only be granted to a distribution company when it also released a certain number of Spanish films (the result being that cheap films were produced to “buy” dubbing licenses that allowed the release of more-attractive Hollywood products). Within the ideological project of Francoism, dubbing could be a way to censor films and eliminate offensive or politically sensitive motifs. A number of cases have gone down in history: in the dubbed version of Casablanca, Rick did not support the Spanish Republican army, and a married couple in Mogambo (John Ford, 1952) were dubbed so that the wife’s affair with Clark Gable would not be adulterous. The status of films in the original version changed slightly with introduction in 1961 of special cinemas (“Arte y ensayo”) that were allowed to show problematic foreign films as long as they were subtitled rather than dubbed. Thus, films in foreign languages were also associated with “art” and obscurity, and therefore ghettoized by

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wider audiences who preferred entertainment. Even today, only in the largest cities are Spaniards offered the alternative to see films in their original versions. Dubbing became a practice even for Spanish films, as it meant a quicker shooting period, and some Spanish directors claimed it smoothed the projects and allowed actors to concentrate on performance, rather than on the location of microphones. In spite of these economic advantages, the result is a certain flat quality to sound and voices in Spanish cinema overall. It is unlikely that the situation will ever change. Given the centrality of dubbing, a solid industry had grown up around it, employing a small body of committed professionals. Important stars were dubbed by the same actors, and in time directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg chose to work with specific dubbing directors (Carlos Saura directed the Spanish version of Kubrick films). Such auteurist dubbing brings issues of its own, as it seems a central condition of dubbing that it is “invisible” and audiences will consistently reject dubbing that calls attention on itself. The result is that dubbing professionals work to keep Spanish versions flat and standardized, and any dialectal and stylistic richness of originals tends to be lost in translation.

– E – ECEIZA, ANTXON (1935). Antxón Eceiza completed a law degree in Valladolid University, where he met future producer Elías Querejeta in the mid-1950s. He moved to Madrid in 1957, and entered the Official Film School (at the time named Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas) to study film direction. In those years, he also worked as a critic and was very active in the cine club movement, strengthened after the Salamanca Conversations. His programming choices reflected his left-wing sympathies, which would eventually bring him into trouble with the authorities. After his studies, he found work in a variety of projects as assistant to artistically ambitious directors like Juan Antonio Bardem, Jacinto Grau, and Manuel Mur Oti. His close friendship with Querejeta helped him launch a career as director. The producer financed his earliest documentary shorts,

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A través de San Sebastián (Through Saint Sebastian, 1960) and A través del fútbol (The World of Football, 1962). Immediately, he evidenced a nonconformist approach to cinema. El próximo otoño (Next Fall, 1963), his feature debut, was set in a small seaside village visited by tourists, and the story about culture clash could be read implicitly as a critique of traditional Spanish society and suggested the need for change. Next came De cuerpo presente (In the Presence of the Body, 1965), his most critically acclaimed film, based on a novel by Gonzalo Suárez (which Eceiza adapted with Francisco Regueiro), set in the world of advertising, and photographed by Luis Cuadrado, who took inspiration from the work of nouvelle vague cinematographers. In this film, he seemed to be moving away from realism while keeping his distance from the more aesthetically avant garde Escuela de Barcelona filmmakers. After Último encuentro (Last Encounter, 1966), he completed his last collaboration with Querejeta, Las secretas intenciones (The Secret Intentions, 1970), a film written with Rafael Azcona, which shows the influence of existentialist literature. Historically, Eceiza is considered a representative instance of Nuevo cine español, in terms of objectives, concerns, and style. By 1970, the clash with official institutions became an obstacle, and he went into exile, first to Mexico for four years (where he directed Mira, viento de libertad [Look, Wind of Freedom, 1977] and Complot mongol [Mongolian Plot, 1978]) and then to France. He returned after the Transition and became one of the main supporters of Basque cinema, completing two little-known films: Días de humo (Days of Smoke, 1990) and Felicidades Tovarich (Congratulations, Tovarich, 1995). ECHANOVE, JUAN (1961– ). Juan Echanove’s bulky build, sad liquid eyes, and fleshy features keep him from playing typical leading man parts, but his career has been all the more interesting for this. After beginning law studies, he shifted careers for acting, and his film debut took place in supporting roles in El caso Almería (The Almería Case, 1984) and La noche más hermosa (The Most Beautiful Night, 1984). He went on to play the excessive, sensualistic young intellectual who is oedipally obsessed with his mother in Vicente Aranda’s Tiempo de Silencio (A Time of Silence, 1986). As in many of the

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younger post-Transition generation, his career took off after starring in a television series (as a lawyer in Turno de oficio). By the late 1980s, his had become a popular face, and this allowed him a certain freedom in the selection of film roles. A potentially unremarkable part as the retarded man in José Luis García Sánchez’s Divinas palabras (Divine Words, 1987) earned him a Goya as best supporting actor. He played General Francisco Franco in Francisco Regueiro’s Madregilda (1993), his best hour on screen, which showcased his ability for comedy. Perfectly matching the film’s tone, he approached the role as a caricature, and he put into it the cynicism and coldness of the real character. Very much in demand during the 1990s, he had a key supporting part in Pedro Almodóvar’s La flor de mi secreto (Flower of My Secret, 1995) as a lonely, over-emotional journalist who develops unrequited feelings for the protagonist. Next came a starring part in García Sánchez’s Suspiros de España (y Portugal) (Spanish [and Portuguese] Sighs, 1995) and his enjoyable turn as a fascist heavy in Fernando Colomo’s road movie Los años bárbaros (The Barbarian Years, 1998). Echanove returned to the theater to play Sancho Panza in a staging of Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote, as well as in a monologue in which he played a pig (The Pig). In recent years, he has worked regularly, but mostly in supporting roles. He was especially good in Morir en San Hilario (To Die in Saint Hilario, Laura Mañá, 2005), Bienvenido a casa (Welcome Home, David Trueba, 2006), and Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006), in which he was almost unrecognizable as Spanish Golden Age poet Francisco de Quevedo. EN CONSTRUCCIÓN / WORK IN PROGRESS (2001). A milestone in Spanish documentary, En construcción follows the impact that the construction of a new building has in El Raval, one of Barcelona’s oldest and most colorful popular districts. Next to the city center with its world-famous architecture, El Raval was for decades infamous for its brothels, high rate of criminality and illegal immigration, and derelict tenement houses. After the renovation of certain areas of the Catalan capital to coincide with 1992’s Olympics, urban authorities decided to tackle problems in the neighborhood in 1998, setting up a scheme to rehabilitate one of its most problematic areas by pulling

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down older buildings, laying out a large open area, and adding new residences. José Luis Guerín, one of the great independents in post-Franco cinema, known to a very select public by his Bressonian Los motivos de Berta (Berta’s Reasons, 1985), saw in this institutional intervention a good theme for a documentary. He followed the erection of a new structure for a whole year as it rose amid the old quarter, and observed the shifting relationship between the traditional inhabitants of the area (immigrants, working-class youth, retired old folk) and the new lifestyle that the building was meant to attract. The result constitutes a deep look at urban social dynamics and a strongly political statement on globalization and progress. There is no voice-over commentary, just a series of eloquent images and fly-on-the-wall scenes that follow generally a small group of characters: builders (most prominently, an immigrant and his trainee) at the construction site, an old raving madman who claims to have traveled the world discusses an assortment of odd objects he carries with him, a youth of a slightly vague disposition and his prostitute girlfriend are the most prominent, featured along with a wide cross-section of the Raval population. Some of the events captured by Guerín’s cameras were mere coincidences, but they are used to support the film’s central discourse: when the early excavations come upon a Roman burial site, Guerín spends time watching and listening to the reactions of individuals, their awe of history. By the end of the film, the building is completed and prospective buyers for the bright, new apartments come to visit. It is not surprising that they are all interested in living in the old town, but most express their discomfort about “all those people” whose lives we have been following. The building will potentially change the way of life of the old inhabitants of the quarter, but, as it becomes clear, never solve their problems. ERICE, VÍCTOR (1940– ). With only three features to his name, the last released in 1992, Erice remains one of the key personalities of Spanish cinema. His work is widely discussed in Spanish academic circles, and he is a well-known personality even in the context of European art film, often featured in festivals and exhibitions. This is no

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small achievement for an uncompromising director who believes that the only films worth making are those that aspire to high art and who has really only finished one feature according to his original plan, the 1992 documentary El sol del membrillo (The Sun in the Quince), about painter Antonio López. Víctor Erice was born in Karrantza, in the Basque country, and studied at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC), graduating in 1963. That year, he was co-scriptwriter and assistant director to Antxón Eceiza in El próximo otoño (Next Fall, 1963). Over the following years, he wrote a number of essays in which he articulated a sophisticated perspective on film art along the line of elitist European auteurs like Andrei Tarkovsky. In 1967, he wrote the script for Miguel Picazo´s Oscuros sueños de agosto (Dark August Dreams), and in 1969 he directed a segment of the Querejeta-produced portmanteau movie Los desafíos (The Challenges). This was a strange, apocalyptic parable in which an American-style approach to youth culture clashed with another model rooted in European traditions, and it constitutes a statement about a particular position on cultural and political debates. The film won the Silver Shell award at the San Sebastian film festival that year. After a few years in which he turned to advertising (which would remain his main source of income) to make a living, he embarked on another Elías Querejeta project, which would be known as El espíritu de la colmena (Spirit of the Beehive, 1973), based on a draft script by Ángel Fernández Santos. His work showed a personal assimilation of lessons learned from the masters of the European art tradition, including Carl Theodor Dreyer, Robert Bresson, and his admired Tarkovsky. It was not an easy shoot. Following his high artistic standards, Erice worked slowly. Actors Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera had alternative commitments and could not finish all the scenes in which they were initially required to appear; Querejeta grew impatient with Erice’s methods and threatened to shut the production down, so the story had to be refocused, now using the children’s perspective. It may have been a lucky coincidence, as Ana Torrent’s watchful eyes made history in Spanish film and came to constitute the essence of the story. Indeed, as released, El espíritu de la colmena succeeds as an attempt on the side of a child to penetrate the darkness and secrets of a war-ravaged country.

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The director went on to win the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival (the first Spanish auteur ever to do so), and abroad he became emblematic of a national cinema stifled by a dictatorial regime. However, for Erice, spiritual values were as important as political ones, and although the story thematically plays on memories of the Civil War, what lingers in the mind are the sad landscapes, the slow pans, and the way characters look at the world. With the Transition came a number of tributes, and the director and his film were praised by the critical establishment. In spite of this, Erice withdrew from filmmaking for an entire decade, unable to realize his personal conception of artistic cinema, and only returning when Querejeta supported an adaptation of Adelaida García Morales’ short novel El sur. In many ways, the film was a continuation of his previous feature. History repeated itself: shooting proceeded very slowly, and what had been planned as a long three-part production that would be shown on television was reduced to a 95–minute film. Erice’s original vision demanded the interplay between north and south in visual terms, but when Querejeta shut down production again (claiming some funds had never arrived), only the northern section of the film was close to completion. Finally, El sur (South, 1983) was released in cinemas; even in its unfinished state, it was hailed as a masterpiece, immediately becoming one of the most acclaimed films of the 1980s. As in his feature debut, Erice chose the point of view of a young girl (played by future film director Icíar Bollaín) as a point of entry to a network of desires, nostalgia, secrets, and repressed emotions. El sol del membrillo (The Quince’s Sun, 1992) was a documentary on realist painter Antonio López and his work. It is not hard to see Erice’s empathy with the artist’s careful methods and attention to detail. After another long period of silence, he was offered to direct El embrujo de Shanghai (Shanghai Spell, 2002). But he was unable to progress with the production at a pace that made economic sense, and he was let go. Fernando Trueba completed the project. ESCAMILLA, TEO (1940–1997). Teo Escamilla was one of the most imaginative and versatile cinematographers in Spanish cinema, a key presence in the most important Nuevo cine español films of the late 1960s. In particular, he was responsible for the visual compositions

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and lighting of most Carlos Saura films in the 1970s and 1980s. In his work, light and mood reflected (and emanate from) character and plot. He studied cinematography at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas, and had a long training as camera operator, often with Luis Cuadrado as main cinematographer, producing an extraordinary series of films that constitute a canon of late-Francoist Spanish filmmaking including Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Basilio Martín Patino, 1966), La caza (The Hunt, Carlos Saura, 1965), Las secretas intenciones (Secret Intentions, Antxón Eceiza, 1970), El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973), Habla mudita (Speak, Mute Girl, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1973), and Furtivos (Poachers, José Luis Borau, 1975). With La caza, he started a long collaboration with Saura, which consolidated in the Transition years, when Escamilla had already become cinematographer, and would range from the cavernous domestic atmospheres of Cría Cuervos (Raise Ravens) in 1975 to the colorful stage-like illusions of El amor brujo (Love the Magician) in 1986. Other Saura collaborations include Elisa, vida mía (Elisa, My Life, 1977), with its unforgettably barren, almost monochrome landscapes; Mamá cumple cien años (Mom Is One Hundred, 1979); Deprisa, deprisa (Faster, Faster, 1981), a shift in style to a more realistic treatment of urban background inspired in nouvelle vague models; the harsh interior lighting in Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding, 1981); and Carmen (1983) and La noche oscura (Dark Night, 1989), in which he explored the palette of Spanish classical painting, particularly José de Ribera. In each of these films he used a specific approach to lighting, from the harsh, realistic documentary look of Deprisa deprisa to the evocative and fantastic atmospheres of Carmen, echoing the confusion between imagination and reality in the film; from the flat lighting of Bodas de sangre to the chiaroscuro of La noche oscura. Teo Escamilla’s work is also emblematic of the mood of a group of relevant films of the early Transition years, like A un dios desconocido (To an Unknown God, Jaime Chávarri, 1977), Sonámbulos (Sleepwalkers, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1977), and El corazón del bosque (In the Heart of the Forest, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1979).

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The nostalgia and melancholy in these films is matched by gray atmospheres, flooded with dull reflected light. He won the Goya for El amor brujo, with further nominations for El dorado (Carlos Saura, 1988), La noche oscura, and Berlín Blues. He also worked as a director in a segment of Cuentos para una escapada (Tales For an Escapade, 1981) and the excellent bullfighting documentary Tú solo (On Your Own, 1984). Other remarkable work as cinematographer includes: Tata mía (My Granny, José Luis Borau, 1986), Mi general (My General, Jaime de Armiñán, 1987), Al otro lado del túnel (The Other End of the Tunnel, Jaime de Armiñán, 1994), El rey del río (King of the River, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1995), and Cosas que dejé en la Habana (Things I left in Havana, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1997). ESCOPETA NACIONAL, LA / THE NATIONAL SHOTGUN (1978). Luis G. Berlanga’s La escopeta nacional (co-scripted with Rafael Azcona) is a clever reworking of Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game (1939), set in the context of the Franco period. Both films share the impulse to articulate a state-of-the-nation group portrait by focusing on a country house gathering, which constitutes a microcosm of bourgeois lives, their dynamics as a class, and their concerns at a problematic point in time. The dramatic excuse is a hunting party, a sport very popular among the Francoist authorities: they were organized as meetings attended by government personalities and were actually used to close business deals and ask for political favors during the period (two other key films in Spanish cinema are based on similar situations: Carlos Saura’s La caza [The Hunt, 1965] and José Luis Borau’s Furtivos [Poachers, 1975]). In Berlanga’s film, whose narrative spans a single day, a Catalan industrialist specializing in entry phones (José Sazatornil Saza) provides funds for the gathering, so that he can meet a prominent politician (Antonio Ferrandis) who will grant his company an exclusive contract for official institutions. The event takes place in the property of the impoverished Marqués de Leguineche (Luis Escobar) whose son (José Luis López Vázquez) is an infantile sexual addict. At one point in the film, he kidnaps the model lover of the minister, thus endangering the industrialist’s hopes for the success of the whole

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operation. Another plot event rooted in historical circumstances is the replacement of a generation of Falange politicians with another that were close to the conservative and religious Opus Dei: by the end of the day, there are rumors the politician is going to be dismissed, and the industrialist has to renew his plot to sell his product. This was the first film Berlanga shot in Spain without official obstacles after Francisco Franco’s death (¡Vivan los novios! [1970] was typically complicated by the director’s reputation as dissident), and only his fourth completed film after El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963), more than 10 years earlier, but it was clearly a continuation of his previous career. Like Plácido (1962), Calabuch (1956), or ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall! 1953), the main story was made up of a number of strands using a gallery of characters representative of Spanish society. His use of long, complicated takes had by then become a trademark, and in most scenes, the camera moves among characters, shifting from one plot strand to another. Another element we can trace to Jean Renoir is Berlanga’s choice of a certain degree of fuzziness in framings and dialogues (it is often difficult to know who the scene is about), at odds with the cleaner construction of classical filmmaking. The large cast also included Amparo Soler Leal, Luis Ciges, Agustín González, Rafael Alonso, Mónica Randall, Conchita Montes, Bárbara Rey, Chus Lampreave, Félix Rotaeta, and Laly Soldevila. Although critics complained of trivial jokes and lack of substance, the exceptional cast and the relevance of the satire made this one of the most successful Spanish films. In two sequels, Berlanga and scriptwriter Rafael Azcona followed the Leguineches through the Transition: Patrimonio nacional (National Heritage, 1981), chronicled their return to Madrid after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1976, and in Nacional III (1983) showed them trying to survive in times of crisis. ESCRIVÁ, VICENTE (1913–1999). One of the more prolific filmmakers of the Franco period, Vicente Escrivá, a Valencian, was a well-known novelist and scriptwriter who took part in a prestigious series of earnest films with the most established directors of the early Franco period, including Pequeñeces (Small Matters, Juan de Orduña, 1950), Agustina de Aragón (Juan de Orduña, 1950), Balar-

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rasa (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1951), La guerra de Dios (God’s War, Rafael Gil, 1953), El beso de Judas (Judas’ Kiss, Rafael Gil, 1954), and La otra vida del capitán Contreras (Captain Contreras’ Other Life, Rafael Gil, 1955). In many of his films, there is a bold anti-Communist discourse, perfectly in tune with the regime: with Rafael Gil, he was one of the more strongly ideological filmmakers of the period. Escrivá became a director in the 1960s with El hombre de la isla (The Man of the Island, 1961) and Dulcinea (1963), which is regarded as his best film, an interesting variation on the Don Quixote story starring Millie Perkins. El golfo (Ladies Man, 1969) was among the most popular Raphael pop musicals. By the end of the decade, he became an important force in the transformation of comedia desarrollista into spicier, more erotic landismo, as evidenced in titles like Aunque la hormona se vista de seda (Even If Hormones Are Dressed Up in Silk, 1971), about an apothecary who suspects he might be homosexual, and Lo verde empieza en los Pirineos (Smut Starts Beyond the Pyrenees, 1973), regarded as something of a summit in the genre, about a group of repressed Spanish males who cross over the Pyrenees to watch nudies and gape at attractive French women. After the Transition, Escrivá became an icon of ideologically reactionary filmmaking and made a series of comedies for popular audiences, often with undertones of nostalgia for the good old years under Francisco Franco. He worked closely with Fernando Vizcaíno Casas, one of the most articulate defenders of Francoism, and with directors of the old period like Rafael Gil or Pedro Lazaga. His films of the period include an adaptation of Francisco Delicado’s Golden Age novel La lozana andaluza (The Lusty Woman from Andalusia, 1976), which exploited its erotic elements, and Niñas . . . al salón (Girls . . . Come Down to the Parlor, 1977). El Virgo de Visanteta (Visanteta’s Virginity, 1979), a film spoken in Valencian, based on an old sainete with erotic touches added, quickly became one of the great hits of the 1970s. He followed this with a sequel, Visanteta estate queta (Visanteta, Be Quiet, 1979), but never again achieved his previous successes. ESCUELA DE BARCELONA. The so-called “Barcelona School” films were a (limited) manifestation of the impact of European avantgardes and “new cinemas” of the 1960s on a group of Catalan critics

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and artists, whose potential for self-expression was severely limited by the political situation in the country. The group included Ricardo Bofill, Jacinto Esteva, Pere Portabella, Vicente Aranda, Joaquin Jordá, and Román Gubern, all inspired by Néstor Almendros, who had just started his collaborations with Eric Rohmer and who, in a historical 1965 visit, brought to Barcelona the fresh influence of the nouvelle vague. A number of artists joined them from outside Catalonia, including filmmakers like José María Nunes (from Portugal), Gonzalo Suárez (from Asturias), and Valencian producer and critic Ricardo Muñoz Suay. This bourgeois, even elitist group, aspired to high cultural status but, following the lead of Andy Warhol and other New York artists, they also assimilated popular culture into their works, something unheard of at the time in Spain and at odds with official notions of “quality.” Aesthetically, they were innovative, seeking links between literature, the visual arts, theater, architecture, and design. Rather than exploring critical realism and testing the limits of censorship, as their Nuevo cine español colleagues did, the Escuela de Barcelona filmmakers preferred metaphysical, fantasy narratives, with little reference to the real world, which often reflected on the limitations of language. As Jordá succinctly put it, “Since we are not allowed to do Victor Hugo, we can always do Mallarmé.” This statement explains their preference for modernist approaches to the detriment of social realism. Given their obscurity, the films were not regarded as “dangerous” by the authorities but consequently they lost any real political potential. For the same reason, their commercial possibilities were low, and very few films completed by these filmmakers had wide releases or reached ordinary cinemas. Funding came from government schemes set up in 1962 by the general director of cinematography, José Maria García Escudero, to support artistically ambitious films, and the movement lost momentum when Escudero left and the fund was canceled in 1968. The film that seems to encapsulate the main aspects of the Escuela is Vicente Aranda’s 1965 Fata Morgana, co-written with Gonzalo Suárez. The story has interesting similarities to David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2007), as both seems to revolve around “a woman in trouble” (played here by Teresa Gimpera, a model who was one of the icons of the period in Barcelona) and is set in a vague postapocalyptic future.

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The protagonist (a model like the actress) seems to be the object of a metaphysical conspiracy to become the victim of a murder. Several characters stalk her, sometimes in groups, sometimes individually under a number of disguises, and there seems to be a detective who is sent by unnamed authorities to protect her. This all takes place in a deserted, futuristic Barcelona where characters talk in absurdist set speeches and threatening vans recommend evacuation. Around 1966, Muñoz Suay started to write a series of articles in the popular film magazine Fotogramas promoting the Escuela de Barcelona phenomenon as Spain’s main hope to produce aesthetically ambitious films. Dante no es únicamente severo (Dante Is Not Only Severe, 1967), directed by Jacinto Esteva and Joaquin Jordá, was held up as a manifesto of the movement’s new kind of cinema. Set against a background reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1965), the film featured attempts at capturing reality through technical means and a typically fragmentary, convoluted, and hermetic plot involving models and artists that left far behind any reference to the real world. Besides Aranda, whose later work substantially distanced itself from the premises of the Escuela, the main figure to come out of the school and who went on to have a substantial career in which some Escuela aspects would recur was Gonzalo Suárez, a fiction writer and director totally committed to self-reflective, literary films. Ditirambo (1967), a kind of absurdist thriller, is the best remembered of his films. It was followed by increasingly obscure literary fantasies in the same vein, including El extraño caso del doctor Fausto (The Strange Case of Doctor Faust, 1969) and Aoom (1970). Other instances of Escuela de Barcelona films include Nunes’ Noche de Vino tinto (Night of Red Wine, 1966), Carles Durán’s Cada vez que estoy enamorado creo que es para siempre (Each Time I Fall In Love I Think It Will Be Forever, 1967), Portabella’s Nocturno 29 (Night Music 29, 1968), and Esteva’s Después del diluvio (After the Deluge, 1970). When funds eventually became an issue, an attempt was made to find a compromise between commercial products and more innovative films. Tuset Street (1968) was a musical set in some of the gathering places of the Escuela members and starred Sara Montiel, one of the biggest stars of the previous decade, at that time seeking new directions in her career. The project floundered, further

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evidence of the Escuela’s difficulties to bridge the demands of art and commerce. ESCUELA OFICIAL DE CINE (EOC). See also INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES Y EXPERIENCIAS CINEMATOGRÁFICAS (IIEC). ESPAÑOLADA. One useful way to approach Spanish film during the Franco period is to look at the tensions between two distinct approaches to the art: ambitious filmmakers, on the one hand, who seek self-expression or serious comment on social and cultural reality, and on the other, a less auteur-centered kind of popular and traditional cinema known as españolada. Españolada is a pejorative word that refers to a clichéd idea of Spanish culture, centered around flamenco dancing, rural peculiarities, bullfighting, and copla singers. Santander-born José Buchs was one of the first Spanish filmmakers to see the film potential of españolada, which came to maturity in the 1930s with the Imperio Argentina-Florián Rey musicals. The genre reached a summit in the 1950s, although it would soon be questioned both for artistic and ideological reasons. The directors who best represent the genre in the Franco period are Juan de Orduña and Luis Lucia, and emblematic stars are Juanita Reina, Carmen Sevilla, Lola Flores, and Paquita Rico. Examples of españolada can be found particularly in certain popular genres of Francoism, such as costumbrismo and folkloric musicals. In a way, they were also easily accepted outside Spain. From the point of view of the Franco regime, these could work as a reinforcement of Spanish cultural identity and contribute to building an image of a happy country abroad, where problems were easily sorted out with typically Spanish feistiness. The first fatal blow to españolada themes came with the Salamanca Conversations, where even a hardliner like García Escudero complained about their triviality and the way they distorted national reality. Although self-respecting auteurs largely avoided these themes, the impact of such approaches in terms of box-office take is undeniable. Some key filmmakers put the tradition into ironical perspective while obviously benefiting from the popular acceptance such images had. A film like ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome,

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Mr. Marshall! 1953) can be described as turning the conventions of españolada upside down, and approach rare during Francoism. ESPÍRITU DE LA COLMENA, EL / THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973). El espíritu de la colmena remains one of the most prestigious Spanish films, well-known by specialists from all over the world as a milestone in European art films. Remarkably for a culture usually metonymically associated with its most colorful manifestations (Almodóvar, Gaudí, bullfighting, Flamenco), Víctor Erice’s film is sparse, restrained, introspective, and closer to Central European traditions represented by Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Andrei Tarkovsky or the films of Yasujro Ozu and Abbas Kiarostami. Initially, the idea was to make an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but scriptwriter Ángel Fernández Santos progressively moved away from the original and chose to set the story in a Castilian village during the Spanish postwar and focus on a family living through the “time of silence” described in so much literature of the period. Elías Querejeta decided to produce it, and he took a chance on Víctor Erice, a film critic and theoretician whose only experience as director was a segment in the Querejeta-produced Los desafíos (The Challenges, 1969). Two prestigious actors, representing different strands in Spanish cinema, Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera, would star as the father and the mother, and Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería would play the daughters. Erice brought to the project a deep reflection on the nature of cinema as fantasy and alternative reality. Frankenstein remained as an icon through the use of the projection of James Whale’s film version in the village and the role of the monster as the “spirit” the protagonist will try to speak to. The shoot was a difficult one. Erice’s slow working methods (some would say his attention to detail) created scheduling conflicts with the stars, and he had only one week to shoot all their scenes. Consequently, their roles were greatly reduced and indeed many aspects of these characters’ lives remain a tantalizing mystery to audiences. Then it was decided to concentrate on the character of Ana, one of the daughters, to give the film a coherent perspective. The story takes place in the 1940s, in a very small village lost in the middle of quiet, gray, barren landscapes. Ana, a watchful little

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girl (Torrent) and her sister Isabel (Tellería) try to grasp a reality they do not fully comprehend, using their imaginations to make sense of the faint, colorless, images and noises that make up their ordinary lives. Their parents, an introspective couple who hardly speak to each other, also seem to live trapped in that grim, amber-colored reality: the father as a bee farmer, the mother as a lonely woman who spends her life inside the big house writing mysterious letters perhaps to a lover or a brother who left for France during the war. Not very much happens, but one can feel the pain of unhealed wounds in every frame. Erice’s method is to concentrate at length on landscape and empty spaces in an attempt to bring out their symbolic meaning. In the film’s climax, a distraught Ana escapes from home one night and meets Frankenstein’s monster in one of the most beautiful fantasy sequences in Spanish cinema. The monster is somehow linked to underground fighters and soldiers who had to leave the country (like the mother’s mysterious correspondent), completing a fascinating web of relationships and symbols. Ana is found and taken back home. Waking up the next night, she goes to the window to greet what could be a spirit, a declaration of principles on the ability of children to be open to inquiry about the surrounding world. This is the kind of film built upon glances, moods, and images rather than a strong plot where everything is tied up at the end. It was made during a period of strict censorship, in which a sense of nonconformity and frustration could be hinted or suggested, but never openly articulated; at a time when most attitudes could not be expressed freely, symbol and metaphor speak loudly. In this way, Erice used, in a very specific context, the lesson of his masters. Luis Cuadrado’s cinematography is also extraordinarily inventive. On the one hand, he applies pictorial traditions like Johannes Vermeer or Francisco Zurbarán, on the other, he uses a very specific palette to convey the repression of emotions in a period when, as the father’s voice-over suggests, order could be horrifying. ESTEVA, JACINTO (1936–1985). Jacinto Esteva has a very short list of credits, but his importance lies in his key role as one of the gurus, with Ricardo Muñoz Suay and Joaquín Jordá, of the avant-garde and experimental film movement known as the Escuela de Barcelona. He studied philosophy and travelled widely in the 1950s, with

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long stays in Rome, Geneva, and New York. His first short, Notes sur l’émigration (Notes on Migration, 1960), won an award at the Moscow Film Festival and had an impact on other Spanish filmmakers of the period for its use of documentary strategies to comment critically on social realities. Influenced by cinema verité trends and with the support of Pere Portabella, he made the documentary Alrededor de las salinas (Around the Salt Mines, 1962). His first feature, Lejos de los árboles (Far From the Trees, 1963), which tackled the dark side of Spanish reality by documenting rural celebrations, was forbidden by the censors and only released in 1970. In 1965, he set up his own production company, Filmscontacto, which would become the key production company of the Barcelona group after it backed Dante no es únicamente severo (Dante Is Not Only Severe, 1967), a film conceived under the influence of the nouvelle vague which Esteva co-directed with Joaquín Jordá. This title (a vaguely plotted, metaphysically inflected fantasy set in the world of fashion models) became emblematic of the radical aesthetics practised by the Escuela de Barcelona filmmakers. An avant-garde approach to narrative made the film too obscure for the censors to intervene, but still managed to convey a radical questioning of language and convention with a critical potential. His next films, however, also met obstacles with censors, and his uncompromising attitude distanced him from any possibility of exhibition. His last film, El hijo de María (Maria’s Son, 1972), was never released commercially, and he left Spain until the death of Francisco Franco, setting up a company that organized safaris in Central Africa. He died in a plane accident in 1985 as he was traveling to Africa for a hunting trip. Joaquín Jordá’s documentary El encargo del cazador (The Hunter’s Request, 1990) is actually a tribute to his friend and is a collage of personal testimonies around Esteva’s personality and legacy. EXTRAÑO VIAJE, EL / THE STRANGE JOURNEY (1964). This was probably the most unusual film of the 1960s made in Spain, and it boasts the most convoluted reception history among Spanish cinema’s canonical titles. Although shot in 1964, it never had a proper commercial release, and remained completely out of circulation

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for seven years, a strange fate for a thriller comedy directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez, one of Spain’s most popular actors. Although it could be simply described as a “real life” story of a murder that made the headlines a few years back, on a deeper level it works as a dark portrait of Spanish provincial reality and its rotten core. Scriptwriters Pedro Beltrán and Fernán Gómez reworked the basic rural drama murder plot into a baroque narrative structure. The darker implications of the film are conveyed through unbalanced framings and expressionistic devices, alternating conventions of the thriller, the horror film, the sex farce, and the costumbrismo comedy of manners. A bra held up by a grumpy lingerie seller is the film’s first image, and the arrival of freer approaches to sex in conservative and church-dominated rural Spain remains a strong undercurrent in the film, but then moves on to a dark gothic house in which a sinister woman (known by her neighbors as “countess Dracula”) lives with her infantile brothers. The action continues to shift between the village and the house. Eventually, the narrative seems to center on the murders of three members of the wealthy family. The older sister is killed by the brother when he learns she is selling off the property, and then he disappears with the other sister only to be found dead shortly after, near a beach. The remaining narrative revolves around the police investigation to solve the murders. For a whole reel, the film appears to have transformed into a fantasy horror genre piece, and audiences are left to wonder whether the older sister has returned from the grave. The solution is the last piece of a puzzle that forms a perfect picture of a small Spanish village experiencing the shock of progress. By the end of the film, an almost terrifying image of the country’s subconscious at the time has been perfectly articulated, the murders constituting only the excuse.

– F – FERNÁN GÓMEZ, FERNANDO (1921–2007). Actor, writer, and director Fernando Fernán Gómez is one of the towering personalities of Spanish cinema, with a career as an actor that spanned almost seven decades and included films with directors as diverse as Luis Sáenz

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de Heredia, Edgar Neville, Carlos Saura, Luis G. Berlanga, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Fernando Trueba, and Pedro Almodóvar. He also had a substantial career as director, and some of his films, most remarkably El extraño viaje (The Strange Journey, 1964) and El mundo sigue (And the World Goes Round, 1965), are among the undisputed masterpieces of Spanish cinema. He also contributed to the scripts for some of his own films. His stage play Las bicicletas son para el verano (Bicycles Are for Summer) was adapted for film by Jaime Chávarri in 1984. When the very traditional Real Academia de la Lengua Española decided for the first time to welcome a filmmaker as a member, he was the ideal candidate. Shortly before his death, David Trueba shot a long, entertaining conversation with him, which was released as La silla de Fernando (Fernando’s Chair) in 2006. Fernando Fernán Gómez was born in Lima, Peru, into a touring theatrical family of Spanish origin. He followed studies of philosophy and literature before turning to performing. He started as stage actor in Madrid. His earliest film roles came after the Civil War (which he spent in the Spanish capital) in a series of CIFESA films all made in 1943 (Rosas de otoño [Roses of Fall, Juan de Orduña], Cristina Guzmán [Gonzalo Delgrás], La chica del gato [The Girl with the Cat, Ramón Quadreny], Turbante blanco [White Turban, Ignacio F. Iquino]); during the 1940s, he would become one of Spain’s more popular actors in crowd-pleasing comedies like Botón de ancla (Anchor Buttons, Ramón Torrado, 1948), in which he played an earnest, enthusiastic student in the navy. A favorite performer of established playwright Enrique Jardiel Poncela, he took part in two adaptations of his plays in 1946: Es peligroso asomarse al exterior (It Is Dangerous to Lean Out, Alejandro Ulloa) and Los habitantes de la casa deshabitada (The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited House, Gonzalo Delgrás). But even at this time, he showed an interest in more off-beat roles, as evidenced by his role of a man obsessed with film in Lorenzo Llobet’s García’s remarkable Vida in sombras (Life in Shadows, 1952). He also showed his range when he played the title role of a self-sacrificing soldier-cum-priest in José Antonio Nieves Conde’s Balarrasa (1951), one of his most popular roles. Another of his key roles was the touching protagonist of Edgar Neville’s El último caballo (The Last Horse, 1950): an ex-soldier who tries to

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keep a horse in a city increasingly hostile to traditional means of transportation, which constituted an interesting metaphor on the price of progress. Throughout his acting career, Fernán Gómez maintained a fascinating balance between popular roles in stagy comedies and roles in more substantial films. Although basically a comic actor during the 1950s and 1960s, he chose to work with talented directors. He did Esa pareja feliz (That Happy Couple, 1953) for Berlanga, a representative of the “new” cinema, without interrupting his collaboration with some of the regime’s most emblematic directors, Rafael Gil (La otra vida del Capitán Contreras [Captain Contreras’ Other Life, 1955]), Luis Lucia (Aeropuerto [Airport, 1953], Morena Clara [1954]), and especially José Luis Sáenz de Heredia (Los ojos dejan huellas [The Eyes Leave a Mark, 1952]). In 1954, Fernán Gómez directed his first film, the unusual Manicomio (Bedlam, co-directed with Luis María Delgado), which was followed by the more popular El malvado Carabel (Wicked Carabel, 1956), a comedy about a humble employee who is fired and decides to steal from his former bosses. For the next 35 years, he worked on a series of films that ranged from the originality of the diptych constituted by La vida por delante (Life Ahead, 1958) and La vida alrededor (Life Around, 1959), El extraño viaje, or El mundo sigue, and the conventionality of the comedy thriller Los palomos (The Palomo Couple, 1964), a José Luis López Vázquez-Gracita Morales vehicle, and La venganza de Don Mendo (Don Mendo’s Revenge, 1961), a straightforward adaptation of a hugely popular stage comedy. As an actor, Fernán Gómez’s choices followed a similar pattern: he could turn out engaging comic performances, as in Un adulterio decente (A Decent Adultery, Rafael Gil, 1969), another Jardiel Poncela stage hit adaptation, and Pierna creciente, falda menguante (Growing Leg, Diminishing Skirt, Javier Aguirre, 1970); and then he could collaborate with Carlos Saura in obscure films like Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves, 1973) or with Víctor Erice, playing the laconic father of El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973). His roles of the early 1970s show commitment to changing times, as evidenced by his part as a corrupt postwar profiteer in Olea’s Pim, pam, pum . . . Fuego (Ready, Aim . . . Fire! 1976) or the title role in Juan Esterlich’s El anacoreta (The Hermit, 1976).

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As with many other actors, the Transition manifested itself as a momentous career shift, and it took him some time to find interesting roles. In 1986, he directed both the critically successful El viaje a ninguna parte (The Trip to Nowhere), a film on touring players set in the post war period and inspired by his own experiences, and Mambrú se fue a la guerra (Malborough Went to War). These films inaugurated his late phase and earned him well-deserved Goyas as best director (for the former) and as best leading actor (for the latter). He had by then become a character actor, playing mostly fathers and grandfathers in the late 1980s. Examples of this period are, among many others, El Rey Pasmado (The Baffled King, Imanol Uribe, 1991), in which he played a liberal inquisitor; Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992), in an engaging performance as a libertine patriarch with four rebellious daughters; and La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly Tongues, José Luis Cuerda, 1999), in which he played very movingly a Republican teacher in a small town. By this time, into his seventh decade as an actor, he was an icon with a very strong screen presence. Pedro Almodóvar shrewdly chose him to play Penélope Cruz’s aging father with Alzheimer’s in Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999). In his last years, he received a number of honors and tributes. His performance in La ciudad sin límites (City Without Limits, Antonio Hernández, 2002) was among his best of this period, as a dying father with a secret life whose regret for past choices could be read into every line he uttered. FERNÁNDEZ, EDUARD (1964– ). Eduard Fernández was born in Barcelona. Before becoming one of the most remarkable actors in Spanish cinema, he had a strong career as a stage actor, beginning with the prestigious Catalan company, Els Joglars, and including critically acclaimed performances in The Tempest (as Caliban), Waiting for Godot, and most importantly, his portrayal of a murderer in Roberto Zucco. He debuted on film in 1994, but achieved notice in 1999 with an acclaimed part as a loser in Mariano Barroso’s Los lobos de Washington (The Wolves of Washington), which earned him his first Goya nomination. He plays a nervous con man, out of David Mamet’s universe of losers, who betrays his close friend by attempting to steal money from a swindle and taking away his wife.

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Fernandez’s intriguing combination of ruthlessness and conflicted feelings for his friend and their previous life of crime together highlighted his skill as an actor of depth. He went on to win the award in 2002 for Fausto 5.0 (as lead actor) and later in 2004 for his supporting role in Cesc Gay’s 2002 En la ciudad (In the City). The latter is a career-defining part that showcases his intensity and his uncanny ability to portray introverted, uncommunicative characters. In this film, Fernández plays Mario, a man who becomes aware his wife is having an affair. We see him quietly collecting evidence, and becoming more and more wounded, but still unable to express his concern or even tell his wife. It was an exercise in restrained pain. Fernández plays a very similar part in Gay’s next film Ficció (Fiction, 2006). Other key performances include El portero (The Goalkeeper, Gonzalo Suárez, 2000); Smoking Room (Roger Gual and Julio D. Wallovits, 2002), where he plays another Mamet-like character, this time a tense office worker; Cosas que hacen que la vida valga la pena (Things That Make Life Worthwhile, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 2004), for which he achieved a Goya nomination as lead actor; Hormigas en la boca (Ants in the Mouth, Mariano Barroso, 2005); El método (The Method, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2005), another Goya-nominated effort; Obaba (Montxo Armendáriz, 2005), and Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006). FERRERI, MARCO (1928–1997). Milanese filmmaker Marco Ferreri started his career as a director in the Spanish film industry, with three films that had a strong impact on young directors, and which are seen as an adaptation of the neorealist perspective to Spanish cinema. While studying to be a veterinarian, he was seduced by film and started work on a series of advertisements and documentary work for newsreels. His first credit was as a scriptwriter for the Dino Risi segment in L’amore in cittá (Love in the City, 1953), a collective effort that also featured short films directed by Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Cesare Zavattini. He moved to Madrid in 1956, to work as a commercial representative for photo lenses. The three films he directed in Spain between 1958 and 1960 earned him a place of privilege in the history of Spanish cinema. Los chicos (The Kids, 1959) was among the purest translations of neorealism.

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The film followed a group of young children in the outskirts of town, using nonprofessional actors and real-life locations. Although not completely unheard of in Spanish cinema, this method had seldom been used so consistently, and, neorealism being a politically sensitive topic, it had a polarized response at the Semana de Valladolid. The other two films were written in collaboration with Rafael Azcona and are among the undisputed masterpieces of the period. Both El pisito (The Little Flat, 1958) and El cochecito (The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960) are bitter satires with a Kafkian edge, starring individuals trapped by their dreams until they turn into nightmares. In El pisito (the first film for which Azcona took writing credit), José Luis López Vázquez was forced to marry his elderly landlady in order to become the proprietor of her flat when she dies. But things get complicated when she turns out to be healthier than expected. In El cochecito, Pepe Isbert plays an old man so obsessed by the idea of possessing a motorized wheelchair that he considers murdering his whole family to steal the money, in spite of the fact that he is reasonably healthy and has no trouble with his legs. The FerreriAzcona collaborations held up a mirror to the darker aspects of Spanish society, and this made for uncomfortable viewing for those who considered themselves responsible for the situation. When Ferreri’s work permit came up for renewal, the authorities rejected it and, after a series of frustrated projects (including a version, scripted by Mario Camus, of the life of national hero El Cid and an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Castle), he decided to return to Italy in 1961. He continued working, and his oeuvre (often in collaboration with Azcona, who wrote or co-wrote about a dozen scripts for him) became one of the most personal of the next 15 years. In an interview in 1977, he said: “The values that once existed no longer exist. The family, the bourgeoisie—I’m talking about values, morals, economic relationships. They no longer serve a purpose. My films are reactions translated into images.’’ This accounts for the anarchism that becomes increasingly more prominent in the 1970s. La grand bouffe (The Big Meal, 1973) was something of a comic prelude to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s later Saló, presenting social crisis in terms of an orgy. A series of films in that decade focused on the crisis of masculinity: Touche pas à la femme blanche (Don’t Touch the White Woman, 1974), Le dernière femme (The Last Woman, 1976), Ciao Maschio

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(Bye Bye Monkey, 1978), and Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of Ordinary Madness, 1981). FILMOTECAS. Since the mid-1980s, Spain has a substantial network of “cinematheques” (under the umbrella term of Filmoteca) which carry out the important task of preserving film, making it available, educating audiences, and supporting the dissemination of film research. These efforts to consolidate the government-funded institution started late and were insubstantial for over two decades; consequently preservation of pre-Transition materials is not systematic and the film archive is more incomplete than in other cases. The Filmoteca Nacional de España, as the institution was initially called, was first founded in 1953, along the lines of other similar institutions like the French Cinemathèque or the British Film Institute, and its mandate consisted mostly of film preservation. By that time, some of the earliest negatives had been damaged or lost, and authorities did not seem very interested in enforcing the obligation for producers to send a good print of each film that had received government funds for preservation. In 1962, a series of showings (or projections) were held in Madrid and Barcelona, but the practice did not consolidate and, in fact until the end of the Franco period, a shortage of funds meant that the institution was mostly symbolic in its existence. It was only in the early 1970s, under the direction of Florentino Soria, that showings became systematic, and Filmoteca gained prominence among audiences. Even films that were forbidden by the regime could be shown by the cinematheque. This created a generation of cinephiles, particularly in Madrid and Barcelona, who had until then also been prevented from seeing old classics and noncommercial films except for rare showings on television. These projections meant extra income, which was used for preservation, archives, and publications. With the Transition, and under the presidency of Luis G. Berlanga, the institution acquired a new name (Filmoteca Española), a more stable sources of funding, and a broader mandate, including a series of collaborations with film festivals and publishers for the continuation of publication work. In 1986, one of the most architecturally striking cinemas in the capital, the Doré, was bought to become

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the Filmoteca main projection site. The cultural decentralization that followed the 1978 Constitution also meant that branches were set up in cities like Valencia and Zaragoza, which would soon function as independent institutions with some important links with the central Filmoteca Española in Madrid. The tight network has resolved some of its initial problems, and it functions as a group of quality cinemas with substantial programming that includes seasons on world cinema, classics, and forgotten films. FLORES DE OTRO MUNDO / FLOWERS FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1999). Icíar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo is an original, fascinating, and restrained approach to Spanish machismo and xenophobia set in a small village, an inflection point in a strong tradition of rural drama, inspired by real attempts by men living in the countryside to bring in women from other locations. On one level, the main impulse of the film lies in social documentary. The women, “flowers from another world” of the title, find all kinds of difficulties in growing roots and getting used to such particular, sometimes hostile new land. But Bollaín’s film is also a very engaging narrative following the fates of three such women, and one that gives their stories detailed attention and uniqueness. The filmmaker never forgets that, rather than simply a representation of positions in a debate on racism, the characters are first and foremost complex human being with individual psychologies. After the caravan of women arrives in the village, the film focuses on three couples. The first, Patricia (Lissette Mejía), is a strongminded Dominican woman with two children who has to overcome prejudice and hostility when she marries Damián (Luis Tosar), who lives with his judgmental mother. The second is Milady (Marilyn Torres), a feisty younger girl that a wealthy man (José Sancho) brought with him on a sexual tourism expedition to Cuba. It is clear that she has another boyfriend in Italy and just wants to take advantage of the situation by getting papers and leaving her husband. Finally, there is Marirrosi (Elena Irureta), a mother who comes from Bilbao and begins a relationship with amateur botanist Alfonso (Chete Lera), but will eventually find it impossible to adjust to the demands of life in the village. Throughout the film, a chorus of older men observe the three relationships as they go through difficulties,

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and their comments provide a good summary of traditional attitudes in the heart of the country. Shifting between the social and the personal, the film does not provide easy solutions, just as prejudice cannot be resolved in a simplistic way. Still, in its sensitive look at the situation, the film provides a reflection on a key problem, and it became one in the late 1990s wave of films that adopted a feminine perspective to deal with women’s issues. FLORES, LOLA (1923–1995). Lola Flores was one of the greatest folkloric singers during the Franco period, and one of the very few who enjoyed a sustained film career. Even as a teenager, she became famous for her fiery, passionate displays on stages everywhere during the Civil War, and she was a featured guest star in several films of the period. Contemporary reviews are filled with hyperbolic epithets, and she has been called everything from an “earthquake” to a “whirlwind,” owing to her flamboyant movements. She was a national icon, known as La Lola de España (roughly translated as “Spain’s own Lola”), and even in her later years she was very aware of her emblematic qualities, something she boasted about in numerous television appearances. Although Flores’ legendary status as a stage and television star never flagged, her film career, although prolific, never took off in a comparable way. For her first substantial film appearance, she shared the screen with her stage partner Manolo Caracol in Embrujo (Enchantment, 1947), Carlos Serrano de Osma’s inventive (but critically dismissed) approach to the folkloric genre. The film was not a box-office success, and it took a few years for Flores to attempt a second stab at film stardom. This time, she signed an exclusivity contract with producer Cesáreo González (Suevia Films), who put her in a series of vehicles, including La niña de la venta (The Girl from the Inn, Ramón Torrado, 1951). In 1952, she was sent by González to Mexico, where she continued taking part in vehicles for international consumption, sometimes sharing starring roles with Mexican singers. ¡Ay Pena, penita, pena! (Pain, Miguel Morayta, 1953) was her most popular film of this period. She came back for further Mexico-set films later in the 1950s, where she starred with songwriter Agustín Lara in Lola Torbellino (Lola Whirl-

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wind, René Cardona, 1956) and with singing star Miguel Aceves Mejía in Échame a mí la culpa (Put the Blame on Me, Fernando Cortés, 1959). But even in expensive productions, something in her film roles did not live up to her stage presence. She seems to be too restrained, contained by vapid plots, and she only comes alive when she starts to dance. An attempt was made during that decade to turn Flores into a character actress, and she was given dramatic parts. She claimed she could become an intense actress in the mold of Irene Papas or Anna Magnani, but the operation failed again: at that time, film stardom seemed reserved for less temperamental, more conventionally pretty Andalusian stars like Carmen Sevilla, with whom she shared billing in Flores’s last important film El balcón de la luna (Balcony on the Moon, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1962). Her career as a dancer and stage performer remained strong throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but only rarely did she come back to the movies. She showed her legendary temperament in Truhanes (Rogues, Miguel Hermoso, 1983) and gave a good comic performance as Queen Isabella in Juana la loca . . . de vez en cuando (Queen Juana Is Mad . . . From Time to Time, José Ramón Larraz, 1983), and her last cinema appearance was a memorable number in Carlos Saura’s 1992 Sevillanas. FOLKLORIC MUSICAL. Music is one of the cultural manifestations of national identity, and this accounts for the centrality of this particular variety of musical film featuring types of songs and dances closely associated with Spain: copla, pasodoble, flamenco, and other forms became metaphors of “Spanishness,” and as such they have been the core of a struggle for opposing notions of national essence. From the earliest silent films (with a soundtrack added during projection) to Carlos Saura’s documentaries and ballet features, many films have centered around specifically Spanish musical traditions, with narratives that were merely an excuse to provide numerous opportunities for spectacle, visual flair, dance, and star turns. The word “españolada” is sometimes used pejoratively to refer to films that use in simple ways these aspects of Spanish culture, and folkloric musicals were regarded by critics as central instances of such a reductive category. Leaving aside the silent period, the first substantial wave of folkloric musicals came with the Republic, and Imperio Argentina was

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the greatest star in the genre. Her talents were showcased in Nobleza Baturra (Aragonese Nobility, 1935), Morena Clara (1936), and Carmen la de Triana (Carmen From Triana, 1938), all directed by Florián Rey. Stories were most often set in Andalusia and had strong costumbrista elements. Other performing stars of the period, famous from the stage or from records, such as Angelillo and Estrellita Castro, also tried their luck on film, although their careers were shortlived and less substantial. The bent of these films was populist (rather than blatantly conservative), and besides engaging with “racial” star personalities, they promoted an idealized, colorful, and picturesque idea of rural Spain that was also popular abroad. The formula did not change much during the Franco period, although the stars changed, and so did the ideological message: Lola Flores and Juanita Reina became the reigning queens of the 1940s and 1950s version of the racial musical, with Antonio Molina its undisputed king; in terms of directors, Luis Lucia became an expert in the genre. The idea of Spain was now firmly placed within the constrictions of the new fascist regime, which absorbed and appropriated populism; national identity was now defended fiercely against external threats. This had an impact on the folkloric musical. In films like Lola la piconera (Lola the Coal Girl, Luis Lucia, 1951) or La Lola se va a los puertos (Lola Leaves for the Port, Juan de Orduña, 1947), both starring Juanita Reina, for instance, the singing heroine defends her cultural identity against, respectively, the French or the pressures of modernity. Lola Flores, on the other hand, was the quintessence of so-called “racial” temperament, which she displayed in films such as Pena, penita pena (Pain, Miguel Morayta, 1953) and Morena Clara (Dark Clara, Luis Lucia, 1954). Critics and intellectuals may have been dismissive of this version of Spanish identity, as noted, but the films retained a huge box-office popularity for decades, particularly among the working classes. Even Sara Montiel, who belonged to a different generation and developed a star personality based on different styles, like the cuplé, flirted with the formula in Carmen la de Ronda (Carmen from Ronda, Tulio Demicheli, 1959) and continued to introduce folkloric numbers into her earlier films (later, she would include tangos, sambas, and even pop numbers).

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As the impulse for modernity became stronger in Spain, their association with the ideological project of Francoism tainted these films and their folkloric themes in the memories of audiences, and in the 1960s they were largely replaced with pop musicals that featured more international performing genres. In the 1980s, however, as the memory of high Francoism began to be imbued with an ambiguous nostalgia, there was a renaissance of some aspects of the folkloric musicals, carried out by substantial directors and now including some historical reflection. These films strove to find the heart within the apparent cheap sentimentalism of copla and the passion in flamenco. The new approach started with Carlos Saura’s series of musicals, which concentrated on particular folkloric dancing genres, including Carmen (1983), El amor brujo (Love the Magician, 1986), Sevillanas (1992), and Flamenco (1995). ¡Ay Carmela! (1990), directed by Saura himself, took as a starting point a populist republican singer to represent the virtues of popular art. Las cosas del querer (Little Love Matters, 1989), although more nostalgic, was Jaime Chávarri’s attempt at recycling the old copla traditions by chronicling the vicissitudes of a show-business performing troupe (inspired by singer Miguel de Molina’s company) after the Civil War. Finally, Fernando Trueba’s La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998) was a return to the beginnings of the genre by taking inspiration from Imperio Argentina’s “españoladas,” shot in Germany during the Nazi period. FORN, JOSEP M. (1928– ). Josep M. Forn started in the film industry in 1948 as script assistant and was soon promoted to scriptwriter. In 1953, he co-directed (with Juan Bosch) Gaudí, a short film on the Catalan architect. His first feature as director was Yo maté (I Killed, 1955), which was followed by a series of unremarkable thrillers, including El inocente (The Innocent, 1957), La ruta de los narcóticos (The Route of Narcotics, 1961), and ¿Pena de muerte? (Death Penalty? 1961), and by literary adaptations like José María (1963) and La barca sin pescador (A Boat Without a Fisherman, 1964), produced by his company Teide. His importance as filmmaker is based on his 1966 film La piel quemada (Burnt Skin), a perfect example of the symbolic approach

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typical of the Nuevo cine español movement. The narrative is almost abstract and focuses on metaphors that suggest social issues rather than present them in a straightforward manner, which would have been censored. The central character is José, an Andalusian builder who works under the sun (hence the title) in a Catalan tourist resort with other immigrant workers. Parallel to this, the film shows the journey his wife and their children take from Granada to join him in Catalonia. In spite of its critical success, the film made Forn a target for censorship. His next film La respuesta (The Answer, 1969) was forbidden (until 1975), and he stopped directing for over 10 years, only returning to filmmaking after Francisco Franco’s death as producer of Ventura Pons’ Ocanya: Retrat Intermitent (Ocanya: An Intermitent Portrait, 1978) and El vicari d’Olot (Olot’s Vicar, 1980). At the time, he also directed Companys: Procés a Catalunya (Companies: Catalonia Under Trial, 1979), one of the prime examples of Transition-period Catalan cinema, which followed the last days in the life of the last pre-Civil War president of Catalonia. Although he worked mostly as producer in the years that followed, he also directed ¿Ho sap el ministre? (Does the Minister Know? 1991) a political satire, Sujúdice (Under Judgement, 1998), and El coronel Maciá (Colonel Maciá, 2001). FORQUÉ, JOSÉ MARÍA (1923–1995). During the 1960s, José María Forqué was one of the most financially successful producers and directors of commercial cinema in Spain. After some 12 shorts and a collaboration with Pedro Lazaga (María Morena, 1951), he directed his first feature Niebla y sol (Fog and Sun) in 1951. A learning period followed, during which he worked in largely unchallenging projects until 1954, when he directed Un día perdido (A Lost Day), a good comedy that assimilates elements of Spanish costumbrismo and neorealism. This was followed by the war-themed Embajadores en el infierno (Ambassadors in Hell, 1956). In 1957, he directed the unusual Amanecer en puerta oscura (Dawn at the Dark Gate, a Golden Bear winner at the Berlin Film Festival), a story that combined two thematic trends of the period: films about 19th-century outlaws (seen as popular nationalist heroes) on the one hand, and religious narratives about miracles on the other. This was the beginning of the most

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interesting period in his career. Two films made in 1958 are particularly ambitious: Un hecho violento (A Violent Event) and La noche y el alba (Night and Dawn). Forqué’s best-remembered films in the next decade are vaudevilles that take their inspiration from stage plays, including Maribel y la extraña familia (Maribel and the Strange Family, 1960), Usted puede ser un asesino (You Could Be a Murderer, 1961), Un millón en la basura (A Million in the Dustbin, 1967), and Vil seducción (Vile Seduction, 1968). The heist film Atraco a las tres (Bank Robbery at Three, 1962) is one of the most effectively plotted farces of the period, and its critical reputation only seems to grow with the years. It boasted an excellent cast including José Luis López Vázquez, Gracita Morales, Cassen, Agustín González, Alfredo Landa, and Rafaela Aparicio. But, like many other commercial directors, later in the decade he was forced into conventional and increasingly conservative projects by the very momentum of mainstream film industry. After Francisco Franco’s death, he dabbled in pseudo-erotic comedies like ¡Qué verde era mi duque! (How Green Was My Duke! 1980), and he also directed the traditional costume drama (and boxoffice flop) Romanza final (Final Aria, 1986), based on the life of a legendary Basque tenor played by Josep Carreras. FORQUÉ, VERÓNICA (1955– ). With her wistful smile, cartoonish voice, feisty demeanor, and clear watery eyes, Verónica Forqué was one of the most engaging comic presences in Spanish cinema during the 1980s and early 1990s. She was the daughter of director José María Forqué, and first appeared on film as a teenager in an unbilled part in Jaime de Armiñán’s Mi querida señorita (My Dear Miss, 1972). Her real debut was in her father’s El segundo poder (The Second Power, 1976), and her talent was evident as the maid in Antonio Mercero’s hugely popular La guerra de papá (Daddy’s War, 1977). For a few years, she went largely unnoticed in her film work. She worked in television in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a remarkable casting mistake, her unmistakable voice was overly recognizable when she dubbed Shelley Duvall in the Spanish version of The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980). Then Pedro Almodóvar called her to play Crystal, the hooker next door, in ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984), where

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she managed a superb performance, combining sexiness and naiveté. She continued to work in a TV series for two seasons in 1985 and 1986, Platos rotos (Broken Dishes), but essentially devoted herself to film. Her strength was comedy, and she was particularly good as the overemotional sexy secretary in Sé infiel y no mires con quién (Be Unfaithful Without Asking Who With, 1985), touching as the fascist woman in love with a teenager in El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, Fernando Trueba, 1986), and very watchable in Salsa rosa (Pink Sauce, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1992). In the late 1980s, Forqué toured the country with the stage version of ¡Ay Carmela! a role she created, played on film by Carmen Maura. Almodóvar again exploited her feistiness in Kika (1993), and she shone in what was an otherwise chaotic film, particularly in her ability to balance comedy with the overall nastiness of the plot (particularly in the notorious comic rape sequence). More recently, she starred in Clara y Elena (Clara and Elena, Manuel Iborra, 2001), a sister melodrama co-starring Maura, in which she gave a strong performance as a woman dying of cancer. Although she has not broken new ground, she has been especially effective in Sin vergüenza (Shameless, Joaquín Oristrell, 2001), Tiempos de azúcar (Juan Luis Iborra, Times of Sugar, 2001), Reinas (Queens, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 2005), and La dama boba (Dumb Lady, Manuel Iborra, 2006). FRAILE, ALFREDO (1912–1994). Cinematographer (and later producer) Alfredo Fraile worked as a photographer and projectionist before contributing cinematography for a series of Civil War documentaries directed by Fernando Delgado. His detailed and contrasted photography for Carlos Arévalo’s ¡Harka! (1941) was his first substantial work for a feature film, and his skill and technical expertise dominates black-and-white films of the 1940s and 1950s. Closely associated to key CIFESA productions, he was responsible for the look of a prestigious list of films including ¡A mí la legión! (Follow the Legion! Juan de Orduña, 1942), Huella de luz (A Trace of Light, Rafael Gil, 1943), Eloísa está debajo de un almendro (Eloisa Is Underneath an Almond Tree, Rafael Gil, 1943), El clavo (The Nail, Rafael Gil, 1944), La princesa de los Ursinos (The Princess of the Ursines, Luis Lucia, 1947), De mujer a mujer (Woman to Woman,

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Luis Lucia, 1950), La leona de Castilla (The Lioness of Castile, Juan de Orduña, 1951), and Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951). Many of these were historical films or literary adaptations that benefited from the strongly epic look contributed by Fraile. In these years, he established a close collaboration with director Rafael Gil, with whom he went on working during the 1950s on a series of titles including Murió hace quince años (He Died Fifteen Years Ago, 1954), El beso de Judas (Judas’ Kiss, 1954), and La otra vida del Capitán Contreras (Captain Contreras’ Other Life, 1955). Moving away from the literary look of these films into more modern territory, he was also responsible for the cold, sparse images of Juan Antonio Bardem’s Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955) and the bullfighting film A las cinco de la tarde (At Five in the Afternoon, 1961). His images have been faulted for academicism and an empty exquisiteness, but these were exactly the qualities required for that kind of product. He started working in color in 1955, with El difunto es un vivo (The Dead Man Is Very Clever, Juan Lladó), but his work faltered at that point and became less distinctive. From the mid-1960s, he worked mainly as producer of films including the spaghetti Western For a Few Dollars More and Manolo Escobar musicals like El padre Manolo (Father Manolo, Ramón Torrado, 1967), Pero. . . ¿En qué país vivimos? (But. . . What Country Do We Live In? José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1967), En un lugar de la Manga (A Place in La Manga, Mariano Ozores, 1970), and Me debes un muerto (You Owe Me a Corpse, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1971). FRANCO, JESÚS (1936– ). With a filmography which includes more than 180 films directed in 45 years, Jesús Franco is undoubtedly one of the most prolific Spanish filmmakers. His career developed in the field of commercial genre cinema, ranging from desarrollismo comedies to horror and hard-core porn, and took place across several European countries. In contrast with the auteurist tradition, he sees himself as a mere hack who turned out a continuous stream of titles under a range of artistic names (the IMDB lists over 60 of them), often invented by producers without the director’s consent, including Jess Franco, Clifford Brown, James P. Johnson, David Khune, and even Lulú Laverne and Candy Coster. He has also written most of his

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films, as well as working on the score (he is a jazz lover, playing jazz his entire life). As an actor, his best remembered appearance is the child-like brother in Fernando Fernán Gómez’s El extraño viaje (Strange Journey, 1964), where he looks remarkably like a young Peter Lorre. In the mid-1950s, Franco worked as assistant director for Juan Antonio Bardem (who gave him his first opportunity in the industry), Luis García Berlanga, and Orson Welles. He directed his first film, Tenemos 18 años (We Are Eighteen), in 1959, and his career continued on the margins of the industry, most often working on shoestring budgets within whatever trends were commercially viable at the time. He claims to make movies out of love for the art, rather than for any artistic ambition. He is credited with being a pioneer of Spanish horror, with Gritos en la noche (Screams in the Night, 1961), made well before the boom of the late 1960s. Experts of the genre note his masterpiece is Drácula contra Frankenstein (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, 1971). In 1983, he became one of the key personalities in the Spanish soft-core porn industry, directing several films a year. In spite of all of this, audiences have found certain recurring themes and characters in his filmography appealing, as well as his preference to work with particular actors (Lina Romay became his muse from 1973 and all through his later porn phase). His work is in the process of being reassessed by fans and experts on popular cinema. In 2006, the Paris cinemateque celebrated his career with a season of his best films. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary Goya for his entire career. In his acceptance speech, he expressed his surprise at having been given such a prize as he had never worked for prizes and had never attempted the kind of films that get prizes. See also FRANCO, RICARDO. FRANCO, RICARDO (1949–1998). Ricardo Franco was born in Madrid, and his earliest jobs in the film industry were in projects directed by his uncle Jesús Franco. Like the latter, he worked as an editor, composer, actor, and writer, as well as director. Franco’s first film, El desastre de Annual (The Annual Disaster, 1970), coscripted with writer Javier Marías and produced by filmmaker Pere Portabella, was an experimental project that ran against the grain of

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the film industry, in which he showed an unusual interest in style. The film was an irreverent reflection on the 1921 military defeat that was, at the time, regarded as a humiliation for Spain and was consequently banned by the authorities. In spite of its importance in terms of aesthetics and the expression of a very personal voice, the film was never properly appreciated. Pascual Duarte (1976), produced by Elías Querejeta, was the first of Franco’s films to have a critical impact. It was a characteristically “difficult” project, based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela, which followed the life story of a poor man who resorts to delinquency during the dictatorship. After this, Franco’s career became even more uneven. Unable to find support for his personal projects, he worked as an actor (for instance, in a small part in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón, 1980) and took refuge in television, where he did undistinguished work for a number of series. Two films from his late career stand out. Después de tantos años (After So Many Years, 1994) is a follow-up to Jaime Chávarri’s El desencanto (The Disenchantment, 1978), taking over where the documentary on the Panero family left off, to follow the characters through the Transition. La buena estrella (The Good Star, 1997) is regarded as one of the best Spanish films of the 1990s, and for the critics it meant a return to form. Written and directed by Franco, it told the story of a middle-aged man who gives shelter to a young woman of the streets, establishing a deep relationship with her. A few years later, her sometimes boyfriend returns, and a fascinating triangle of affections is developed. This film was followed by the less-successful (but also very personal) Lágrimas negras (Black Tears), Franco’s last film before his death from a heart attack in 1998. Although less moving, it took up similar themes of obsession and deep feelings. FURTIVOS / POACHERS (1975). Produced and directed by José Luis Borau, Furtivos has been read both as the outer limit of the period of metaphorical films and as the threshold to the new post-Franco explicitness. Shot in 1974, in one of the most repressive moments of the late dictatorship and following the terrorist attack against Francisco

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Franco’s second-in-command Admiral Carrero Blanco, this rural drama featured a series of elements typical of the symbolism filmmakers of those years used to circumvent censorship: use of the family, hunting, and a forest as metaphorical space, recurring images (poaching, eating) that echo on several levels of the narrative. Described literally, Furtivos tells the story of a poacher (Ovidi Montillor) who lives with his mother (Lola Gaos) in the middle of a deep forest, and of the woman who comes between them (Alicia Sánchez). But in spite of this narrative simplicity, the director conveys the idea of a country muffled by a repressive system in which human behavior becomes beastly. The film was co-scripted with Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, whose original idea it was and whose personal memories of mysterious forests are a key part of the story. Also, Borau was particularly interested in making a film with Gaos that could display the intensity she had shown in Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1970). The name of her character in the latter film, Saturna, led him to imagine the idea of a parent devouring her son, and he found Gutiérrez Aragón’s use of a forest and elements of rural melodrama a good way to channel the story. In spite of attempts to conceal symbolic meanings, censors demanded several cuts and changes, which Borau refused to accept. The battle that followed, shrewdly publicized by the director in order to gain support both domestically and abroad, has become one of the legends of Spanish cinema. It built the film’s reputation and created high expectations among audiences. The director knew the only way he could release Furtivos was to enter a film festival. Venice and Cannes rejected it, but San Sebastian accepted. To avoid international scandal when the film won the Golden Shell, authorities had to allow release in the version prepared by Boreau. Franco died two months after the San Sebastian prize; the instability of the times no doubt contributed to the commercial success of the film, which became one of the biggest box-office hits in Spanish film. In addition to Lola Gaos’s raw performance and the sad intensity contributed by singer Ovidi Montllor, the film benefited from a nuanced cinematography by Luis Cuadrado (with contributions of camera operator Teo Escamilla). Borau himself played a politician fond of hunting, a role written originally with José Luis López Vázquez in mind.

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– G – GARCI, JOSÉ LUIS (1944– ). José Luis Garci’s obsession for nostalgia, evidenced both in his film work and in his television appearances as film presenter, has become something of a cliché for critics and audiences, but after a career spanning over five decades, in the early 21st century he almost defiantly keeps on turning out traditional, technically accomplished films with high production values and tight direction of actors. He was a self-taught filmmaker, who started as a cinephile and critic in the early 1960s. From that period, he has retained his fondness for talking about film, warmly discussing the classics and icons that have had such an impact on his life, which he put to good service in a series of radio and TV programs in the 1980s and the 1990s. Writing was his other passion; although he never fully developed on film his expertise in science fiction, he authored a series of stories that took the work of Ray Bradbury as inspiration. Indeed, it was as a scriptwriter that he entered the industry, working both for film and television. Among his most remarkable achievements in this field is La cabina (The Telephone Box, 1972), co-written with and directed by Antonio Mercero, a horror story about a man trapped in a telephone box. At the time, Garci was one of the most recognizable voices in Tercera vía films, penning a number of scripts for Roberto Bodegas. Unlike Bodegas, he evolved smoothly from Tercera vía into more recognizably “Transition” cinema, and his earliest feature film efforts are examples of this. Both Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject, 1977) and Solos en la madrugada (Alone in the Small Hours, 1978) became box-office hits in the late 1970s, touching on some sensitive issues of the period, particularly the former, which was a story about two old friends who are in relationships, but meet again after Francisco Franco’s death to find they have to catch up with the feelings they did not dare show and the sex they did not dare practice. It was a powerful representation of how Francoist repression had impacted ordinary lives. Then he tackled two successful cinephile investigations into hard-boiled noir, El crack (1981) and El crack 2 (1983), starring Alfredo Landa as a police detective in a gritty Madrid.

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In 1984, his film Volver a empezar (To Begin Again / Begin the Beguine) won the Academy Award for best foreign film, but after a short-lived period of elation, Spanish critics turned against him, suddenly seeing his films as old-fashioned—Volver a empezar was a conventional film, trite, sentimental, very much the kind of cinema that belonged to an earlier age. Garci was compared negatively to edgier new filmmakers. Such lynching was the cause of a very strained period. Garci counterattacked in his broadcasts, and the reception of his following film was either hostile or muted. He was so often derided by the critical establishment in the late 1980s that he decided to turn away from filmmaking and concentrate on television. He came back to film in 1994, using his personal outlook to his own advantage and beginning a series of beautifully crafted dramas, often set in the past and featuring sad stories, that (again) earned him the attention of audiences and the industry. His first film as director in this period of his career was Canción de cuna (Lullaby, 1994), based on an old-fashioned play set in a convent. Alfredo Landa became something of a recurring presence in those years. El abuelo (The Grandfather, 1998), another adaptation starring Fernando Fernán Gómez and the director’s then girlfriend Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, was only moderately successful at the box office. Una historia de entonces (A Tale of Another Time, 2000) and the ensemble story Tiovivo c. 1950 (Merry Go Round, c. 1950, 2004), closely resembling Camilo José Cela’s novel La colmena (The Beehive) in structure and cast of characters, both play the nostalgia hand very strongly. Luz de domingo (Sunday Light, 2007) was Landa’s final film and Garci’s last collaboration with the actor. GARCÍA SÁNCHEZ, JOSÉ LUIS (1941– ). García Sánchez’s indistinctive style as a filmmaker is amply compensated for by solidity of his projects and the originality of his scripts, deeply rooted in Spanish traditions from costumbrismo to a buñuelesque sense of absurdity. After studying at the Escuela Oficial de Cine, he started in the film industry as assistant director in such projects as Basilio Martín Patino’s Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, 1966). Then he wrote scripts for other people’s projects, including Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s Habla Mudita (Speak, Little Mute Girl, 1973) and Francisco Betriú’s Corazón Solitario (Lonely Heart, 1973). At

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that time, he was already directing a number of shorts. In the early 1970s, he participated in a collective project for a series of documentary shorts including Canta José Menese (José Menese Sings) and Loco por Machín (Crazy for Machín), both in 1971, and in that year helped Martín Patino with the script of Canciones para después de una guerra and Queridísimos verdugos (Dearest Executioners), before tackling his first feature as director, the comedy El love feroz (Big Bad Love, 1973). García Sánchez belongs to the last generation of filmmakers who started their career under the Franco regime, and the influence of late Francoist style is apparent in Las truchas (The Trouts, 1978), coscripted with Rafael Azcona and the best reviewed film of his first period. He contributed to a portmanteau children’s film Cuentos para una escapada (Tales for an Escapade, 1981) and to the documentary Dolores (1981), on Dolores Ibárruri “La pasionaria,” one of the key figures in the anti-Franco struggle. García Sánchez’s second period as director and writer (most often in collaboration with Rafael Azcona) started in 1985 with La corte del faraón (Pharaoh’s Court, 1985), a zarzuela musical with a star-studded cast which included Fernando Fernán Gómez, Ana Belén, and Antonio Banderas. Many films of this period are substantial literary adaptations with prestigious casts and high production values. Among these, Divinas palabras (Divine Words, 1987), Tirano banderas (Banderas, The Tyrant, 1993), and Tranvía a la Malvarrosa (Trolley to Malvarrosa, 1997) are of particular interest. His most personal project in the second part of his career was the diptych Suspiros de España (y Portugal) (Sighs From Spain [and Portugal], 1995), and its sequel Siempre hay un camino a la derecha (There Is Always a Path to the Right, 1997), a generational reflection on the changes in Spain since 1975, which was linked to the picaresque tradition. He also contributed to the scripts of Belle epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992), Cómo ser infeliz y disfrutarlo (How to Be Unhappy Enjoying It, Enrique Urbizu, 1994), and El rey del río (King of the River, Jaime Chávarri, 1995). More recently, he has directed an enjoyable adapatation of Golden Age novel Lázaro de Tormes (2001) and the biopic María Querida (Dear María, 2004) on philosopher María Zambrano, a pet project starring Pilar Bardem.

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GAY, CESC (1967– ). Catalan filmmaker Cesc Gay’s short career as writer-director shows evidence of an independent outlook with a keen eye for human behavior. His film debut Hotel Room (1998) was a fragmented narrative, consisting of five off-beat situations. It was co-directed with Daniel Bimelberg. Krámpack (Nico and Dani, 2000), about two boys who spend a few days together in a Catalan holiday town, was a dead-pan coming-of-age story that combined observation with humor. While Nico explores heterosexuality and falls in love, Dani is surprised to find that his feelings for his best friend go deeper than camaraderie. Gay took inspiration (in tone and a couple of situations) from a successful stage play, but completely transformed it into an engaging narrative brimming with witty dialogues. Gay’s next effort was more ambitious and even more substantial. En la ciutat (In the City, 2003) was a wry network narrative about a group of friends who live in Barcelona. The director keeps his distance as he shows them lying, falling in love, cheating, and repressing emotions, and the result was a complex look at the ways in which people stay together. Eduard Fernández, who gave a superb performance as a man unable to express his emotions, led a very strong cast which included Leonor Watling, Mónica López, María Pujalte, and Vicenta N’Dongo. Less successful, Ficció (Fiction, 2006) took some of the characters of En la ciutat to a remote village in the mountains where a film director and a young violinist consider having an affair. Eduard Fernández starred in a similar part as an emotionally blocked man. Featuring a vague narrative in which almost nothing happens, the film divided audiences. GELABERT, FRUCTUÓS (1874–1955). Camera operator, inventor, producer, and director Fructuós Gelabert is one of the key film pioneers in Catalonia. Fascinated by Lumière’s invention, in 1897 he constructed his first camera and shot what is acknowledged as the first Spanish fiction film, Riña en un café (Fight at a Café). Whereas most of his contemporaries trained in Paris, Gelabert stayed in Barcelona and produced a number of documentary shorts in his homeland. Like many other pioneers, technological innovation was central to Gelabert’s activities. In fact, he succeeded particularly as a technician,

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especially as a cinematographer, and had little talent for the artistic aspects of film. In 1905, he attempted a method for synchronizing voices on film with live actors, which is among the earliest attempts at sound film. He produced, wrote, shot, and exhibited his films, working for a number of early film companies, including Pathé. In the first decade of the 20th century, he cultivated all the strands and genres that would later become popular. He adapted prestigious plays like Terra Baixa (Lowlands, 1907), introduced the zarzuela film, put together historical dramas starring great performers from the stage and, of course, did a share of documentaries. He was never an efficient manager, and his attempts at setting up a production company failed repeatedly. He retired from direction in 1918, although he took the opportunity to remake Riña en un café before his death in 1955. GIL, ARIADNA (1969– ). Ariadna Gil was born in Barcelona and sang for a rock band as a teenager. She studied acting at drama school, but it was her face on an arts magazine that caught the eye of producers and particularly director Bigas Luna, who offered her a small part in Lola (1986). It took a few years before she appeared in a substantial role, in Amo tu cama rica (I Love Your Delightful Bed, Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 1992), a romantic comedy with Pere Ponce and Javier Bardem. Still considered just a pretty face, it was only after her sensitive performance as lesbian Violeta in Fernando Trueba’s Belle Epoque (1992) that she began to be taken seriously by critics. Gil’s strengths as a star are a strong sensuality and a husky voice, which can suggest depths of mystery, but she has always resisted typecasting, and even in her roles as object of desire, there is a sense of intelligent distance. Since the mid-1990s, she took a number of challenging roles as a heroin addict in Manuel Huerga’s Antártida (1995), as a young woman unhappy in love in Malena es nombre de tango (Malena Is a Tango’s Name, Gerardo Herrero, 1996), as a nun in Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias (Freedom Fighters, 1996), a disturbed young delinquent in Lágrimas negras (Black Tears, Ricardo Franco, 1998), the wife of a closeted homosexual in Segunda piel (Second Skin, Gerardo Vera, 1999), and as the object of sexual fantasy in both La virgen de la lujuria (Virgin of Lust, Arturo Ripstein, 2002) and El embrujo de Shanghai (The Enchantment of Shanghai,

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Fernando Trueba, 2002). She is the life partner of writer and director David Trueba, with whom she collaborated in his film debut as director of Obra maestra (Masterpiece, 2000), as well as in Soldados de Salamina (The Salamina Soldiers, 2003), and with a strong supporting part in Bienvenido a casa (Welcome Home, 2006). For Sólo quiero caminar (I Only Want to Keep on Walking, Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2008), she gave one of the best performances of her career as the haunted, hard, intense Aurora, an ex-prisoner involved in a robbery with other women in Mexico. GIL, RAFAEL (1913–1986). Rafael Gil was one of the most emblematic directors of Francoism, always faithful to the regime’s dictates and an enthusiastic follower of ideological guidelines; in exchange, during his long career, he enjoyed awards, privileges, and the budgets to work with the best production values available. Consequently, even though he was an illustrator rather than an innovator, his filmography stands out in terms of quality and substance. He was born in the Teatro Real, where his father worked, and he devoted himself to show business from his early years. Early jobs included journalism and script writer for radio as well as show promoter. He created the Grupo de Escritores Cinematográficos Independientes in 1936 with other scriptwriters, and wrote the most important film theory essay of the period, Luz del cinema (Light of Film, 1936). At that time, he was working on experimental cinema, a path that was interrupted by the Civil War. He also did some propaganda and documentary work for the Republican Army (a fact that was conveniently ignored in his later years). As the Fascist victory became a certainty, he switched allegiances and starting working for the winning side. His first feature was El hombre que se quiso matar (The Man Who Wanted to Kill Himself, 1942), which was followed by Huella de luz (A Sight of Light, 1943), one of the best comedies of the period. In the 1940s, he earned a reputation as a master adaptor of literary works, often in collaboration with his favorite cinematographer Alfredo Fraile, who had learned the lesson of chiaroscuro from Expressionist cinema, and set designer Enrique Alarcón. Gil’s earnest, somewhat heavy-handed work in El clavo (The Nail, 1944), based on a popular 19th-century thriller is representative of a time when film narratives

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were removed from social reality and created alternative worlds. Other adaptations include the Jardiel Poncela play Eloísa está debajo de un almendro (Eloísa Is Underneath an Almond Tree, 1943), a version of Armando Palacio Valdés’s novel La fe (Faith, 1947); Don Quijote de la Mancha (Don Quixote, 1947), a solid straightforward outline of the Cervantes’ novel’s central plot; Jacinto Benavente’s play La noche de sábado (Saturday Night, 1950); La casa de la Troya (House of Trouble, 1959); and Currito de la Cruz (1965), the latter two based on Alejandro Pérez Lugín’s novels. He was also good in a series of bombastic films about religious illumination, often in collaboration with scriptwriter Vicente Escrivá, including La señora de Fátima (Our Lady of Fátima, 1951), La guerra de Dios (God’s War, 1953), and El beso de Judas (Judas’ Kiss, 1954). After the autarky period (in which Spain was economically and politically isolated from the Western countries) finished in 1953 and films became either more realistic or more modern in aesthetics, Gil lost his personality as a filmmaker, turning out a series of very conventional vehicles, including a number of adaptations of proFranco novelist Fernando Vizcaíno Casas: La boda del señor cura (The Priest’s Wedding, 1979), Y al tercer año resucitó (And on the Third Year He Rose From the Dead, 1980), Hijos de Papá (Daddy’s Boys, 1980), and De camisa vieja a chaqueta nueva (Old Shirt to New Jacket, 1982) are examples of his last period and monuments of Francoist nostalgia. GOLDEN AGE. The 17th century was a key period for Spain’s cultural identity, one that determined its fate as a nation. The year 1492 is a landmark in Spanish history that marks the political rise of the country (at that time made up of the union of different kingdoms under the Catholic monarchs) in the international scene: Granada was taken back from the Moors, thus ending a 700-year coexistence between Christian and Islamic cultures; the Jews were forced to convert to the Christian faith under threat of expulsion from the country; the first grammar of the Spanish language was published, and, perhaps most importantly, Christopher Columbus’ nautical expedition, funded by the Castile government, reached a land that would later be known as America, starting a period of conquest. In 1550, the rule of Emperor Charles I extended across three continents, and it was claimed

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proudly that “the Sun never set” on Spanish territories. Spain was at that time the center of the civilized world, and it attracted scientists, architects, and artists from all nations. In 1588, the formerly invincible Spanish Armada was defeated by England at Trafalgar, and the country’s military power started a long decadence that was reflected in the arts and literature of the period. The momentous cultural changes brought on by the rise and fall of Spanish political and economic power encouraged a flourishing of the arts in the Iberian Peninsula that has been known as the Golden Age, particularly in the fields of literature and painting. Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote was published in 1605. It was the period of Luis de Góngora’s beautiful and obscure poems and of Francisco de Quevedo’s acerbic satires. Theater flourished, with plays by Félix Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and, later, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, represented in corral de comedias. The Elizabethan tradition in England paled by comparison at the time. The achievements of the period have eventually been reflected on film in different ways: in straightforward representations of the period, dealing with social or historical issues; in adaptations from literary works; and also in taking up the artistic heritage of a wealth of styles and themes. As examples of the latter, the style of painters such as Diego de Velázquez and Francisco Zurbarán has been a source of inspiration for cinematographers like Teo Escamilla and Luis Cuadrado, and critics have traced the origins of Spanish costumbrismo and its focus on Realism to Golden Age painting and literature. Given the drama the period suggests, it is interesting to note that realistic narratives set the 16th and 17th centuries were not very frequent for several decades in Spanish cinema. In particular, it could be expected that Francoist cinema would take up the wealth of references for its agenda to reinforce a certain heroic national identity. But this was done very selectively and not very often. In any case, as one could expect, the glory days of the discovery of America and the traditional values represented by the Reyes Católicos, or “Catholic Monarchs,” were preferred to the conflictive, critical “Golden Age,” for instance in Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951). Otherwise, culturally and politically, the period was considered too politically sensitive to deal with, and historical epics lost critical favor.

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The potential of the period would only be mined in recent years. Imanol Uribe had a hit (rewarded with Goyas) with El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, 1991), and the celebrations of 1992 made easier the production of such projects as La marrana (The Sow, José Luis Cuerda, 1992). In that year, Spanish institutions contributed to fund two further retellings of the Columbus expedition: 1492. The Conquest of Paradise (Ridley Scott, 1992) and Christopher Columbus, The Discovery (John Glen, 1992). From then on, the courtly intrigues, religious troubles, and battles of the period of Spanish decadence finally started to find their way into film. The most important film inspired by the Golden Age may have been Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006), based in a series of novels by Arturo Pérez Reverte and chronicling the life of an adventurer in the service of the Crown who witnesses the decadence of the Spanish Empire. Most of the narratives set in the Golden Age are adaptations from literary works produced in the period. Cervantes’s masterwork has been adapted (logically, always in very abridged versions) a number of times in Spanish cinema. Rafael Gil’s and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s versions (1947 and 2002, respectively) are examples of both the Francoist and the democratic attitudes to the character. Orson Welles attempted a version that was partly shot in the country, and Terry Gilliam also made an unfinished attempt, as chronicled in his film Lost in La Mancha (2002). Finally, an ambitious animated TV series encompassed the whole of the novel, directed by Cruz Delgado in 1978. After Cervantes, playwright Lope de Vega has been adapted most often. Fuenteovejuna was a particular favorite of Francoism (one important version was shot in 1947, directed by Antonio Román), as it could be interpreted as a revolution against tyranny in favor of traditional power authorities. Plays by Calderón, such as El alcalde de Zalamea, were also made into films (in 1954, directed by José Gutiérrez Maesso) that could contribute to the Francoist ideological project. After Franco, Golden Age adaptations become even more scarce. El perro del Hortelano (The Dog in The Manger, 1996), Pilar Miró’s adaptation of Lope’s play, was important because it was interpreted as a return of the genre, but only La dama boba (The Dumb Lady, Manuel Iborra, 2006) followed less successfully 10 years later.

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GÓMEZ, CARMELO (1962– ). Carmelo Gómez was first noticed by audiences for his strongly physical performance in Julio Medem’s Vacas (Cows, 1992). In that film, he played a Basque everyman, with three roles covering three different generations of a family. This physicality remained one of his best assets, perfectly used by Medem again in La ardilla roja (The Red Squirrel, 1993) and the metaphorical fantasy Tierra (Earth, 1996), and by Imanol Uribe in Días contados (Numbered Days, 1994), where he played a terrorist in love with a junkie and was awarded the best actor Goya that year. Restrained and slightly humorless, he projected a brand of classical, serene masculinity that was particularly effective in El detective y la muerte (Detective and Death, Gonzalo Suárez, 1994). He then attempted comedy in El perro del hortelano (Dog in the Orchard, Pilar Miró, 1996) and Entre las piernas (Between the Legs, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1999), but failed to project the lightness of touch the genre required. His best recent performance was in Gonzalo Suárez’s El portero (The Goalkeeper, 2000), where he played a goalkeeper who travels to Asturias after the Civil War and meets a group of antiFranco guerilla fighters. He has received critical acclaim and awards for his work in La noche de los girasoles (Night of the Sunflowers, Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, 2006) and El método (The Method, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2005), for which he won another Goya, this time as supporting actor. GÓMEZ PEREIRA, MANUEL (1958– ). In a series of films since the mid-1990s, Manuel Gómez Pereira attempted a balance between the Hollywood approach to romantic comedy (restrained, star-based, and often chaste) and a Spanish tradition that had evolved out of landismo and erotic comedy but remained centered on sex and elements from the old costumbrista tradition. He revisited the mechanisms of classical vaudeville, allowing frivolity and surface to replace the obsession for sober realism that had seized Spanish cinema. Gómez Pereira was born in Madrid, and studied journalism and communications at the University. His feature debut Salsa Rosa (Pink Sauce, 1992) is already evidence of an attempt to achieve a model sexier than Hollywood vehicles but more sophisticated than the regular Mariano Ozores sex comedies. The plot devices in the film are the same as could be found in the golden age of the genre

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(mistaken identities, surprise turns, deception, running around), but at the same time he introduced a sense of European substance and, most importantly, allowed for a feminine perspective in his narratives. His next two films were also “pure” comedies that consolidated his reputation. ¿Por qué lo llaman amor cuando quieren decir sexo? (Why Do They Call It Love When They Mean Sex? 1993) presented for the first time in his filmography the world of sex workers. Todos los hombres sois iguales (All Men Are the Same, 1994) was a parody of traditional masculinity and a battle-of-the-sexes comedy that owed more to classical Tracy-Hepburn vehicles than to contemporary models. In all of these, Gómez Pereira worked with a team of close associates who would go on to careers as writer-directors: Joaquín Oristrell, Yolanda García Serrano, and Juan Luis Iborra. His next film as a director, and the hit that established him as one of the most solid commercial filmmakers of the 1990s, was Boca a Boca (Mouth to Mouth, 1995). Two sex workers (played here by Javier Bardem and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) are, once again, the protagonists, and a range of sexual alternatives are represented that stray beyond the limits of sexual orthodoxy. In contrast with the Ozores factory counterparts, there is also a detailed plot construction, real acting, and a sense of mise en scene. Finally, women have a voice rather than just being represented as objects of the male gaze. Gómez Pereira’s next effort was even more accomplished and an even bigger box-office hit: El amor perjudica seriamente a la salud (Love Seriously Damages the Health, 1996) presents a clever story about a mature couple who meet after 20 years of not seeing each other and remember the time in the 1960s when they had a brief affair. The desarrollismo-period background was not used politically (or rigorously) by Gómez Pereira, who chose instead to focus on surfaces, character, and plot. This is not a satire about Francoism (as, say, Rafael Azcona might have penned from a similar starting point), but a comedy about older, less-complicated times. The casting was note perfect: the mature woman protagonist was played by Ana Belén at her iciest best, and the man by Juanjo Puigcorbé, with Penélope Cruz and Gabino Diego as their younger selves. Gómez Pereira continued to work along similar lines, often from scripts written in collaboration with Oristrell. Entre las piernas (In

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Between the Legs, 1999) was an attempt to revisit the sexually mature perspective of Boca a boca, but lightness of touch was lost and the film was only moderately successful. Reinas (Queens), 2005, topically tackled gay marriage (this was the year a law allowing samesex marriage was passed in Spain): four gay couples are going to get married, and their mothers gather together for the event. The dynamics between mothers and sons, as well as those within the couples, were articulated with a refreshing lightness of touch, in spite of the obvious difficulties for Gómez Pereira to keep all the plot strands going at a brisk pace without sacrificing comprehensibility. See also HOMOSEXUALITY. GONZÁLEZ, AGUSTÍN (1930–2005). Agustín González very seldom had a starring part, but toward the end of his career he was one of the most established actors in Spanish cinema and television: since his debut as a child in 1934, he was featured in more than 200 films and TV dramas, and throughout five decades he was an effective ensemble player, who won the respect of the acting profession. From his Franco period, he is particularly remembered for his roles as the resentful son in Mi Calle (My Street, Edgar Neville, 1960), one of the bourgeois young men in Luis G. Berlanga’s Plácido (1962), and brief appearances in such distinguished efforts as Carlos Saura’s Llanto por un bandido (Tears for an Outlaw, 1964), Fernando Fernán Gómez’s El mundo sigue (The World Goes Round, 1965), and Antxón Eceiza’s De cuerpo presente (In the Presence of the Body, 1967). After the Transition, he continued to work, mostly in comedies. He was a regular in Pedro Masó’s films of the period, including La miel (Honey, 1979), El divorcio que viene (The Coming Divorce, 1980), and Puente aéreo (Direct Flight, 1981), as well as in films by more progressive filmmakers like Pilar Miró (Gary Cooper que estás en los cielos [Gary Cooper Who Art in Heaven] 1980). At that time, he specialized in playing reactionaries, priests, army men, and police chiefs with fascist leanings. He cultivated this type in La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun, Luis G. Berlanga, 1978), El diputado (The Member of Parliament, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1979), El Nido (The Nest, Jaime de Armiñán, 1980), and Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984), among others.

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In contrast, it was his humanistic, republican priest in Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992) that was widely acknowledged as one of his best performances, and helped him land better roles in his latter years. He was extraordinary as a bum in Ventura Pons’s Caricies (Caresses, 1998), very funny as a saint in Así en el cielo como en la tierra (In Heaven as in Earth, José Luis Cuerda, 1995), and a commanding authority in José Luis Garci’s period dramas El abuelo (The Grandfather, 1998), Historia de un beso (Story of a Kiss, 2002), and Tiovivo c. 1950 (Merry Go Round c. 1950, 2004), his last part, typically, as part of an ensemble film. GOYA AWARDS. The most visible task of the Academia de Ciencias y Artes Cinematográficas de España has been, since its beginnings, the organization of the Goya Awards, which celebrated its 23rd edition in 2009. All members of the Academy vote for all categories, and this system of voting has become the object of controversy. The gala itself is also a topic for heated discussion every year. It is organized by the Academy and televised, and attempts to present it as the equivalent to the Oscars have proved misguided, with too many unrehearsed speeches and clumsy staging. Although the ceremony has become more polished in recent years, the press is still highly critical of a ceremony that is regarded as derivative and unnecessary, with profuse display of glamor and cult to the personalities of commercial Spanish cinema, and which only pays lip service to ambitious artistic endeavors. However, such trappings may be necessary if Spanish cinema is to compete with international products and achieve press coverage. Glamor, even its worst manifestations, has always been part of the fascination of film. That the strategy has worked somehow can be perceived in the increasing visibility of the awards: the Goyas keep on growing in popularity and now constitute a good marketing tool. For 2009, there were 26 categories, including distinctions for “new” directors and performers. Categories have changed with time, with separate awards for best Spanish film, best Latin American film, and best European film. In 2009, a film like Vicky Christina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008) was regarded as Spanish, whereas The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) was nominated as a European film. This is a sign of changing times, with film distribution being seen an increasingly global business.

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The honorary Goya always constitutes a high point of the awards ceremony, celebrating traditions in the Spanish film industry. Recent recipients include Jesús Franco, Alfredo Landa, José Luis López Vázquez, Pedro Masó, and Juan Antonio Bardem. See also ACADEMIA DE ARTES Y CIENCIAS CINEMATOGRÁFICAS. GUERÍN, JOSÉ LUIS (1960– ). Catalan director José Luis Guerín’s Los motivos de Berta (Berta’s Reasons, 1985), a Bressonian narrative about a girl whose playing days in the countryside are interrupted by the arrival of a film crew was immediately hailed by critics as one of the period’s most artistically accomplished films, but distribution problems made it hard for audiences to respond. It is unlikely they would have in any case: the film revealed a talent for minimalism and a reluctance to follow the conventions of commercial film, tendencies that have never led to box-office success. In latter years, Guerín continued reflecting on and exploring the nature of film in a series of semi-documentaries and collage films that use experimental methods to challenge audience expectations. Innisfree (1990) was the director’s personal tribute to John Ford’s The Quiet Man, and documented a trip to the Irish village where the film was shot, trying to find traces and clues to Ford’s artistry and personality. It was followed by the Pere Portabella-produced Tren de sombras (1996), a silent, plotless experimental essay that recycled primitive film footage and the home movies of a 1920s French photographer to test the limits between film and reality. Guerín’s inventiveness again showed signs of fertility with En construcción (At Work, 2002), which used a documentary base to provide a moving (and frustrating) portrait of the effects of gentrification in a traditional Barcelona neighborhood. The film won a number of awards, including the FIPRESCI and the Great Prize of the Jury at the San Sebastian Film Festival, as well as the Goya as best documentary. En la ciudad de Silvia (In Silvia’s City, 2007), an attempt at a more plot-led narration, but still with little dialogue was less successful. GUTIÉRREZ, CHUS (1962– ). With Gracia Querejeta, Icíar Bollaín, Azucena Rodríguez, and Isabel Coixet, Chus Gutiérrez belongs to the first strong generation of women directors to gain prominence

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in the 1990s. She was born in Granada and moved to Madrid when she was eight. As a child she fantasized about being an actress, but she only found her vocation as a filmmaker after a short period in London when she was 18. She moved to New York to study filmmaking and joined as a singer in the pop group Xoxonees. Some of her experiences trying to deal with the strangeness she felt in the big city are reflected in her first feature. Sublet (1991), shot on a shoestring budget and with nonunion personnel, was funded with the help of Fernando Trueba and starred Bollaín herself as the director’s alter ego. It took over a year for the film to get limited release, and in that time Gutiérrez put into practice an inspiration she got from a dream “where a lot of people in a room were talking of nothing but sex.” The result was Sexo oral (Oral Sex, 1994), a series of edited interviews in which individuals share sexual experiences. This was followed by Alma gitana (Gipsy Soul, 1996), a love story between a young aspiring dancer and a gypsy woman across cultural divides. Problems with plotting and characterization made for unenthusiastic reviews. Insomnio (Insomnia, 1998), a story about women at crucial junctures in their lives, however, was well received. For four years she worked in television, within the limited conventions of the soap opera, and it was only in 2002 that she came back to feature direction with Poniente (Sunset), a project based on a script co-written with Bollaín. In 2005, Gutiérrez directed El calentito (El Calentito Pub), an engaging film that looked back on the early 1980s, a period of change and challenges for nonconformists. It told the story of a woman discovering her freedom against the background of pop music and “la movida,” at a time when, momentarily, that freedom was threatened by a reactionary coup d’etat. GUTIÉRREZ ARAGÓN, MANUEL (1942– ). Demons in the Garden, the English translation of the title to Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s fourth feature as director, released in 1982, could also be used to summarize in one phrase the thematic core of his most personal projects, all produced before the mid-1980s. For the director, there was always something unacknowledged, sinister, even threatening underlying everyday reality. In films like Sonámbulos (Sleepwalkers,

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1978) and El corazón del bosque (Heart of the Forest, 1979), those evil forces had to do with historical conflicts that had remained unresolved as open wounds. This idea pushed his films toward metaphor expressed through fantasy (he was one of the central filmmakers in the tradition of metaphorical cinema during the Transition) and came to constitute a mark of artistic identity. Gutiérrez Aragón was born in Torrelavega, Cantabria, a city in the north of Spain, which constitutes the landscape for a substantial part of his filmography. He studied at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC), becoming a protegee of José Luis Borau, who worked largely as a scriptwriter. Habla mudita (Speak, Little Mute Girl, 1973) was his first feature. The metaphorical impulse of his future works is already fully present in the story of a mute girl. This was a film produced by Elías Querejeta, emblematic of the attempts of Spanish filmmakers of the time to work on artistic projects that engaged with political reality. He wrote the first version of Borau’s Furtivos (Poachers, 1975) in 1974: with its imagery of deep forests teeming with dark secrets, this was as much Gutiérrez Aragón’s film as the director’s. He continued to alternate scripts by other filmmakers with others for himself. Gutiérrez Aragón came into his own as a director in the years surrounding the Transition. El corazón del bosque is the story of an anti-Francoist rebel hiding in the depths of a forest after the Civil War, and Sonámbulos is an experimental narrative that shifts seamlessly between dreams and harsh reality. It tells the story of a narcoleptic actress (Ana Belén) involved in an August Strindberg play; the company putting on the play are also anti-Francoist fighters, and the film plays on the confusion between fantasy and a violent reality. Maravillas (Wonders, 1991) is among his most personal films, and he returned to fantasy in telling the story of a girl from the margins of society who befriends a magician. By the mid-1980s, his films were becoming more conventional, as if he was beginning to distance himself from personal obsessions. La noche más hermosa (The Most Beautiful Night, 1984), a marital comedy, and Feroz (Ferocious, 1984) a symbol-heavy plot about education centered on a boy who turns into a bear, still contained fantastic elements. La otra mitad del cielo (The Other Half of the Sky, 1986), a family saga that took in the Republic and the Civil War, was

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very much within the guidelines of historical adaptations that became popular at the time. It starred Ángela Molina as a woman who survives the period’s upheavals. The critics stopped finding an original voice at that time, and after the failure of Malaventura (Bad Luck, 1988), he decided to seek alternatives to filmmaking. By then, Gutiérrez Aragón had become the president of the Spanish Association of Authors (Sociedad General de Autores de España, SGAE) and held a number of institutional jobs. He continued to write scripts throughout the 1990s, but only directed two features: El rey del río (King of the River, 1995) and Cosas que dejé en la Habana (Things I Left in Havana, 1997). From 2001, his work as director became regular again: he worked on five films, most notably El Caballero Don Quijote (The Knight Don Quixote, 2002), an accomplished adaptation of Don Quijote, starring Juan Luis Galiardo, and his most recent film, Todos estamos invitados (We Are All Invited, 2008), a very personal story on the everyday side of people living under the shadow of terrorism in the Basque country.

– H – HABLE CON ELLA / TALK TO HER (2002). Hable con ella was the film for which Pedro Almodóvar won an Academy Award for best original script (he had been nominated as best director, and won in that category at the European Film Awards). There are several things worth noting in this triumph. First, it was a category that, for obvious reasons, was traditionally dominated by English-speaking professionals, and the award was given by people who, presumably, had missed out on Almodóvar’s polished dialogue, witty turns of phrase, and his already legendary skill for verbal characterization. This says a lot about the Academy’s appreciation of one aspect Spanish critics have only grudgingly accepted: the director’s command of plot construction and dramatic structure, displayed at its best in this film. Second, although Almodóvar had in the past assimilated Hollywood genres (most remarkably melodrama and Hitchcockian thriller, as well as sophisticated comedy reminiscent of the 1950s), this film was among his most blatantly “European” efforts. Third, to those who claimed Almodóvar was liked abroad because he represented a cheap

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or distorted version of “Spanishness” based on color, frivolity, and other “feminine” aspects, it must have come as a shock to realize that recognition came for a restrained, deeply emotional, and essentially earnest (i.e., not camp) male melodrama. Finally, recognition abroad was not replicated domestically. That year, the largest share of the Goya awards went to Fernando León de Aranoa’s worthy, gritty drama Los lunes al sol, and Hable con ella came away with only one prize for Alberto Iglesias in the best score category, something that happened with other Spanish awards as well, eliciting so many questions that Marisa Paredes, then president of the Academia de Ciencias y Artes Cinematográficas awarding the Goyas, had to explain that traditionally Spanish professionals have shown a preference for social drama. And evidently, although some of the themes in the film (for instance rape) could be dealt with following the codes of the issue-centered film, Almodóvar boldly refused to judge the crime and preferred to look at the emotions involved on both sides. The film focuses on the relationship between two men, Benigno and Marco (Javier Cámara and Darío Grandinetti), and also between each and a woman he is obsessed with (Leonor Watling and Rosario Flores, respectively), and who are in both cases in a coma. The script shifts back and forth between the moment in which their relationships consolidated, to end by focusing on the growing sense of solidarity between the men. Marco is the typical straight, virile man of action, sentimental but unable to articulate his emotions; whereas Benigno, who has lived a long time with his mother and who could be taken for gay at first sight is the one who will eventually commit the crime that constitute the central event of the film. In contrast to Marco, Benigno knows how to talk to women. This is one of Almodóvar’s starkest films. His strong visual sense is there, and he is helped with precise cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe and the award-winning score by Iglesias, but rather than the bright colors audiences associate him with, the palette here consists mostly of earthy reds and browns. The director explained that, for some unexplained reason, he could not relax with men’s stories as much as with women’s: thinking about the male psyche is, for him, always problematic and humorless. It was also polemical in

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its treatment of rape. Then again, nowhere is Almodóvar’s nonjudgmental stance more prominent than in this film. HERRALDE, GONZALO (1949– ). Gonzalo Herralde was born in Barcelona. His debut feature was La muerte del escorpión (The Scorpion’s Death, 1976), a thriller with certain links to the work of la Escuela de Barcelona, particularly in terms of actors and sources of inspiration. His best-received film was a reworking, with film critic and historian Román Gubern, of Raza (Race, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1942), the film inspired by Francisco Franco’s imagination and experiences. Raza, el espíritu de Franco (Raza, Franco’s Spirit, 1977), as the new version came to be titled, went back to the original writings of the dictator, before they were adapted by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, which alternated with an interview with Franco’s sister, Pilar. Her comments contributed to a fascinating mise en abime, putting the film in a historical perspective and highlighting the fantasies woven into the plot. After this, Herralde continued his career with a Barcelona-inspired thriller based on a real-life murder case, El asesino de Pedralbes (Murderer of Pedralbes, 1978), which was followed by an adaptation of one of the key novels on the Catalán bourgeoisie during the Franco years, Últimas tardes con Teresa (Last Afternoons with Teresa, 1984). This melancholy, rueful story shows the cruel barriers and class difficulties between a wealthy young woman and an attractive and ambitious working-class man. Laura, del cielo llega la noche (Laura, Night Comes from the Sky, 1987), in a similar vein, was another adaptation, this time from Catalan author Miquel Llor. La Febre d’Or (Gold Fever, 1993), his last project, was a family saga (this time based on the novel by Narcís Oller) conceived as a five-hour miniseries for television and released as a two-and-a-halfhour version in cinemas. The film focused on a Catalan family of industrialists in the late 19th century. It boasted a first-rate cast and extraordinary production values, but was only a relative success. HISTORY. History on film can be either used in a visual way to display costumes and epic events for the sake of entertainment, or politically to reinforce a certain idea of the country. Spanish cinema

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has been prolific in both approaches, and at many stages has made history into a central concern. Until 1936, the entertainment approach predominated. Films were set in the past for a degree of exoticism, seemingly without debate on the “rightness” of any particular representation. The preferred periods were the Golden Age, largely because so many illustrious literary texts could be adapted, and the early 19th century, because of the rich mythology of outlaws, traditional singers, and bullfighters that remained associated with an essential “Spanishness” (this was a central period in the “españolada” type of film). Other than those, very few periods were actually represented, which to some extent can be related to the limited knowledge average audiences had of their own country’s past. The years around the convoluted late 19th century (a period known as the Restoration, following the end of the First Republic in 1874) was attractive, and like the Golden Age, was brimming with literary classics (by Benito Pérez Galdós and Leopolgo Alas Clarín, for instance), but it was politically too complex to be articulated in a cinematic tradition with a strongly popular vocation. It is only after the Civil War that the representation of history becomes blatantly political and certain periods and individuals become problematic. To begin with, the whole idea of Spain was deeply problematic, as the Spanish nation only consolidated in 1812 as a political unit. Given that the unity of Spain had been one of the ideological mainstays of the Franco regime, it was dangerous to venture in pre19th century territory. Some films occasionally did, but then a particular version of history focusing on the essential Spanishness of the country was used to distort reality. The decades following the 1812 consolidation remained riddled with confusion and the clash of different factions: the First Republic and the Carlist wars were, for the Francoist authorities, better left unrepresented as they could easily be seen as attempts to break down the nation. When the Restoration period was featured, this was done sentimentally and strictly making use of the more spectacular aspects of the period, as in the phenomenally successful Pequeñeces (Little Matters, Juan de Orduña, 1950), which also condemned the frivolity brought on by liberalization and laicism, and the equally popular ¿Dónde vas, Alfonso XII? (Where Are You Going, Alphonso XII? Luis César Amadori, 1958),

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which shrewdly focused on the romance between King Alphonso XII and María de las Mercedes and avoided the more sensitive aspects of the period, presenting politics in a somewhat farcical way. The Independence War (1808–14), however, became a favorite for patriotic filmmakers. Popular legend distorted and simplified this event, claiming that the Spanish people expelled the French invading army. Reinforcing this legend was no doubt useful for the Franco regime, as it was a way of strengthening an idea of Spain untouched by nationalist claims from regions such as Catalonia and the Basque country, and several films of Francoism use this historical event to suggest a certain epic Spanish identity. They were often associated to folkloric musicals, as in Lola la Piconera (Lola the Coalgirl, Luis Lucia, 1952). The Age of Empire (roughly the 16th century), particularly the events surrounding the Columbus expedition, was conveniently simplified to reinforce national pride, as in Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951). Given so many difficult areas, Francoist authorities preferred the more spectacular uses of history to be found in CIFESA historical epics. As the regime chose to play down reactionary ideologies in order to present a more liberal face to other countries, history became less problematic, and it does not seem to have been an issue for most of the 1960s. It was up to filmmakers, who maintained a critical stance, to gesture toward the past as the diffuse, unspecific source of a general state of melancholy, as in Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Basilio Martín Patino, 1967) and El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973), or tension between friends, as in La caza (The Hunt, Carlos Saura, 1965). After the end of Francoism, more explicit treatments of history, however, become obsessively central in Spanish cinema. The preferred period was now the early post-Civil War years, but also the Civil War itself. Filmmakers and audiences saw representations of the misery, political upheavals, and betrayals suffered by Spaniards at the time as a way of settling scores, and there was a strong need to represent what had until then been forbidden. There was also an interest in the spectacular aspects of the past, but the political approach predominated for almost two decades. It was only around 1992 that history seemed to become less crucial. In 1990, ¡Ay Carmela! (Carlos Saura, 1990) still presented

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the past politically, but two years later, a film like El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, Imanol Uribe, 1991) offered a farcical version of the Golden Age in which it is hard to make out relevant references to Francoism. Depolitization continued through the decade. Younger filmmakers like Alejandro Amenábar and Alex de la Iglesia were notoriously uninterested in engaging with history, and so was Pedro Almodóvar: their films are either genre films in which period is irrelevant or simply set in the present. In some films of the decade, like El amor perjudica seriamente la salud (Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1995), set in Francoism, the political edge is blurred. The trend continues strong through the 1990s, and in recent films like Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006) and Teresa el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa, the Body of Christ, Ray Loriga, 2007), history is prominent but harder to read in contemporary terms. HOMOSEXUALITY. Until 1977, censorship regulations, which applied both to Spanish and foreign films, banned homosexuality as a central part of a film’s plot, and before 1963, representation of “sexual perversions” was simply unthinkable. Of course, one of the issues about homosexuality is that it does not have to be explicitly represented in order to be perceived. Critics have picked out obvious strands of homoeroticism even in army films such as ¡Harka! (Carlos Arévalo, 1942) and ¡A mí la legion! (Hail, the Legion! Juan de Orduña, 1942). Homosexuality could also be read into a number of films of the 1940s and 1950s, but the first time it is recognizably and unmistakably articulated in a plot is in Luis Maria Delgado’s Diferente (Different, 1962), a garish musical, not very widely distributed after its initial release, conceived by dancer and showman Alfredo Alaria about a young man from a wealthy family whose “artistic” inclinations prevent him from following in his father’s footsteps and will eventually cause tragedy. The fact that the film was passed without objections by censors has baffled Spanish historians, although homosexual signifiers were discreet enough to remain concealed to most audiences; it is also worth noting that ideas of homosexuality were not articulated following the usual imagery, which may have contributed to the censors’ blindness.

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Some early 1970s films like Mi querida señorita (My Dear Lady, Jaime de Armiñán, 1972) and La semana del asesino (Cannibal Man, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1972), treaded ambiguous territory. The former was about a small-town spinster in love with her maid who at one point discovers “she” is actually a man; the latter featured a subtly depicted young gay man (played by Eusebio Poncela) involved with a working-class serial killer. Still, the most influential image of homosexuality in Spanish cinema was the stereotypical, effeminate homosexual represented as a clown. One of the biggest box-office hits of Spanish cinema, No desearás al vecino del quinto (Thou Shalt Not Desire the Fifth Floor Neighbor, Ramón Fernández, 1971), is about a man who pretends he is a homosexual. In line with other European examples from those years are titles like Ellas los prefieren locas (Ladies Prefer Queer Ones, Mariano Ozores, 1977) and Aunque la hormona se vista de seda (Hormones Dressed in Silk, 1975). When censorship laws were derogated, however, the topic acquired a centrality on Spanish film that has remained throughout the decades. The first film that explicitly presented a central homosexual character was Los placeres ocultos (Hidden Pleasures, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1977). In a few years, a number of films relished the occasion for marginality and scandal that homosexuality seemed to provide, Un hombre llamado flor de Otoño (A Man Named Autumn Flower, Pedro Olea, 1978), Ocaña. Retrato intermitente (Ocaña. An Intermittent Portrait, Ventura Pons, 1978), La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, Imanol Uribe, 1984), Vestida de azul (Dressed in Blue, Antonio Giménez Rico, 1984), and Gay Club (Ramón Fernández, 1981). Homosexuals or transsexuals in these films are stereotypical, and although the homophobic implications of No desearás al vecino del quinto had disappeared, the scandal factor was still important. More timidly, filmmakers started to represent images of lesbianism. The most famous was a weird, voyeuristic coming-out film titled Me siento extraña (I Feel Strange, Enrique Martí Maqueda, 1977), which starred two important actresses of the period, Rocío Dúrcal and Barbara Rey. Still, some images were more subdued: Jaime Chávarri’s A un dios desconocido (To an Unknown God, 1977) avoided stereotyping in its central character, a magician haunted by memories of the Civil

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War. What is important about this film is that homosexuality was not an issue, and a strong current in post-Transition Spanish culture insists precisely on this point. Only very seldom was homosexuality allowed to become a political issue. Eloy de la Iglesia’s El diputado is among the very few examples of a film that sets homosexuality in a political context. Otherwise, the 1980s saw a number of freewheeling representations of sexuality among which one could find examples of both male and female homosexuality. Most notable in this context is Pedro Almodóvar’s early career, with films like the cheeky Pepi, Luci Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, 1981) and Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passion, 1982). His La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1987) remains, to date, the most important Spanish film with central homosexual characters in terms of its impact on audiences. The tension between comedy and melodrama, and the assertiveness of sexual identity was, for many, revelatory. Representations of homosexuality connected to night life continued in the 1990s in films like Más que amor frenesí (This Is Frenzy, Not Just Love, 1996). In recent years, there seems to be a resurgence of homosexuality in film, as featured in Reinas (Queens, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 2005), Cachorro (Bear Cub, Miguel Albaladejo, 2004), Los novios búlgaros (The Bulgarian Boyfriends, Eloy de la Iglesia, 2003), and the Eloy de la Iglesia-inspired Clandestinos (Clandestine, 2008) directed by Antonio Hens. HORROR. As a genre, horror never achieved much appreciation until the 1970s. Of the great studios in the Golden Age, only Universal concentrated on horror films in the classical period, but this was because as a second-string major it was, ideally, an area without much competition from others. Attempts were made to seek legitimacy in the post-classical period with films like Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962), and its sequel of sorts Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich, 1964) and Suspense (Jack Clayton, 1960) in Hollywood or, in Europe, Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960), but somehow the genre never seemed to take off in the high-end of the industry. Also, these were all worthy attempts to provide thrills, but were in the end too restrained.

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In times of economic difficulties, however, producing films that promised rawer sensations could become a life-saving strategy for producers. In the late 1960s, a mix of horror and sex started filling U.S. drive-ins and European screens, quickly reaching wide audiences. In time, gore and extreme violence would slowly make it to the mainstream (for instance with The Exorcist), but largely horror kept its status as low, unartistic filmmaking. Spanish film traditions rely heavily on realism, musicals, and comedy, to the extent that fantasy genres and thrillers were almost unrepresented for decades. From the late 1960s, horror is the exception to this rule. The film that seemed to announce the trend is Gritos en la noche (Screams in the Night / The Awful Dr. Orloff, Jesús Franco, 1962), but it is the crisis of the late 1960s that forced producers to find cheap and popular formulas that could be distributed internationally. Horror thrillers could reach out beyond national boundaries, although differences in censorship restrictions sometimes forced the distribution of different versions. This is the period when British Hammer films, Italian giallo, and Spanish horror all flourished simultaneously, often recycling motives, themes, stars, and filmmakers. Three key figures in the golden age of Spanish horror were Jesús Franco, Armando de Ossorio, and especially, Paul Naschy. Naschy, a horror fan since childhood, with a particular interest in the Wolf Man, created the fictional character of Waldemar Daninsky and became one of the most prolific filmmakers in Spanish cinema, as well as one of the most popular. His fan base has only increased with the years, and he has become a cult figure. Armando de Ossorio created a saga around templar monks who rise from the grave, which can be seen as the continuation of the living dead cycle started by George A. Romero. Jesús Franco is also a cult figure who was very active in the gore subgenre. Another example in this first wave of Spanish horror is Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, who, after extensive work on television, where he adapted fantasy and horror classics for his legendary series Historias para no dormir, turned to the big screen. First, he made an accomplished gothic horror tale set in a boarding school, La residencia (The Boarding School, 1969), which included nods to Psycho and the serial killer tradition. His second horror film, the shrewd ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (Who Could Kill a Child? 1976) took place

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in the daylight, more specifically on an island where children have become murderers. Vicente Aranda also tried his hand at the vampire genre with La novia ensangrentada (The Blood-Spattered Bride, 1972 ). As the Transition came and censorship disappeared, the films became more sexual and gorier. Changes in legislation in the early 1980s polarized film production between quality projects on the one hand, and sex comedies on the other. At the same time, international horror films were progressively more propelled by expensive special effects, and The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) encouraged the respectability of the genre, which was becoming high concept. The key film in the return of horror to the Spanish film industry was El día de la bestia (Day of the Beast, Álex de la Iglesia, 1995). The films were now ironic and steeped in cinephilia. Other De la Iglesia films like La comunidad (The Community, 2000) and Crimen Perpecto (Perpect Crime, 2004) also included aspects of horror presented in a comic way. The latest wave of horror in Spanish film is headed by Catalan director Jaume Balagueró. He continues with the tradition of international casts. The Lynchinan short Alicia (1994) and Los sin nombre (The Nameless, 1999) were followed by the more accomplished Darkness (2002), shot in English with an international cast, and, more recently, [Rec], co-directed with Paco Plaza (and remade by Hollywood as Quarantine in 2008). Other recent instances include Jaime Bayona, director of the box-office hit El orfanato (The Orphanage, 2007), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto [2001], who made his international debut with 28 Weeks Later [2007]), Xavier Villaverde (Trece campanadas [Thirteen Curses], 2002), and Nacho Cerdá (the body-horror short Aftermath [1994] and The Abandoned [2006]). HUERGA, MANUEL (1957– ). Manuel Huerga came to film after developing a career as a designer and in alternative visual arts. In the 1970s, he worked on experimental shorts, and in the 1980s, he went on to direct the video department of the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, working on some avant-garde television experiences. The most important of these was Gaudí (1989), a mock documentary on the famous Catalan architect. He made a name as the director and coordinator for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Olympics

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in Barcelona. His first film, Antártida (Antarctica, 1995), evidenced a strong personality and an original outlook. It was a road movie about two heroin addicts that made use of a number of experimental devices and a bold approach to images. More than 10 years passed before he tackled his second feature. Salvador (2006) was based on the life story of one of the last men executed by Francisco Franco’s government. Again, he used a series of distancing editing devices and resorted to different textures to provide a vivid picture of complex, violent times, and as a way to reflect the ambiguities of memories.

– I – IGLESIA, ÁLEX DE LA (1965– ). Álex de la Iglesia’s career mirrors that generation of Spanish filmmakers who rose to prominence in the 1990s and which would also include Alejandro Amenábar, Juanma Bajo Ulloa, and Enrique Urbizu: they are fascinated by genres and subgenres (this is, after all, the Star Wars generation, brought up on a staple diet of television and pop music) that do not have a strong tradition in Spanish cinema, such as science fiction, fantasy, and thrillers, to the detriment of social realism and politically engaged films. Indeed, they are largely unconcerned by history, memory, and the Civil War. If the dictatorship years are featured in their films at all (as is the case in De la Iglesia’s Muertos de risa), the aim is aesthetic or parodic, but political issues are boldly side-stepped. Another dominant feature of Álex de la Iglesia’s film career is variety. He has continually experimented with genres and backgrounds, including horror, spaghetti Western, pop comedy, United States-set road movie, and even international thriller. His feel for the creation of distinctive atmospheres was first signaled by his work as art director for Enrique Urbizu’s Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, 1991). In personal appearances, he is usually bold and opinionated, working hard at creating a media-friendly image that can be easily marketed and recognizable to his large fan base. De la Iglesia first came to prominence with an excellent short, Mirindas asesinas (Killer Soda Bottles, 1991), which presaged the rest of his career in terms of style and genre. His first feature, co-

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produced by El Deseo S.A. and French company CIBY 2000, was Acción mutante (Mutant Action, 1993), a mixture of trash, science fiction, and savage comedy concerning a cartoonish terrorist group of assorted misfits (mostly disabled, misshapen, and intellectually challenged) who set out to overturn Beautiful Society by kidnapping the daughter of a diet biscuit manufacturer. They escape with their victim, who is in the throes of the Stockholm syndrome, to the desert planet Axturias, populated by barbaric beings. It made reference to a younger film canon, including Alien (in the design of the spaceship), the Mad Max films, spaghetti Westerns (landscape of the planet), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the weird male family in Axturias), and Star Wars (the space canteen). The film made efficient use of a small budget and acknowledged its roots in trash culture. It became an instant success, enabling De la Iglesia to find better conditions for his next project, influenced by The Exorcist and other films of evil possession and set in Madrid on Christmas eve. El día de la bestia (Day of the Beast, 1995), as it came to be titled, brought together the same mix of popular genres and irony, and showed the director’s talent for characterization and for working in distinctive atmospheres. Indeed, each of his next films is set in a completely different visual world and recycles a different set of cultural (largely movie) references. Perdita Durango (Dance with the Devil, 1997), based on a novel by Barry Gifford, was set in the United States border territory and featured Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, and Isabella Rosellini. It had a bizarrely complicated plot inspired by the same characters also featured in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. De la Iglesia would, in the future, express dissatisfaction with the result, which, he claims, escaped his control due to lack of expertise. The satire Muertos de risa (Death by Laughter, 1998), set in the television industry, was a return to Spanish themes, featuring two of the most popular comedy actors of the period: Santiago Segura (fresh from his Torrente films) and El Gran Wyoming as two hugely successful TV funnymen with a very limited repertoire who hate each other intensely as soon as cameras stop rolling. De la Iglesia used his skill for broad comedy and complicity with old television icons from a previous era. La comunidad (The Community, 2000), his next film, was an ironic twist on cheap thrillers, particularly those made for TV

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by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador in the 1970s, and featured a hapless Carmen Maura as an estate agent having to face, in a creepy building, neighbors who are after the money hidden in the flat she is intending to sell. The film did extremely well at the box office, connecting particularly with other Star Wars generation cinephiles through explicit references (one character dresses up as Darth Vader), and it also gained the respect of critics and professionals, as evidenced by its three Goya awards and numerous other nominations. At the time, De la Iglesia’s reputation was well established as one of the indispensable new talents in Spanish cinema at the start of the 20th century. His next three projects were less well received critically, but overall they show that the filmmaker’s talent to juggle genres is undiminished. The Film 800 balas (800 Bullets, 2002) was set among a group of old spaghetti Western professionals, and although more sentimental than his previous efforts, featured De la Iglesia’s typically strong gallery of supporting characters, a good eye for space, and keen awareness of genre conventions. Lighter and more accomplished, Crimen Ferpecto (Ferpect Crime, 2004) was set in a department store and could be read as a satire on consummerism and the promotion mentality espoused by the new right. It told the story of a womanizing and ambitious salesman who accidentally kills the floor manager and must resort to the assistance of an ugly, dumb saleswoman on the same floor. Finally, Los crímenes de Oxford / The Oxford Murders (2008) was an international co-production, adapted from a popular thriller in the style of The DaVinci Code, and starring Elijah Wood and John Hurt. In 2009, Álex de la Iglesia became the president of the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. IGLESIA, ELOY DE LA (1944–2004). Eloy de la Iglesia’s work has come to represent the spirit of the Spanish Transition on film. Few directors were so popular among audiences eager to know about the more shocking aspects of society; still fewer substantial directors have ever been so harshly dismissed by critics, who labeled his work sensationalistic, crass, clumsy, cheap, and a bit too homoerotic for their taste. Consequently, his career became increasingly more precarious as audiences sought different thrills. But his films of the period 1975–84 constitute an accurate, intense portrait of the

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contradictions of the period, brimming with personal insights. De la Iglesia came from a wealthy Baracaldo family, in the Basque country, and always knew film was his vocation. He was also unbendingly Left-wing in a period when this could mean a jail sentence. His films of the 1960s and early 1970s, produced on the margins of the industry, are shocking and sometimes trashy. He leaned toward the horror and suspense that was a trend in European cinema, mixed with a subtle dose of social criticism. Among them, La semana del asesino (The Killer’s Week / Cannibal Man, 1972) remains striking and as close to an underground masterpiece as one can imagine. It tells the story of a food factory worker on a killing spree. In a gesture worthy of Sweeney Todd, he puts the limbs and entrails of his rotting victims through the factory machines, mixing human flesh with processed food for retail. Una gota de sangre para morir amando (One Drop of Blood to Go On Loving, 1973), starring Sue Lyon, took inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, mixing horror and science fiction. As the Transition approached and possibilities for expression widened, De la Iglesia abandoned symbolism and used more literal approaches to realism. The film that marks a turning point in his career is Juego de amor prohibido (Game of Forbidden Love, 1975). It was almost destroyed by the censors, although one can still see a very unusual story about a Nietzsche-quoting university professor who kidnaps two of his students and takes them to his mansion. From then on, de la Iglesia went into a phase characterized by social realism. Such issue-centered films were typical of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but no one was as consistently bold and sympathetic in representing the margins of society, particularly the lives of young delinquents. In many of them, de la Iglesia shows a Pasolini-like fascination for working-class youths, not unlike that of the protagonist of Los placeres ocultos (Hidden Pleasures, 1977), a film on a closet homosexual coming to terms with his tendencies. From that moment on, he tackled, breathlessly, bluntly, and not always tastefully, subjects such as the Church’s hypocrisy (El sacerdote [The Priest], 1978), class relations (La otra alcoba [The Other Bedroom], 1976), bourgeois fear (Miedo a salir de noche [Fear to Go Out], 1979), juvenile delinquency (Navajeros [Knivers], 1980), homosexuality and politics (El diputado [The Member of Parliament], 1978), drugs and terrorism (El pico [The Fix] 1983), even bestialism (La criatura [The

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Creature], 1977). As he ran out of issues to dissect, together with changes in audiences, his output became less steady. Otra vuelta de tuerca (Turn of the Screw, 1985), the last film before semi-retirement, is a good adaptation of Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw. Personal problems kept him largely out of the movies for a decade, and de la Iglesia only shot sporadically in the 1990s. La estanquera de Vallecas (The Tobacco Seller of Vallecas, 1987), based on a stage comedy, is probably his most conventional film, but one can still see his empathy and fascination with the lower classes and juvenile delinquents, this time in a costumbrismo key. His last film was Los novios búlgaros (The Bulgarian Boyfriends, 2003), based on a best-selling novel by Eduardo Mendicutti about a middleaged homosexual and his Bulgarian rentboy lover. The combination was promising, as few directors could understand Mendicutti’s background better, and this was after all the boldest Spanish director and the first to deal with homosexuality. But somehow the new gay community did not take to the shrillness and obviousness of his approach, which now seemed oddly old-fashioned. He died in 2004 from a drug-related illness. IGLESIAS, ALBERTO (1955– ). Although he wrote his first full feature film score for Alfonso Ungría’s La conquista de Albania (Conquering Albania, 1984) and his watershed film in Spain was Vacas (1992), which started a long and innovative series of collaborations with Julio Medem, Alberto Igesias’ work as composer only became widely known after his ethnically inflected soundtrack for Pedro Almodóvar’s 1999 Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) made him into one of the most internationally recognized musicians for film. In recent years, after a number of international projects, he has obtained two nominations for Academy Awards, for The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles, 2004) and The Kite Runner (Marc Forster, 2007). He has also won seven Goyas for La ardilla roja (The Red Squirrel, Julio Medem, 1993), Tierra (Earth, Medem, 1996), Todo sobre mi madre, (All about My Mother, Pedro Almodóvar, 1999), Los amantes del círculo polar (The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Medem, 1998), Lucía y el sexo (Lucía and Sex, Medem, 2001), Hable con ella (Talk to Her, Almodóvar, 2002), and Volver (Almodóvar, 2006). An impressive list of titles, which sug-

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gests Iglesias’ original and substantial input in the work of strong auteurs. He studied electronic music with F. Schwartz in Paris and Electroacústica in Barcelona. His early soundtracks include La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, Imanol Uribe, 1984) and Luces de Bohemia (Bohemian Lights, Miguel Ángel Díez, 1985). Vacas had a remarkable electronic score, very unusual in the Spanish context, which tended toward more conventional treatments of film music, and he continued to pursue an original approach to soundtracks. His first collaboration with Almodóvar was for La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret, 1995), a film that featured a mixture of original and other themes adapted from popular sources. For his next Almodóvar collaboration, Carne Trémula (Live Flesh, 1997), he chose flamenco adaptations of Latin American music. Iglesias continued his collaboration with the director in projects as varied as La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004) and Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces, 2009). Recent international projects include Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (2008) and Steven Soderbergh’s The Argentine (2008). INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES Y EXPERIENCIAS CINEMATOGRÁFICAS (IIEC) / ESCUELA OFICIAL DE CINE (EOC). The Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas was the first film school in Spain. After its demise as an independent institution, when its role was integrated into regular University studies, it was missed by a body of professionals who had been trained in the institution. It produced key personalities of Spanish film: directors like Luis G. Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Basilio Martín Patino, José Luis Borau, Carlos Saura, Julio Diamante, Mario Camus, Paul Naschy, Pilar Miró, and Iván Zulueta; cinematographers like José Luis Alcaine and Javier Aguirresarobe; and actors like Charo López and Mario Pardo, among many others. Inaugurated in 1947, the degree was awarded after a carefully structured three-year course, taught by a wide range of industry professionals, although, for a few years, the title did not grant membership to the film professional’s union. This suggests a certain tension between the official film industry (studio personnel and commercial filmmakers) and the artistically minded and politically dissident students who attended the Institute. Even though funding and resources

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were extremely limited, alumnae were grateful for the opportunity to work with technical materials. It was also a meeting point for professionals, which soon became a hotbed of dissidence and nonconformism. Berlanga, Bardem, and the Salamanca conversations group of filmmakers critical of the Francisco Franco regime were early students. The first director of the institution was Victoriano López García, a liberal. When he was replaced in 1955 by the fascist censor José María Cano Lechuga, students protested, and Lechuga was in turn replaced by the also conservative but more open-minded director José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. In 1962, the IIEC became the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC), and it remained a training institution for film professionals until 1976. After film was introduced as a university subject in 1971, the government regarded the EOC as redundant. The decision to close it down was polemical. Students claimed the place was unique in combining practical and theoretical training (something that did not happen at university), and defended the specificity of the institution against the more compromised university curricula. IQUINO, IGNACIO F. (1910–1994). Ignacio F. Iquino belonged to a Catalan show business family, and his first vocation was drawing and designing. In the 1930s, he was a photographer. His career as a director and producer lasted 60 years, and, although his films became increasingly lacking in artistic ambition from the 1950s, he remained a key personality for his attempts to continue to work on popular, audience-friendly, industrially efficient formulas. At the start of his career as director, Iquino directed a number of competent, solid pictures that showed promise. His comedies El difunto es un vivo (The Dead Man Is a Shrewd One, 1941) and the Enrique Jardiel Poncela adaptation Los ladrones somos gente honrada (We Thieves Are Honest People, 1942) are among the best examples of the genre in the 1940s, and Alma de Dios (Soul of God, 1941), which featured rural patriarch specialists José Isbert and Paco Martínez Soria, is among the most accomplished costumbrismo adaptations. His police thriller Brigada criminal (Crime Brigade, 1950) is probably his best contribution in terms of genre innovation, as it introduced unusual themes from Hollywood films in a Barcelona

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context. El Judas (Judas, 1952), on the other hand, was Iquino’s response to the new trend for Bible stories. It was also the first film since the prewar years to be released in a Catalan version, and it was exhibited to coincide with the Eucharistic Congress of that year, which took place in Barcelona. The film was a huge box-office hit and was even selected for the Venice Film Festival. One important facet of his work lies in his attempts to set up a stable production company in Barcelona during the 1960s. In a country with a very weak film industry, Iquino’s IFI España (created in Barcelona in 1949) survived without interruptions for 34 years with its own studios. He also set up his own distribution company, IFISA, in 1963, to facilitate his product being exhibited, and at one point, following the example of the great Hollywood moguls, he also had control over a couple of cinemas. To continue turning out movies (he produced almost four a year between 1953 and 1965), he had to sacrifice quality and was dragged into the margins of the film industry, always following successful trends: films with children in the mid1950s, bullfighting movies, folkloric musicals, cheap desarrollismo comedies and, as censorship ceased, nudies. During José María García Escudero’s period at the General Direction of Cinematography, Iquino took advantage of the support for more challenging filmmakers and even produced work by Mario Camus. The end of his career is dominated by soft porn, and he became something of the king of the S Classification, directing titles like ¿Podrías con cinco chicas a la vez? (Could You Do It with Five Girls at the Same Time? 1979), La caliente niña Julieta (Julieta the Hot Girl, 1980), and Jóvenes amiguitas buscan placer (Young Little Friends Seek Pleasure, 1981). ISBERT, JOSÉ (1886–1966). Few actors in Spanish cinema have been so beloved by audiences or bore the iconic weight of representing a historical period as José (a.k.a. “Pepe”) Isbert. He was born in Madrid and worked extensively on stage for many years before setting up his own company. He specialized in the typically Madrid sainete. Sainetes were popular plays based on a very specific kind of working-class humor. The reverberations from this genre that he brought to each of his film roles accounts for his success as a comedian and as a screen presence, and also for the intensely Spanish con-

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notations of his persona. His small, bulky body, his raspy voice, his convoluted speech rhythms punctuated by effective staccato, brought a whole tradition to life on screen, without help from the scriptwriter. Isbert had occasional appearances in silent films and early talkies encompassing several genres, but it was after his role in a sainete, Alma de Dios (Soul of God, Ignacio F. Iquino), in 1941 that his film career started in earnest. From that time, he was a regular presence on film, mostly in very small comic parts as a father or a “best friend” figure. Titles he graced with his presence (often mere cameos) include La princesa de los Ursinos (Princess of the Ursines, Luis Lucia, 1947), Cuentos de la Alhambra (Tales of Alhambra, Florián Rey, 1950), El capitán veneno (Captain Poison, Luis Marquina, 1951), Cielo negro (Black Sky, Manuel Mur Oti, 1951), Lola la piconera (Lola the Coal Girl, Luis Lucia, 1952), and Tarde de toros (Bullfighting Afternoon, Ladislao Vajda, 1956). Isbert’s roles for Berlanga in ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall! 1953) and El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963), among others, are part of the memory of Francoism, and have acquired legendary status. In the former, he plays an earnest but clueless mayor of a Castilian village; in the latter, he is the scheming executioner who plots to have both his daughter married and a new flat by forcing a young undertaker to follow in his professional footsteps. His presence is also at the center of the fierceness of El cochecito (The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960), which is acknowledged by critics as his best hour on screen. His characteristic demeanor and his voice were effective tools to convey the image of the small grumpy man who might be defeated by the system but never completely crushed. He also gave deep poignancy to small roles like the inventor who dresses as an Eskimo in Historias de la radio (Radio Tales, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1955) and the grandfather in La gran familia (The Big Family, Fernando Palacios, 1962). Isbert’s genius was to create a recognizable character that audiences could relate to, and he was always a welcome presence. After his death, he received a long series of tributes, and he remains one of the most enduring presences in the gallery of Spanish comic actors. His daughter María Isbert also had a long career as an actress, with parts for Luis Buñuel (Viridiana, 1961), Berlanga (El verdugo), and Iván Zulueta (Un, dos, tres . . . al escondite inglés, One, two, three . . . gotcha! 1970).

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– J – JAMÓN, JAMÓN (1992). The first installment in his Andrés Vicente Gómez-produced “Iberian trilogy,” Jamón Jamón (which can be translated as “The real cured ham”) constituted for Bigas Luna a return to critical attention (the film won the Silver Lion at the 1992 Venice Film Festival) and an attempt to tackle more commercial projects after his frustrating American experiences and the failure of the adaptation Las edades de Lulú (The Ages of Lulu, 1990). Still, his former obsessions, already present in earlier experimental films like his 1978 serial killer diary Bilbao (including food, old-fashioned machismo, castrating mothers, women’s breasts, and fetishism) are very much at the center of the story, and this remains one of his most personal films. The title refers to a very specific Spanish variety of very strongly flavored cured ham, typical of the Aragonese region, where the narrative takes place. Like so many elements in the film, food, particularly ham and Spanish omelette, is important as a symbol of a way of life that has not yet been completely refined (or repressed) by civilization. Sex and food are presented as two important facets of such ancestral cultural identity. The film also makes use of some features of the Spanish landscape, most notably the bulls traditionally used to advertise Veterano brandy placed along Spanish main roads. The narrative centers on the rivalry of two mothers, male underwear manufacturer Conchita and brothel owner Carmen, played respectively by Stefania Sandrelli and Anna Galiena. Conchita’s son José Luis (Jordi Mollá) has been fooling around with Silvia (Penélope Cruz), who is Conchita’s daughter; when he realizes she is pregnant and offers to marry her, his class-conscious mother decides to intervene by sending brutal macho man Raúl (Javier Bardem) to seduce the girl and break up the relationship. But things get complicated and end up tragically as Conchita falls desperately in love (or rather in lust) with Raúl, a stud featured prominently in an underwear ad campaign, and becomes madly jealous. Jamón, Jamón was released internationally; it was a big hit in Great Britain and, especially, Italy (the latter had participated in coproduction). The cast is particularly remarkable: together with two Italian actresses established in previous decades, there were three

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new promising stars of Spanish cinema in career-defining roles, Cruz, Bardem, and Mollá, who went on to be among the most important Spanish actors of the 1990s. JORDÁ, JOAQUÍN (1935–2006). A key player in the Escuela de Barcelona movement and co-director (with Jacinto Esteva) of the emblematic Dante no es únicamente severo (Dante Is Not Only Severe, 1967), Joaquín Jordá’s reputation rests mainly on his work as a scriptwriter. After completing a law degree, he studied at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas for two years and debuted in the film industry as co-director (with Julián Marcos) of the documentary El día de los muertos (Day of the Dead, 1960). He collaborated with avant garde producer Pere Portabella in different tasks (as script doctor or production assistant) during the early 1960s. Dante no es únicamente severo was a true manifesto for Jordá, in which he set out his views on art film at the time. As he would comment: “Since we are not allowed to do Victor Hugo, we’ll do Mallarmé.” Indeed, he saw avant garde aesthetics and narrative obscurity as a way to circumvent the objections censors raised when faced with a critical approach to social reality. From then on, his contribution to films like Cada vez que . . . (Each Time I . . ., 1968), La larga agonía de los peces fuera del agua (The Long Agony of Fish Out of Water, 1970), and Liberxina 90 (1970) was manifested in his individualistic, nonclassical approach to narrative and his play with conventions. None of his own scripts materialized into a finished film until Francisco Franco’s death. After the Transition, Jordá contributed to a number of scripts, including Cambio de sexo (Sex Change, 1977) and both parts of El lute (1987, 1988) for Vicente Aranda; La vieja música (Old Music, 1985), for Mario Camus; and the television series Los jinetes del alba (Riders at Dawn, Rafael Romero Marchent, 1990). Accepting the last wish of his friend Jacinto Esteva, in 1990 he compiled the tribute El encargo del cazador (The Hunter’s Request, 1990), based on a series of testimonials on the latter’s work and personality. He returned to feature film direction with Un cuerpo en el bosque (A Body in the Woods, 1996), a satiric view of Catalan identity starring Rossy de Palma, which looked back at the conventions of metaphorical cinema.

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– K – KLIMOVSKY, LEÓN (1906–1996). Buenos Aires-born León Klimovsky is one of the most versatile filmmakers in Spanish film history. He trained as a dentist, and was a practitioner for over 15 years, then decided to follow his creative inclinations (he had been an occasional art and jazz critic) and turn to filmmaking. He directed his first film, the Dostoyevsky adaptation El jugador (The Gambler), in 1948, and until 1955 he achieved a strong reputation in Argentina with films like Suburbio (Suburb, 1952) or El túnel (The Tunnel, 1952). From 1955, he also developed a career in Spain, although continued to work on Argentinian projects until the mid-1960s. Klimovsky cultivated several commercial genres, following prevailing trends, including spaghetti Westerns (Dos mil dólares por Coyote [Two Thousand Dollars for Coyote], 1966; Un dólar y una tumba [One Dollar and a Tomb], 1970) and pop musicals (Escala en Tenerife [Stop at Tenerife], 1964). In the early 1970s, he became internationally known for his horror films, sometimes starring and written in collaboration with Paul Naschy. Among them, the most emblematic for fans are La noche de Walpurgis (Werewolf’s Shadow, 1971), a milestone in the genre, as well as La saga de los Drácula (The Dracula Saga, 1972), Dr. Jeckyll y el hombre lobo (Doctor Jeckyll and the Werewolf, 1972), La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (Grave Desires, 1973), and La rebelión de las muertas (Walk of the Dead, 1973). All of these are cheap reworkings of old stories, with legendary characters recast in increasingly convoluted combinations of periods and themes. They had international casts and achieved widespread distribution in several countries. In many cases, different versions were edited, depending on censorship demands: Spanish films before 1969 could not contain any kind of nudity, and after that only in limited situations, whereas other countries like France or Germany could be more flexible about this. Toward the end of his career he specialized in issue-centered films: Muerte de un quinqui (Death of a Gipsy, 1975), Secuestro (Kidnapping, 1976), and Violación fatal (Trauma, 1978) belong to this period.

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– L – LABERINTO DEL FAUNO, EL / PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006). In 2000, Guillermo del Toro shot his first Spanish film, El espinazo del diablo / The Devil’s Backbone, about an orphanage haunted by monsters both real and imaginary, in the context of the Spanish Civil War. These themes were revisited six years later in the more ambitious El laberinto del fauno, a complex, technically outstanding production that used the conventions of classic fairy tales and fantasy to comment on Spanish history and the power of imagination as a strategy for survival in the darkest periods. Set in a forest near the French border in 1944, after the end of the conflict, the story focuses on bookish Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl whose mother (Ariadna Gil) has married a sadistic fascist colonel (Sergi López). At night, she is visited by a strange faun (modeled, according to del Toro, on David Bowie) who commands her into a number of trials that will allow her to escape the grimness of ordinary life and, he assures her, regain her position as a princess in an underground kingdom. This will lead her to face dangerous trials: a giant bullfrog living under a tree’s roots, a childdevouring monster (suggesting the cruelty of some representatives of the Catholic Chuch), and the labyrinth itself. But there are hints that the faun might be lying or that, at best, he could simply be a figment of the girl’s imagination. At the same time, real struggle dominates life in the forest, as rebel fighters attempt to bring down the Colonel’s army. Both scary and emotionally engaging, the film was a huge international success and was awarded seven Goyas and three Academy Awards, mostly in technical categories. Critics focused on special effects and atmosphere, fascinatingly realized through detailed art direction, but it is also important to notice how the film was a return to traditional dramatic motives in Spanish cinema about the past, evil, and history: as in many post-Transition films, an attempt is made to come to terms with a very dark period and to trace the existence of monstrous individuals. Another traditional motif in Spanish film is that of a child who watches reality and tries to make sense of it, as featured in El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive,

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Víctor Erice, 1973), Cria Cuervos (Raise Ravens, Carlos Saura, 1976), El sur (South, Víctor Erice, 1983), and La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly Tongue, José Luis Cuerda, 1997). LAMPREAVE, CHUS (1930– ). Well-known for her supporting parts in films by Fernando Trueba and Pedro Almodóvar, Chus Lampreave is a veteran character actress who had worked for three decades in the film industry before she was discovered in the mid1980s. She can be seen as Pepe Isbert’s granddaughter in Marco Ferreri’s El cochecito (The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960) and can be spotted in El verdugo (The Executioner, Luis G. Berlanga, 1963) as a prospective tenant of the flat the protagonist aspires to get. In the next two decades, she had small parts in a long series of films, including Mi querida señorita (My Dear Miss, Jaime de Armiñán, 1972), El amor del capitán Brando (Captain Brando’s Great Love, Jaime de Armiñán, 1974), La guerra de papá (Dad’s War, Antonio Mercero, 1977), and La escopeta nacional (National Shotgun, Luis G. Berlanga, 1978). But it was Pedro Almodóvar who developed her potential and gave her iconic status as typical rural woman. He is on record saying that she is his surrogate film mother, and indeed some of the characters she played (particularly the protagonist’s mother in La flor de mi secreto [Flower of My Secret, 1995]) took inspiration from the director’s actual mother. Her unforgettable part as the grandmother in ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984) showed evidence of a perfect synchronicity between director and actress: she came to represent the essence of older rural women who bring the village with them when they move into the big city, as seen in sainetes and other costumbrismo stories. She reprised mother roles in Matador (1986), La flor de mi secreto, and Volver (2006). In Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988) and Hable con ella (2002), she played a concierge, another costumbrismo stereotype. Although she is most recognized for these roles, Lampreave also gave memorable supporting performances in two of her parts in Fernando Trueba’s films, the bossy mistress in El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, 1986) and the engagingly dominating mother in Belle epoque (1992).

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LANDA, ALFREDO (1933– ). For two entire decades, Alfredo Landa came to represent a particular version of the homo hispanicus. He projected the image of the average Spaniard, short, plain-looking and unathletic, uncultured, balding, and insistently horny. One is uncertain whether this was wishful thinking on the side of audiences or a case of Caliban looking at himself in the mirror, but Landa’s acting skills, which allowed him to project this particular image so accurately, were actually more substantial than he was given credit for. So well did he inhabit the type that he became a cultural phenomenon, lending his name to a whole tradition within Spanish cinema: “landismo,” the natural evolution of the comedia desarrollista in the early 1970s. Landa was born in Pamplona and started working in the movies in the 1960s, in small supporting roles in Atraco a las tres (Robbery at Three, José María Forqué, 1962) and El verdugo (The Executioner, Luis G. Berlanga, 1963). His starring role in Manuel Summers’ La niña de luto (The Girl in Mourning, 1964) gave an early glimpse of a sensitive performer perfectly in touch with the type of the “average man” in all his conventionality, but the industrial context made such good roles very rare for two decades; and he was repeatedly dismissed by critics and intellectual audiences for cultivating bluntly commercial stereotypes. One suspects this was not a case of being “trapped” in a mask as much as of cultivating an image that kept him working through difficult times. He then starred in what became the biggest box-office hit in Spanish cinema for several decades: No desarás al vecino del quinto (Thou Shalt Not Desire Thy Fifth Floor Neighbor, Ramón Fernández, 1971), in which he plays a couturier who pretends to be an effeminate homosexual so that he can get closer to women without making their husbands suspicious. It was not a particularly good performance, but as critics have remarked, it came at a time when people wanted to see exactly this kind of crass version of drag on screens. The next five or six years are the golden period of landismo, and he kept on repeating the same character of the “typical” Spaniard. The signs of change came early in the 1980s with El crack (The Best, 1981), José Luis Garci’s Madrid twist on the hard-boiled detective (a sequel, El crack 2, was released in 1983) in which Landa unexpectedly displayed a dark side to his audience. For Garci, it was all in the

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actor’s eyes. Those who were still unconvinced about his abilities soon changed their minds after his impressive turn as a poor illiterate peasant in Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984). He won a best actor award at Cannes for this part, and suddenly found himself in demand for challenging roles. After this “discovery,” Landa continued showing range and intensity in a series of roles through the 1980s and 1990s, including Los paraísos perdidos (Lost Paradises, Basilio Martín Patino, 1985), Tata Mía (My Grandma, José Luis Borau, 1986), El bosque animado (The Thriving Forest, José Luis Cuerda, 1987), and La marrana (The Sow, José Luis Cuerda, 1992). In an effective casting coup, he also played Sancho Panza on television, to Fernando Rey’s Don Quijote in Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s miniseries El Caballero Don Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes (Cervantes’ Don Quixote, 1991). In the 1990s, he continued his collaboration with José Luis Garci, maybe the director who best understood his potential. He continued to use aspects of his old image and recycle them, probing new depths to the mask in a series of films including Canción de cuna (Cradle Song, 1994), La herida luminosa (The Luminous Wound, 1997), and Tiovivo c.1950 (Merry-Go-Round c.1950, 2004). Luz de domingo (Sunday Kind of Light, 2007) was their last film together and the last in Landa’s career: after its release, he announced his retirement. LAZAGA, PEDRO (1918–1979). Although mostly known for his increasingly conventional conservative series of comedies and dramas at the end of the Franco period, in the early part of his career Lazaga showed promise as a filmmaker who attempted serious treatments of the Civil War (on which he fought on the side of the Fascists). He started in the film industry as assistant director for innovative filmmakers Carlos Serrano de Osma and Lorenzo Llobet, who belonged to a group influenced by experimentalism known as the “telúricos.” His feature film debut was Campo bravo (Open Field, 1948), followed by a couple of less interesting films. With La patrulla (The Patrol, 1954), he started a short period of complex narratives on the war experience. Cuerda de presos (Prisoners, 1955) has been considered by critics his best film, and had some impact in spite of poor distribution. The series of projects that followed constitute an interesting cycle on the war experience: El frente infinito (The End-

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less Front, 1956), Torrepartida (1956), and La fiel infantería (Loyal Infantry, 1959). The latter was so balanced in its treatment of the issue that it almost got him into trouble with censors. However, at that point Lazaga began focusing almost exclusively on avowedly light comedies like Muchachas de azul (Girls in Blue, 1957), Ana dice sí (Ana Says Yes, 1958), Miss cuplé (Miss Tune, 1959), and Los tramposos (The Fakers, 1959). These were effective films intended to do well at the box office; in terms of narrative they were unexceptional and rather harmless romantic stories with no ideological content. But the years of desarrollismo seem to have pushed Lazaga into a blatantly conservative agenda. A series of reactionary comedies centered on Paco Martínez Soria’s persona followed, including La ciudad no es para mí (The City Is Not for Me, 1966), El turismo es un gran invento (Tourism Is a Great Invention, 1968), and Abuelo Made in Spain (Grandfather Made in Spain, 1969). In all of them, Martínez Soria is a representative of traditional Spanish virtues that are being eroded by progress (relative sexual freedom, urban life). In the late 1960s and through the 1970s, he flirted with erotic comedy, directing an undistinguished series of titles including Las amigas (The Lady Friends, 1969), El chulo (The Pimp, 1974), and Yo soy fulana de tal (I am Such and Such, 1975). After the Franco period, Lazaga became something of a cliché for critics, representing the worst trends in Spanish cinema, and until his death he continued making comedies that suggested a certain nostalgia for the Franco years like Vota a Gundisalvo (Vote Gundisalvo, 1977) or more Martínez Soria vehicles like Estoy hecho un chaval (I’m Just a Kid, 1977) and ¡Vaya par de gemelos! (Such Twins! 1978). LEÓN DE ARANOA, FERNANDO (1968– ). Throughout León de Aranoa’s oeuvre, audiences continue to find groups of socially marginal characters (prostitutes, working-class teenagers, unemployed males) who appear baffled by adversity and trying to make sense of the world. In their dead-pan dialogues is an absurdist impulse worthy of Samuel Beckett, which belies any literal interpretation of the films as mere social realism. Although León de Aranoa clearly uses the framework of social situations both as inspiration and as an aesthetic impulse, plot events and mise en scene are off-beat enough to remind us not to take this too literally.

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Before going into the cinema, León de Aranoa wanted to draw comics (Carlos Giménez and Jordi Benet were key influences), and this is a skill that has proved useful in the detailed storyboards he sketches to prepare his films. It was only due to a registration mistake that he ended up taking a film degree and specializing in script. He did some accomplished scriptwriting for Antonio del Real (Los hombres siempre mienten [Men Always Lie, 1995], Corazón loco [Mad Heart, 1997]) and worked in television. Then he shot Sirenas (Mermaids), a short feature (his fourth) which his friend Gracia Querejeta showed her father, Elías Querejeta. Querejeta, who had been the key producer in the New Spanish Cinema movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s, saw the potential in León de Aranoa and agreed to produce Familia (Family, 1996), which would become his first feature. Familia is also León’s most unusual film. The fascinating mise en abime presents a man who hires a troupe of actors to become his family for a day. The film follows the characters through that day, as they find themselves involved in their roles to an extent they had not envisioned. The actors are often startled by how demanding their boss can be, insisting for instance, to bed his “wife” (who is the lover of another actor). The film was as funny as it was original, and made a cynical comment on the notion of family and the roles its members played. It earned the attention of critics, and León de Aranoa was awarded a Goya as best new director. His next feature, Barrio (Suburb, 1998), is more typical of his style. Three teenagers wander around a housing project, exchanging opinions on life, sex, and the universe in general, aware of the need to escape but apparently unable to take a step in the right direction. The dead-pan dialogues, in a style similar to those of Familia, are even more polished here; the director’s eye for absurd situations (for instance, the jet-ski one of the boys wins in a prize draw parked in the Madrid street) and the lack of narrative drive, which is replaced by contemplation, would all recur in his next two efforts. Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun, 2002) won five Goya awards in competition with Hable con ella / Talk to Her, and it quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year in Spain. León de Aranoa moved into a more explicitly social realist position (which, as then-president Marisa Paredes stated, the Academia tends

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to prefer) in chronicling the lives of a group of unemployed workers in an unnamed city of the north (the film was shot in Gijón and Vigo). The title “Mondays in the Sun” is a reference to the fact that these people find nothing to do with their time but bask in the sun on working days. The film was both wry and moving in its depiction of their strategies to survive under impossible circumstances, with an explicit agenda about the value of worker solidarity, and with a stoic central character in Javier Bardem’s Santa. Two years later, the director released Princesas (Princesses, 2005), a much publicized and long-cherished project about two prostitute friends, one Dominican (Micaela Nevárez), the other Spanish (Candela Peña). Although well acted and visually striking (mixing stylization and harsh hand-held realism), the film’s reception was oddly muted. Despite a wealth of character and situation, it was not enough to fill a whole movie: the story dragged, and the lack of narrative drive that had been regarded as a plus in previous efforts was now held against the filmmaker. LITERARY ADAPTATIONS. From its beginnings, Spanish cinema has sought inspiration in literary sources. One reason was popularity: if a film is based on a well-known book, there will at least be curiosity to see how the translation into images has been done, or, for those who are aware of the quality of the book but have not read it, the film may become a substitute. Another was funding: literary adaptations provided a degree of prestige that constituted a good reason for authorities to justify funding, and Spanish film has been largely dependent on institutional support. Literary adaptations became particularly central to Spanish filmmaking particularly during three periods. The first was between the late 1910s and the end of the silent period, when film was still in its early days, and adapting a stage play or a novel was regarded as a way to earn respectability for the new art. Most of these adaptations were little more than illustrations with simplistic tableaux-based mise en scene. The most frequently adapted author in those years was Valencian novelist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (five versions of his novels were shot in Spain during the silent period), who specialized in rural dramas and also wrote the classic bullfighting novel Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand). Nobel Prize-winning playwright Jacinto

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Benavente saw, like Blasco Ibáñez, the potential of the new invention, and worked to encourage five adaptations of his works between 1914 and 1924. The last one was produced by Films Benavente, a company he founded to keep a tighter control on film versions of his output. But, by and large, the preferred genre for adaptation was the costumbrista sainete: the silent period coincided with the golden age of this theatrical genre, whose most prominent practitioners were Carlos Arniches and the Álvarez Quintero brothers. The second important period for literary adaptations took place between the late 1940s, the golden age of CIFESA, and the mid1950s. Preferred sources at this point were late 19th-century novels, particularly by writers with strong Catholic credentials, such as the priest known in literary circles as Padre Coloma, author of the source novel for the Juan de Orduña box-office hit Pequeñeces (Small Matters, 1950). Other frequently adapted authors were Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (nine adaptations in the 1940s) and, still leading the list of preferred authors, sainete playwright Carlos Arniches, whose works were adapted on more than 20 occasions during this period. Well-established directors such as Rafael Gil, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, Juan de Orduña, and Luis Lucia became closely identified with prestige adaptations. Of the contemporary writers, the works of Wenceslao Fernández Flórez were most successfully translated to screen: 12 adaptations between 1941 and 1956, including solid fare like Huella de luz (The Trace of Light, Rafael Gil, 1943), El destino se disculpa (Fate Apologizes, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1945), and El malvado Carabel (Wicked Carabel, Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1956). Closing the list of prominently adapted authors, playwright Enrique Jardiel Poncela’s zany comedies were adapted eight times by well-established directors. The best films adapted from Jardiel’s output were Gil’s Eloísa está debajo de un almendro (Eloísa Is under an Almond Tree, 1943) and Gonzalo Delgrás’ Los habitantes de la casa deshabitada (The Inhabitants of the Uninhabited House, 1946). But what is remarkable about adaptations in this period are the absences. Although Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quijote de la Mancha is represented with a version, released in 1948, directed by Gil, there is a relative lack of other Golden Age playwrights and novelists, with the exception of the anonymous picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes. It was as if filmmakers or institutions were

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tempted by the prestige, but wary of the difficulties of adapting such well-established works. Famous writers from the prewar years with strong literary reputations, who had in some way or other been identified with the Republican cause, were simply banned, and adaptations from their works were discouraged. For instance, there were few adaptations from Benito Pérez Galdós or Jacinto Benavente until the mid-1950s, and the work of Valle Inclán (the first adaptation of his work was Juan Antonio Bardem’s 1959 Sonatas) and Federico García Lorca (not adapted to film during the Franco period), to name only the two most influential writers of the century, had to wait a long time before being transferred to screen. All of these would be remedied during the third peak period for literary adaptations: the 1980s. Although novels and plays continued to be translated into film between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s, the practice became less central in those years, and less energy and talent were devoted to film adaptations. But the end of the Franco period, with its impulse to represent what had until then been banned or discouraged, made filmmakers turn their attention to literature. There was a second reason why literary adaptation became a flourishing practice at the time: the Ley Miró, introduced in 1983, encouraged “quality film,” and adapting from a literary source was undeniably a quality factor in a project that would make funding more likely. It was easy to convince the authorities to support scripts based on such emblematic authors as Federico García Lorca or Valle Inclán (however, among the most frequently adapted novelists of the early Transition years was the Franco supporter Fernando Vizcaíno Casas). The key film in this sense was Mario Camus’ Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, 1984). Camus was undeniably one of the key figures in the translation of literary works into films. His adaptations were typically tidy and linear. More inventive was Vicente Aranda, the rival literary adapter of the late 1980s, who had a preference for freer reinterpretations of the works by complex modernist authors like Juan Marsé (he adapted three of his novels) or Luis Martín Santos (whose masterpiece Tiempo de silencio became one of the most accomplished Aranda films of the 1980s). In recent years, Aranda has turned to adaptation again, directing two films with well-known literary sources: Carmen (2003) and Tirante el Blanco (Tirante the White Knight, 2006), the latter based on a

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medieval adventure epic poem. Works by Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela and Miguel Delibes (the author of the source novel for Los santos inocentes) were also frequently adapted for the screen. The generation of the 1990s, including Medem, Amenábar, and Álex de la Iglesia, has reacted against the quality pressures of literary adaptations, systematically preferring to work within the limits of film genres. Pedro Almodóvar borrowed plot motifs from the film canon, but only once did he make a nominal adaptation with Carne Trémula (Live Flesh, 1997), inspired by a thriller by Ruth Rendell. Although adaptations continue to be made, the impulse toward internationalization limits the possibilities: the Spanish literary canon is not particularly popular abroad, and there are very few classics that would deserve international attention, whereas fantasy and horror have more interest for international audiences. LÓPEZ, CHARO (1943– ). Charo López’s elegant, serene beauty and smoky voice turned her into an icon during the Transition period. She studied philosophy before taking up acting at the Escuela Oficial de Cine and, since 1967, took small parts in films. Dissatisfied with their quality, she concentrated on stage, where she was a regular in Miguel Narros’ innovative company. She also had a substantial career in television drama. The roles that gave her recognition were as the protagonist in the Gonzalo Suárez’s prestigious miniseries Los gozos y las sombras (The Joys and the Shadows, 1981), as well as the harsh, vulgar Mauricia La Loca in the earlier Fortunata y Jacinta (1980). López had few starring roles, most notably in Los paraísos perdidos (Lost Paradises, Basilio Martín Patino, 1985). Some of her most remarkable performances have been in supporting parts, where she conveys an oddly distant fascination: she was an adulterous wife in La colmena (The Beehive, Mario Camus, 1982); a fantasy in Epílogo (Epilogue, Gonzalo Suárez, 1984); Doña Elvira, one of Don Juan’s lovers who has retired to a monastery in Don Juan en los infiernos (Don Juan in Hell, Gonzalo Suárez, 1991); and in Almodóvar’s Kika (1993), she was glimpsed as the murdered mother of the troubled protagonist. Her qualities were best used by Vicente Aranda in Tiempo de silencio (A Time of Silence, 1986), in which she played both the haughty mother of the wealthy friend of the protagonist and the prostitute he has sex with. Among her few recent roles, the cleaning lady

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in the gritty Pasajes (Daniel Calparsoro, 1996) and the tortured wife of the detective protagonist in Plenilunio (Full Moon, Imanol Uribe, 1999) showed the actress reaching into new territory. LÓPEZ, SERGI (1965– ). Working in Spanish, French, and English, as well as in his native Catalan, Sergi López has achieved a very high international reputation. He was born in Vilanova i la Geltrú, near Barcelona, to a family whose older members supported the Spanish Republic. He studied acting in France, and it was there that he debuted in film with a career-making performance as the protagonist in Manuel Poirier’s Western (1997). This was followed by four more films with the same director through the years, the most recent being La maison (2007). In 2000, he played the ambiguous, threatening protagonist in Dominik Moll’s Harry, He’s Here to Help, a role that showcases his potential as a “bad guy.” In Spain, López had a substantial part in Ventura Pons’s Caricies (Caresses, 1998), in which he excelled in one of the episodes as a father. Later, he starred in Morir (o no) (To Die [Or Not], 2000) also directed by Pons. These were followed by other acclaimed parts in Entre las piernas (Between Your Legs, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1999) and Lisboa (Antonio Hernández, 1999). One of his most unusual roles was also among his best: he was touching as the wounded doctor in Miguel Albaladejo’s witty romantic comedy El cielo abierto (Open Sky, 1999). In later years, he specialized in intensely evil characters in a series of films including Solo mia (Only Mine, Javier Balaguer, 2001) and Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things (2002). His performance as fascist captain Vidal in Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) received well-deserved critical praise. LÓPEZ VÁZQUEZ, JOSÉ LUIS (1922– 2009). Like many actors of his generation, López Vázquez started as a supporting player, was prolific in a long series of commercial films typical of Spanish production during the 1960s, and when he found the opportunity to prove his talent, he evolved into more serious roles. His first vocation was stage and costume design. He also did some theater work before being called in 1954 by Luis G. Berlanga for a supporting part in ¡Novio a la vista! (Fiancée Approaching! 1953).

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He was featured as a regular presence, consistently displaying a very characteristic high-pitched voice, and pedantic pronunciation and rhythms, in some of Berlanga’s most famous films, such as Plácido (1962) and El verdugo (The Executioner, 1964), a collaboration that would continue into the 1990s (he played a priest in Todos a la cárcel [Everybody to Jail, 1993], one of Berlanga’s late films). During most of the 1960s, López Vázquez became one of the most popular comic actors in Spanish cinema and was extremely prolific, appearing in up to 12 films in one year (1967). He created the mask of a fawning, hypocritical, talkative, and emphatic civil servant, which became a recurring role. In 1960, he appeared for the first time with Gracita Morales (in Atraco a las tres [Robbery at Three, José María Forqué, 1962]), and they ended up appearing together in 14 films, including a series of seven in which they starred between 1964 and 1968. They were a great comic couple, her dizziness playing well with his pedantry. Then, in 1967, his role in Carlos Saura’s Peppermint Frappé (1967) as an immature adult obsessed with the young Geraldine Chaplin character, suggested depths to his acting that he had not yet been given the chance to probe. At this stage, he started alternating his well-rehearsed comic persona in desarrollismo and sexy comedies with extraordinarily detailed performances, like the one in Jaime de Armiñán’s in Mi querida señorita (My Dear Miss, 1972). In this film, he plays a spinster in a provincial town who realizes “she” is actually a man. If the comic López Vázquez had always tended to be shrill and over the top, his roles in this film and in others that followed showed him underplaying effectively. In the 1970s, he gave substantial and very diverse performances in El bosque del lobo (The Forest of the Wolf, Pedro Olea, 1971); again combining the adult and the child in Carlos Saura’s La prima angelica (Cousin Angelica, 1974); and as a gruff journalist in La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (The Truth About the Savolta Case, Antonio Drove, 1980). He also had a discreet international career, which included a supporting part in George Cukor’s Travels with My Aunt (1972). He alternated film and theater, and won critical praise for his stage role of Willy Loman (in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman). During the Transition, he specialized in reactionary parts in comedies directed by old Franco regime figures like Rafael Gil and José Luis

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Sáenz de Heredia, but he also did less politically sensitive work for Berlanga in his Nacional series. From the early 1990s, López Vázquez slowed, doing mostly supporting work. He was a welcome presence in El largo invierno (The Long Winter, Jaime Camino, 1992), El maestro de Esgrima (The Fencing Master, Pedro Olea, 1992), and Luna de Avellaneda (Avellaneda Moon, Juan José Campanella, 2004). In his most recent role, ¿Y tú quién eres? (Do I Know You? Antonio Mercero, 2007), he plays a strong old man who helps a friend (played by Manuel Alexandre) overcome symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. LUCIA, LUIS (1914–1984). Luis Lucia was one of the great craftsmen in the Francoist film industry, turning out efficiently a variety of projects with a decidedly populist streak. His strong points are precisely in those areas that made film a popular art in the 1940s and 1950s: spectacular sets and costume dramas, stars, songs, dances, and optimism. Lucia started as a contract scriptwriter, developing a particular sensitivity for issues of classical structure and character construction. His first credit as writer and director dates back to 1943, when he wrote one of the most popular comedies of early Francoism, El hombre que se quiso matar (The Man Who Wanted to Kill Himself, Rafael Gil, 1942). That same year he directed El 13–13, another hit comedy, which established him at CIFESA. His efficiency soon became recognized and, in the 1940s, he became one of the most prolific directors in the company and trusted with high budgets. He acquitted himself successfully in costume dramas like La duquesa de Benamejí (The Duchess of Benamejí, 1949). Also at CIFESA, he directed Currito de la Cruz (1949), considered by critics to be among the best of bullfighting movies. In the late 1940s, he became production manager at the studio, and used his legendary skill to keep budgets low in efficient spectaculars. Although he was basically a versatile industry man, by the end of the 1940s, Lucia had become something of a specialist in the Spanish folkloric musical. He directed Juanita Reina in Lola la piconera (Lola the Coalgirl, 1951) and two of the biggest stars of the genre in remakes of old Imperio Argentina hits such as La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpicio, 1952), starring Carmen Sevilla and

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Morena Clara (1954), with Lola Flores as the loquacious gypsy. His gift in discovering talent also became legendary. He took a chance on a blonde Andalusian girl whom he would go on to transform into Marisol in a film called Un rayo de luz (Ray of Light, 1960). He also discovered teenage stars Rocío Dúrcal and Ana Belén. He continued to direct musicals through the 1960s, with titles including Tómbola (Prize Draw, 1962), Rocío de la Mancha (1963), Pepa Doncel (1969), and La novicia rebelde (The Rebellious Novice, 1971). He retired from filmmaking in 1972. LUNA, MANUEL (1898–1958). Manuel Luna was an established theater actor before he was picked by Florián Rey for a series of supporting roles in his films with Imperio Argentina. He was in Nobleza baturra (Aragonese Nobility, 1935) and played the prosecutor in Morena Clara (1936), two of the most popular films of the Republican period. He was very prolific in the next two decades. When Rey moved to Nazi Germany to shoot further titles with Argentina and Conchita Piquer, he took Luna along with him, for roles in La canción de Aixa (Aixa’s Song, 1939) and La Dolores (Dolores, 1940). The Civil War did not greatly affect his career, and he was typecast in many comedies and dramas as an often sour or grumpy figure of authority who quietly watches the protagonists’ actions, always at hand for a word of advice. He also specialized in specific cultural types, especially “castizo” or “andalusian.” His brooding, threatening demeanor was put to good use in Edgar Neville’s El crimen de la Calle Bordadores (The Crime of Bordadores Street, 1946), one of his best roles, in which he played an amoral character suspected of murder, but whose actual guilt is never clarified in the narrative. From the mid-1940s, Luna became a favorite as ensemble player in CIFESA costume dramas by Luis Lucia and Juan de Orduña. In Lucia’s Lola la Piconera (Lola the Coalgirl, 1951) and Currito de la Cruz (1949), his emphatic diction and authoritative presence were important in conveying the father-figure elements of, respectively, a bullfighter who is the protagonist’s mentor and a French general. In La Lola se va a los puertos (Lola Goes to the Ports, 1947), Orduña gave Luna his best part. As an accompanist to the eponymous singer Lola (Juanita Reina), he showed the painful dilemma of the friend and confidant who is in love with her, but knows he can only show

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his emotions through his playing. In more conventional parts, he remained a remarkable presence in other Orduña’s films like Locura de amor (Madness for Love, 1948), Agustina de Aragón (1950), and Alba de América (Dawn of America, 1951). Until his death in 1958, Luna continued to play important supporting roles in quality projects with a strongly “national” flavor: he played in bullfighting dramas (Los clarines del miedo [The Bugles of Fear, Antonio Román, 1958]), as authority figures in rural dramas (Fuenteovejuna [Antonio Román, 1947], El alcalde de Zalamea [The Mayor of Zalamea, José Gutiérrez Maesso, 1954]), and as the odd rural priest (Un caballero andaluz [An Andalusian Gentleman, Luis Lucia, 1954], La hermana alegría [Sister Joy, Luis Lucia, 1955], and El Piyayo [Luis Lucia, 1956]). LUNES AL SOL, LOS / MONDAYS IN THE SUN (2002). The origin of Los lunes al sol can be traced to a series of organized actions carried out by a group of unemployed French workers in the mid-1990s. Director Fernando León de Aranoa read about their attempts to become visible through civil disobedience and started gathering ideas and testimonies for what would become a film about a group of unemployed friends, ex-workers at a closed-down shipyard, who spend their days “in the sun,” whiling away the hours, unable to find jobs, and suffering the psychological sequels of long-term unemployment. In choosing this title, the director intended to introduce a horizon of hope to the problem of unemployment. In the film, Santa (Javier Bardem), Jose (Luis Tosar), and Paulino (José Angel Egido) worked together and supported their families. When they refused to accept punishing conditions they were fired. Some co-workers accepted the company’s deal, but as soon as they managed to reduce staff, the company closed. The sequels have a deep impact on their personal lives and their families. Santa, the film’s protagonist, attempts to stand up to the system that has crushed him with pointless love affairs and long hours of drinking. José feels the humiliation of his wife being the breadwinner, a feeling that leads him to pathological jealousy. Finally, Paulino, also worried about his family, keeps on applying for jobs, but slowly realizes that his time in employment may be over as companies will only hire younger staff. Important sections of the film are set in a bar where these characters

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spend their evenings with other friends, including Amador (Celso Bugallo), an old worker suffering from terminal depression. The film is dominated by an authoritative performance by Bardem, who went through a careful physical transformation, gaining weight and growing a thick beard, in order to distance the character from the actor’s popular public image. He conveys the dignity and honesty of a man he sees as “defeated but not tamed.” At some points, the film shows its explicit agenda: in labor conflicts, workers either fight together or they sink together. But most importantly, León de Aranoa cares for his characters not just as types, but as human beings with real lives: their fates are not fully resolved in the plot, but their inherent dignity finally triumphs with a small act of rebellion. LUPPI, FEDERICO (1936– ). Argentina-born Federico Luppi was one of the most renowned actors in his native country before he became a frequent presence in Spanish film. In Argentina, he was in the classic Héctor Olivera’s pampa western Patagonia rebelde (Rebellious Patagonia, 1974) and in one of the key political films of the 1980s, Adolfo Aristarain’s Tiempo de revancha (Time for Revenge, 1981). His first important film in Spain was in Mario Camus’ La vieja música (Old Music, 1985), in which he plays an Argentinian football coach. His collaborations with Aristarain continued both in Spain and in Argentina, in an excellent series of films with an important political element, including Un lugar en el mundo (A Place in the World, 1992), Martín (hache) (1997), for which he won the Silver Shell at San Sebastian Film Festival, and Lugares comunes (Common Places, 2002). In all of these he was perfectly cast as a sharp, articulate, middle-aged man who represents the director’s forceful opinions. He was also the protagonist of Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (1993), in which he played a Faustian character, and he plays a doctor lost in the jungle in John Sayles’ Men with Guns (1997). From the 1990s, he has had a substantial career playing Americans in Spanish films. His best parts were in Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (No One Will Talk About Us When We Are Dead, Agustín Díaz Yanes, 1995), as a hitman with problems of conscience; in the metaphorical fantasy on the Civil War El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro, 2001) in which

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he is poignant as an old republican; and La distancia (The Distance, Iñaki Dorronsoro, 2006), as a boxing coach. He became a Spanish citizen in 2003.

– M – MAR ADENTRO / THE SEA INSIDE (2004). Alejandro Amenábar’s follow-up to his extraordinary box-office hit The Others showed a definite change of direction, shifting from fantasy plots and Hitchcock-influenced suspense to a testimonial story inspired by the real-life case of quadriplegic Ramón Sampedro, who struggled for 28 years to be allowed to die. The plot sounded like yet another unpromising issue-led film: after all, how could a film about someone who cannot leave his bed be made entertaining? But it was to Amenábar and his co-scriptwriter Mateo Gil’s credit that they managed to find the emotion, the humor, and even the suspense in the story, capturing audience’s minds and hearts. Indeed, Mar adentro became one of the films of the year internationally, winning the Academy Award for best foreign film, as well as the Golden Globe and a record-breaking 14 Goyas. To incarnate a perfectly delineated group of characters, Amenábar counted on a strong cast. Belén Rueda was outstanding as the lawyer who also suffers from a disease and tries to help Ramón find a way out of his suffering. Lola Dueñas was touching as the workingclass single mother who falls in love with the man. Other parts went to Mabel Rivera, Tamar Novas, Celso Bugallo, and José María Pou, who contributed with intense performances. But, of course, the film is driven by a towering central performance by Javier Bardem; fresh from his turn as Santa, in Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun, Fernando León de Aranoa, 2002), he displays a wealth of registers and emotions, rightly choosing to play up the wittier aspects of the character rather than go for sentimentalism. MARCELINO PAN Y VINO / THE MIRACLE OF MARCELINO (1955). One of the first international hits of Spanish cinema (a great success in Italy and other Catholic countries), Ladislao Vajda’s Marcelino pan y vino is also, in spite of its sentimentalism and topical

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aspects, one of the most accomplished Spanish films of the 1950s. It tells the story, narrated as a kind of fairy tale to a bedridden girl, of an orphan brought up by a group of monks. As he grows up, he becomes a happy child who brings joy to his surrogate fathers even as he causes havoc at the monastery and gives them funny nicknames which became very popular in Spain at the time. Still, he has moments of melancholy, when he misses the presence of a mother. In the film’s second half, he visits an old attic in the monastery and soon engages in a relationship with a wooden image of Jesus Christ on the cross. He brings the suffering man bread and wine, and in exchange, Jesus says he will take Marcelino to his mother. In the last scene, he is discovered dead by the monks. Marcelino pan y vino was enriched with a heart-warming performance by child actor Pablito Calvo, who captivated audiences with his rueful smile and big eyes, and started a vogue both for child actors and a new kind of religious films, less heroic than those of the previous generation. It is also a technically astounding film, particularly in terms of cinematography and framing. Vajda uses images pictorially, drawing from Spanish painting traditions and constructing solid images and beautiful camera movements. MARISCAL, ANA (1923–1995). Ana Mariscal was born in Madrid. She debuted on film in 1940, with El último húsar (The Last Husar, Luis Marquina, 1940), but it was the huge success of her second film, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia’s Raza (Race, 1941), in which she played the life companion to the Franco-like protagonist, that turned her into a star. She was one of the most popular performers of the 1940s. Her glamorous image played well in bland historical epics like La princesa de los Ursinos (The Princess of the Ursines, Luis Lucia, 1947), but she was particularly good when called on to project steely determination and inner strength. This image contrasted with stereotypes of femininity, something she exploited playing Don Juan onstage. She was in El tambor del Bruch (The Drummer of Bruch, Ignacio F. Iquino, 1948), De mujer a mujer (Woman to Woman, Luis Lucia, 1950), and Un hombre va por el camino (A Man Walks Along the Road, Manuel Mur Oti, 1949), in which she gave a characteristically charismatic performance as a hard-working widow who lives in the mountains and takes in a wandering man against all social convention.

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At this time, Mariscal had already a substantial career as a theater director, and in 1952, she set up her own production company, Bosco Films, and made her film directing debut with the neorealistinfluenced comedy Segundo López, aventurero urbano (Segundo López, Urban Adventurer, 1953). This was followed by the melodrama Con la vida hicieron fuego (They Made Fire with Life, 1957). After these two unusual films, her output became more conventional, although she continued to produce, and also had writing credits in many of her films. She continued acting and directing through the 1950s and into the 1960s, which she alternated with teaching at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas. Her adaptation of Miguel Delibes novel, El camino (The Road, 1964) has been regarded as her best film. From 1963, she went back onstage and started a career as an acting teacher at the film school. Her last film as director was El paseíllo (The Walk, 1968). From that time on, she made very few film appearances, the last being in an iconic supporting role in El polizón del Ulises (Stowaway aboard the Ulysses, Javier Aguirre, 1987), which also featured 1940s stars Imperio Argentina and Aurora Bautista. MARISOL (1948– ). Marisol was the most popular in the generation of child actors of the desarrollismo period of the mid-1960s. Her story has been told in great detail, becoming almost emblematic of the country’s evolution from poverty to relative affluence: Josefa Flores González, later Marisol, was a girl from a poor family who was discovered at the age of seven by director Luis Lucia to star in a musical called Rayo de Luz (Ray of Light, 1960). With this role, she became the darling of the Spanish film industry almost overnight. As the title suggests, she played a little girl who brought light into the lives of dour adults. The character she would portray for 10 more years was already fully formed here: she was a blonde, blue-eyed girl, talkative and gifted with a good voice and stage personality, who could help adults to overcome difficulties with a song or a smile. In these sentimental films, she tended to play orphans who engaged the affections of everybody. In the next decade, she became hugely popular both as an actress and as a recording artist. A series of musicals followed that included Ha llegado un ángel (An Angel Has Arrived, 1961) and

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Tómbola (Lottery, 1962), both directed by Luis Lucia, and Marisol rumbo a Río (Marisol Goes to Rio, Fernando Palacios, 1963). In all of them, Marisol was a metaphor of desarrollismo, an overcoming of racial interpretations of Spanish identity. Things became difficult when she came into dating age. Producers were concerned that she would not be accepted as a young adult, and indeed her fame began to wane in further vehicles like Búsqueme a esa chica (Find Me That Girl, Fernando Palacios, 1965) and Las 4 bodas de Marisol (The Four Weddings of Marisol, Luis Lucia, 1967). As the Franco period entered its last phase, she began to express discontent with her situation. She married Left-wing choreographer Antonio Gades and expressed her anti-Francoist feelings to the press, remarking that she had been taken advantage of, and trying to convey the idea of a “new” Marisol that included sexier parts and work for controversial directors, with titles including La chica del molino rojo (The Girl of the Moulin Rouge, Eugenio Martín, 1973) and El poder del deseo (The Power of Desire, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1975). The new image did not work, and she went into semi-retirement in 1975, with only occasional appearances on television and in film (including Mario Camus’ Los días del pasado [Days of the Past, 1978] and Carlos Saura’s Carmen [1983]). MARRO, ALBERT (1878–1956). Pioneer producer, cinematographer, and writer-director Albert Marro was born in Barcelona to a wealthy family. By 1897, he owned a rudimentary theater where he showed short films (among the earliest to reach Spain) interspersed with musical and comic numbers. It was in this context that he met Segundo de Chomón, who had just returned from his first trip to France. Chomón’s technical acumen and Marro’s entrepreneurial skills made them a good team to record images, which they distributed and showed successfully. Together, in 1901, they set up, with the help of Luis Macaya, Macaya and Marro, one of the first Spanish production companies. This effort characteristically floundered in a few years, and in 1907 Marro founded Hispano Films with the Baños brothers, but without Chomón (who had returned to Paris). Soon they decided to concentrate on fiction films. One of the most ambitious films of the company was Don Juan Tenorio (1910), followed the next year by

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Carmen o la hija del bandido (Carmen, or the Daughter of a Bandit, 1911). Innovatively, they went beyond recording a static stage performance by introducing camera movements and choreographing movement within a shot. The company was a success, and they continued producing narrative films with a strong costumbrismo flavor until 1918, when a fire put an end to Marro’s film enterprises. Among the more remarkable films produced and directed by Marro were his adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s Entre naranjos (Among Orange Trees, 1914), Elva (1916), Diego Corrientes (1914), and the thriller, co-directed with José Maria Codina, Barcelona y sus misterios (Barcelona and Its Mysteries, 1916), a serial that took inspiration from Louis Feuillade’s Fantomas films. MARTÍN PATINO, BASILIO (1930– ). Basilio Martín Patino was instrumental in organizing the gathering that would be known as the Salamanca Conversations in 1955. He had been a pioneer in the Spanish Cine Club movement, and founded and edited an important cinephile journal, Cinema universitario. He studied at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas and graduated with a short that reflected an interest in contemplative realism, Tarde de domingo (Sunday Afternoon, 1960). His ensuing projects encountered various official obstacles, and for four years he turned to advertising. Then, in 1964, he directed Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, 1967), his first feature and one of the most representative examples of Nuevo cine español, taking advantage of a new government-sponsored scheme to encourage art film. The story is structured around the letters a Spanish student writes to the daughter of a Republican exile, conveying a sense of frustration with the cultural and social situation in the country. The film, whose mood derives from existentialist literature, represents very well the melancholy, hopeless feelings of the period, the mixture between realism and subtle political reflection, and also the earnestness that marked most films by members of this group. As in other instances, Martín Patino used some visual and narrative devices from the nouvelle vague movement. The film won the Silver Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival that year, but then had to wait two more years for release due both to lack of commercial appeal and, paradoxically, distrust from the authorities who had contributed to its

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funding. Similar difficulties made his next project, Del amor y otras soledades (Of Love and Other Kinds of Solitude, 1969), a frustrating experience, and he moved away from narrative cinema. In the 1970s, Martín Patino tackled a series of documentaries on the Franco period. Canciones para después de la guerra (Songs for the Aftermath of a War), made in 1971, was a collage on everyday life during the early postwar. The film provocatively juxtaposed images from the NO-DO newsreels with instances from popular music and other relevant recordings. Censors were suspicious of the ironic tension between triumphalism, documentary reality, and songs, and the film remained unreleased until 1976. Caudillo (Leader, 1977) was a sour reflection on General Francisco Franco and his impact on Spanish life. Queridísimos verdugos (Dearest Executioners, 1977), yet another documentary, was a portrait of a maligned group of civil servants. His work during the Transition period continued to demonstrate his interest for historical memory. The most successful feature film of these years was Los paraísos perdidos (The Lost Paradises, 1985), which takes up where Nueve cartas a Berta ended, and presents a character who comes back to Spain after the experience of exile. This was followed by Madrid (1987), another collage film that made a personal discourse out of a collage of images on Spain’s capital city. Octavia, made in 2002, was presented as a personal testament (the story is about memory and different factions in Spanish history), and meant a return to Salamanca, the city where Nueve cartas a Berta was set, for an idiosyncratic, meandering reflection on family and the past. MARTÍNEZ SORIA, PACO (1902–1982). Paco Martínez Soria was 64 by the time he reached stardom with La ciudad no es para mí (The City Is Not for Me, Pedro Lazaga, 1966). This was the late period of an extensive career on stage and film. He had been a character actor, working mostly in touring companies, since the 1920s. A characteristic performer in sainetes and other costumbrista parts, he played supporting roles on screen since 1934, including some key films of the 1940s like Alma de Dios (Soul of God, Ignacio F. Iquino, 1941), El difunto es un vivo (The Dead Man Is Very Lively, Iquino, 1941), and Deliciosamente tontos (Deliciously Silly, Juan de Orduña, 1943).

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But it was a 1966 Pedro Lazaga comedy that made Martínez Soria into a household name. In La ciudad no es para mí, he played an Aragonese grandfather who comes to visit his children in the big city. It was one of the key desarrollismo comedies, dealing with the shock of modernity, and Martínez Soria films came to epitomize the more conservative approach to the genre, engagingly getting people to sympathize with his old-fashioned views. In a popular series of films throughout the late 1960s, he became the wise paleto (hick) who was a paragon of the virtues of rural Spain, dispensing sage advice to put children and grandchildren on the right path regarding consumerism and love. His films only aimed to please a specific audience, and they did well at the box office. The most successful were El turismo es un gran invento (Tourism Is a Great Invention, Pedro Lazaga, 1968), Abuelo Made in Spain (Grandfather Made in Spain, Pedro Lazaga, 1969), Don Erre que Erre (Mr. Stubborn, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1970), El abuelo tiene un plan (Grandad Has a Date, Pedro Lazaga, 1973), and El calzonazos (The Henpecked Husband, Mariano Ozores, 1974). He retired in 1981, when his image and what it represented became incongruous with the new times. In the 1990s, his films were broadcast on television, and he experienced a second wave of popularity. MAURA, CARMEN (1945– ). Carmen Maura was born in Madrid and started her acting career in the independent theater. In the early years of the Transition, she became a recurring presence (typecast as a liberal middle-class intellectual) in comedies and an example of a new generation of post-Franco actors who did not bring any memories of the dictatorship. She had one of the main roles in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, 1981), in which she was among the few professionals in a large cast made up of assorted nightlife types and friends. She matured as an actress under Almodóvar, in a collaboration which continued into the 1980s, with four further films in that decade. She played small supporting roles in Entre tinieblas (Dark Habits, 1983) and Matador (1986), but displayed her range in three very different central roles in ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984), La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1987), and especially Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of

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a Nervous Breakdown, 1988). These parts were a revelation to audiences and critics, and she won the Goya for the latter. Maura also established her reputation with some non-Almodóvar comic roles, for instance her earthy best friend to protagonist Ana Belén in Fernando Trueba’s vaudeville Sé infiel y no mires con quién (Be Wanton and Tread No Shame, 1986). After Mujeres, her professional collaboration with Almodóvar was interrupted, but she continued giving a series of intense performances, combining comedy and drama, during the 1990s. The most remarkable were in ¡Ay Carmela! (Carlos Saura, 1990), Sombras en una batalla (Shadows in a Battle, Mario Camus, 1993), and La comunidad (The Community, Álex de la Iglesia, 2000). She was nominated for a Goya for all of these and won again for the latter. Maura’s career slumped at the turn of the century, owing to personal problems. During the 1990s, she worked extensively in France, Belgium, Portugal, and Italy, mostly in supporting parts. Among her international films, the most important are Le bonheur est dans le pré (Happiness Is in the Countryside, Etienne Chatillez, 1995), Elles (Them, Luis Galvao Teles, 1997), Alice et Martin (Alice and Martin, André Techiné, 1998), Le harem de Madame Osmane (Madame Osmane’s Harem, Nadir Moknèche, 2000), Assassoni di giorni di festa (The Holiday Murderers, Damiano Damiani, 2002), Le ventre de Juliette (Juliette’s Belly, Martin Provost, 2003), and Le pacte du silence (Pact of Silence, Graham Guit, 2003). Back in Spain, her most important parts were in Alex de la Iglesia’s 800 balas (800 Bullets, 2002), in which she played a busy mother; as a ruthless hotel manager in Manuel Gómez Pereira’s Reinas (Queens, 2005), and, most iconically, in Almodóvar’s Volver (2006), a continuation of sorts of their previous collaboration ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! in which she played Penélope Cruz’s grandmother. MAYO, ALFREDO (1911–1985). One of the iconic actors of the early Franco period, Alfredo Mayo represented in the minds of audiences the bravery, self-restraint, and virility of the military hero. His most important part was in José Luis Sáenz de Heredia’s Raza (Race, 1941), where he played General Francisco Franco’s alter ego José Churruca. He started his film career before the Civil War in 1935,

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and it was interrupted when he joined the Fascist army. He became a star in the early postwar era with Harka! (Carlos Arévalo, 1942), a film on the foreign legion with strong homoerotic undertones. His military men were almost a cliché in the early 1940s, when he starred in several war films, including ¡A mí la legión! (On with the Legion! Juan de Orduña, 1942), Escuadrilla (The Squadron, Antonio Román, 1941), and El frente de los suspiros (The Front of Sighs, Juan de Orduña, 1942). In the next decade, the kind of values he had come to represent were dissolving, and his career floundered (in that decade, he made half as many films as in the previous one), but he continued to work in comedies and dramas, including Suspenso en comunismo (Failing in Communism, Eduardo Manzanos Brochero, 1956), La playa prohibida (Forbidden Beach, Julián Soler, 1956), and the boxoffice hit El último cuplé (The Last Torch Song, Juan de Orduña, 1957), where he played a cameo. After losing popular favor, Mayo was recovered at least twice. First, in 1965, after a few years of weak roles and co-productions, Carlos Saura used his iconic qualities effectively to represent a fascist ex-combatant in La caza (The Hunt, 1966). Then, during the Transition years, he participated in Gonzalo Herralde’s reworking of Raza, Raza, El espíritu de Franco (Race, Franco’s Spirit, 1977), and he was featured in a number of films. Some of these were simply popular commercial comedies, but more ironically, he was used as a patriarch in more substantial projects like Los restos del naufragio (Remains of the Shipwreck, Ricardo Franco, 1978), Patrimonio nacional (National Heritage, Luis G. Berlanga, 1981), and Hablamos esta noche (Tonight We Talk, Pilar Miró, 1982), as well as in the popular television series Cañas y barro (Mud and Reeds, 1978). He kept on working until shortly before his death. MEDEM, JULIO (1958– ). During the 1990s, with a remarkable series of films culminating in Tierra, Julio Medem became Spanish cinema’s great white hope, equidistant both from Pedro Almodóvar’s fashionably stylish but somewhat light melodramas and heavyhanded literal treatments of the past and the Civil War. Medem’s films showed an awareness of historical issues and (Basque) national identity, but also aimed at a more sophisticated artistic treatment, indebted to the metaphorical tradition of the 1970s.

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Medem came from a conservative family background, which included German, French, Valencian, and Basque relatives. Throughout adolescence, he attended exclusive schools and enjoyed a highsociety background. During the mid-1970s, he was increasingly involved with Basque nationalism, thus refuting some of his class baggage. His first vocation was psychiatry, and it was only after earning his first degree as a medical doctor that he turned to film. Vacas (Cows, 1992) was his first feature, and it remains among the most striking debuts in Spanish cinema. The whole film could be seen as a metaphor for Basque identity, as seen from the perspective of a herd of cows. The family saga is presented as a historical fresco, moving from the Carlist wars of the 19th century, to the early decades of the 20th century and the Civil War, and including elements of magic realism. Critics were impressed by the sheer originality of this approach to the complexity of a situation full of contradictions that, to date, have often led to violence. The film won a special distinction at the Montreal Film Festival in 1993, and Medem was awarded the Goya as best new director. His second film, La ardilla roja (The Red Squirrel, 1993), admired by Stanley Kubrick, had a fainter link to historical events, but its narrative lines were even more convoluted. The film’s focus on symbolic meanings meant it was hard to get a tight grip on the actual narration, which concerned a woman with amnesia. Notwithstanding (or maybe because of) this, the film became an international hit in art cinemas and the Festival circuit, and paved the way for Medem’s third and most ambitious feature. With Tierra (Earth, 1996), Medem returned to the magical realism of Vacas, but the storyline was even more ambiguous than in his previous work and more deeply rooted in questions of cultural nationalism. The title’s “Earth” was obviously a reference to his Basque homeland, and a central metaphor for some aspects of Basque identity. In the film, an angel-like figure (named, to clear any doubts, Angel and played by iconic actor Carmelo Gómez), arrives at a small wine-producing community to exterminate a plague of insects that are found to be the cause of the wine’s distinctive flavor. As the narrative progresses, the texture of symbols and poetic images becomes thicker, and the narrative increasingly more obscure. Tierra is as fascinating in its visual rigor as it is infuriating for audiences

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who expect to know what is going on, which accounts both for the warm critical reception it achieved internationally and the practical absence of important awards. After Tierra, Medem seemed to relax into slightly less ambiguous narratives. His stories for Los amantes del círculo polar (The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, 1999), Lucía y el sexo (Lucía and Sex, 2001), and Caótica Ana (Chaotic Ana, 2007) remain still highly allusive, built on metaphors and dramatically complicated, with recurrent flashbacks or spiral timelines. The three of them make use of stories within stories, and Lucía y el sexo actually focuses on storytelling and writing to blur the limits between fact and fiction. Los amantes del círculo polar is an art romantic comedy with incestuous overtones. Structurally, the film plays around circles and cycles. Lucía y el sexo is even more playful in narrative terms, presenting a series of characters whose lives are interconnected, and who end up converging on the Mediterranean island of Formentera. In 2003, Medem devised and carried out the discussion film La pelota vasca: La piel contra la piedra (Basque Ball: The Skin Against the Stone), an ambitious forum for several factions to debate Basque nationalism. Caótica Ana, his last film to date, focuses once more on a young searching woman (the inspiration was Medem’s own sister) who, after bad love experiences, starts to delve into repressed memories only to find a connection with previous women’s lives. It was aggressively dismissed by critics, who seemed to be using the occasion to exact a revenge for Medem’s previous films. METAPHORICAL CINEMA. Film recurrently makes use of metaphorical images to reinforce narrative points or to otherwise suggest aspects that are not dealt with explicitly in literal narrative terms, sending the story into a different level of abstraction or thematization. This can be enriching, and sometimes creates a fruitful tension between storytelling and more artistic meaning. Still, there is a kind of cinema that makes metaphorical discourse a central signifying procedure to the extent that, if the metaphorical logic is unrecognized, the film makes little narrative sense. Given the demands that metaphorical reading make on the audience, such films are not bound to be popular. Building a story insistently around a central metaphor (or a set of metaphors) is closer to the European approach to filmmaking

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than to Hollywood plot-bound narratives. One can think back to F. W. Murnau’s Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924) as an example of a European story that suggests meanings beyond the literal plot. In the 1960s, the European art tradition became strengthened, and it influenced Spanish directors, particularly those associated with the Nuevo cine español movement. Historically, metaphorical cinema in Spain constitutes a line of development that is associated to a response to censorship and the ambition to make an artistic cinema that goes beyond the demands of social realism. One good starting point is Carlos Saura’s La caza (The Hunt, 1966), which has all the elements of metaphorical cinema and became an influence for directors of the late 1960s. Given the predominance of metaphor, a narrative inconclusiveness often dominates these films. Even worse, not every image or event can be immediately deciphered unless one has additional information on the filmmaker’s references and aims. The central symbol of Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973) is, as suggested by the title, the beehive itself, but critics have interpreted this in many different ways. This illustrates another aspect of metaphorical cinema: it lends itself to being interpreted by authoritative critics. The high period of metaphorical cinema in Spain was the years preceding and immediately following Francisco Franco’s death. It seemed a quality of art films to be obscure, and it is telling to compare Saura’s input in this period with both his later and earlier films: La madriguera (The Honeycomb, 1969), El jardín de las delicias (The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1970), and Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves, 1973) emphasize metaphor over narrative specificity, whereas Los golfos (Lazy Young Men, 1960) and the more recent ¡Ay Carmela! (1990) and El Séptimo día (The Seventh Day, 2004), do not. Although audiences knew the films dealt with politically sensitive themes, these had to be coded so that censors would have no grounds to ban them. Metaphorical cinema in those years became a peculiar communicative act between artists and the chosen few informed enough or patient enough to grasp their meanings. Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón has come to be regarded as the most emblematic metaphorical director: most of his output until the mid-1980s, including Habla mudita (Speak, Little Mute Girl, 1973), Sonámbulos

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(Sleepwalkers, 1978), El corazón del bosque (The Heart of the Forest, 1979), and Maravillas (Wonders, 1981) all could be said to fall into this category. Other directors who worked consistently in this tradition were Francisco Regueiro in Me enveneno de azules, (I Get Poisoned with Blue, 1971), Antxón Eceiza in De cuerpo presente, (In the Presence of the Body, 1967), Angelino Fons in La piel quemada (The Burnt Skin, 1967), José Luis Borau in Furtivos (Poachers, 1975), and Basilio Martín Patino, even to his last film Octavia (2002). By the end of the 1970s, the metaphorical cinema model seemed to have run its course and very quickly began to look outmoded. Saura moved on to more literal narratives and his series of musicals; even Gutiérrez Aragón, the director most insistently identified with the trend, made his stories increasingly more readable from La mitad del cielo (Half of the Sky, 1986). Metaphor could still work centrally on film, of course, as in Luis G. Berlanga’s La vaquilla (The Heifer, 1985), but this film’s main impulse is farcical, rather than critical or metaphysical. Later, in the 1990s, a few directors of the new generation referred back to the metaphorical tradition, although this prioritization of metaphor over literal narratives was based on aesthetic choices rather than practical necessity. Julio Medem’s Tierra (Earth, 1996) is one of the key films of the period and one of the most important instances of the centrality of metaphor in film. MIRÓ, PILAR (1940–1997). Besides being an accomplished, intensely original director, Pilar Miró was a key figure in cultural circles during the Spanish Transition. Born into a military family, she studied law at university before starting work as a journalist and completing a degree as scriptwriter at the Escuela Oficial de Cine. Her early career as a filmmaker took place in Spanish Television during the 1960s. She worked in a series of dramatic specials, as well as in documentaries and news features. In 1976, she became a member of the Socialist Party, which would determine her central role in film policies during the following decade. Her first assignment as film director was La petición (The Request, 1976). Some of the concerns that will become typical of her later career are already seen here: this was the story of an independent

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woman who experienced a conflict between emotional and professional life. Her exploration of variations on this theme through a series of films makes Pilar Miró a true auteur, one who uses film to articulate individual experience. Examples of these thematically linked narratives are Gary Cooper que estás en los cielos (Gary Cooper Who Art in Heaven, 1980), Hablamos esta noche (Tonight We Talk, 1982), Werther (1986), and El pájaro de la felicidad (The Bird of Happiness, 1993). El crimen de Cuenca (Cuenca Murder), her second feature, was shot in 1979 and became notorious as a cause célèbre, as it was banned for presumed slurs to the Civil Guard, a police body associated with Francoism. The film itself told the story of a miscarriage of justice in the 1910s: a young man disappeared in Osa de la Vega, Cuenca, and two friends were put on trial and tortured; a few years later, the man reappeared thus illuminating the vested interests that had led to the convictions. After a virulent polemic on radio and in the press, it was finally released in 1981 and became one of the biggest box-office hits in Spanish cinema. In 1982, Miró worked in the electoral campaign that would lead the Socialists to power for the next 14 years, and in the same year, she was appointed General Director of Cinema. She was responsible for the piece of legislation known as the Ley Miró. The gist of her reform was to devise a funding scheme that would encourage more quality films, to the detriment of a big turnout of titles, canceling the “S” classification for soft porn, and supporting film through advances and the need for cinemas to exhibit a certain minimum of Spanish films. In real terms, it gave guidelines for funding that paved the way for a wave of literary adaptations or quality projects with a Civil War background. Like most attempts at resolving the crisis of Spanish cinema, this was very controversial (she was accused of legislating from an exclusively director-producer perspective), and she resigned the post in 1985. The following year, she became general director of Televisión Española, and was responsible for reforms there that would lead to more collaboration between the film industry and television. Still, her authority was constantly questioned and once again she resigned under pressure in 1989, after having set up a substantial scheme for cooperation between television and the Spanish film industry.

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After a long break, she returned to film in the 1990s. Her next effort, Beltenebros / Prince of Shadows (1991), a co-production based on a popular novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina, took her in a different direction: although history and its effects on people are prominent in the story, this was basically a thriller with an international cast headed by Terence Stamp and Patsy Kensit. El pájaro de la felicidad (The Bird of Happiness, 1993) was among her most accomplished projects. A mother played by Mercedes Sampietro (her favorite actress and something of an alter ego in Gary Cooper que estás en los cielos), at a crucial point of her life, moves to a house by the sea in order to be alone, but is interrupted by the sudden arrival of its owner, a professor played by José Sacristán. The film is unusual in focusing on a woman’s experience, and carefully avoids narrative clichés. Tu nombre envenena mis sueños (Your Name Poisons My Dreams, 1996), her following project, was practically ignored by critics and audiences, but El perro del hortelano (The Dog in the Manger, 1996), an adaptation of a Golden Age play by Lope de Vega was seen as a new departure and a return to form: it combined classical rigor with some elements of Hollywood screwball comedy. She had projected a trilogy of classic plays, but died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1997. MOLINA, ÁNGELA (1955– ). Through her untrained, raspy voice, her intensity and the unexpected moves that denote the kind of mercurial spontaneity that many directors find difficult, Ángela Molina became one of the most striking presences in Spanish film in the 1970s. Her raw and indomitable spirit (she is the daughter of singer Antonio Molina) was used by Luis Buñuel when he called her to play the “sensual” half of the Conchita character (played also by Carole Bouquet) in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). This same rawness became part of her persona, as featured in a series of films during the Transition, and was used to best effect by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, particularly in El corazón del bosque (The Heart of the Forest, 1979) and Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, 1982), by Jaime Chávarri (Bearn, 1983), and by José Luis Borau in La sabina (The Sabine, 1979). Bigas Luna also chose her for his approach to the myth of Lola-Lola the temptress (first played by Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel) in Lola (1986).

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In the late 1980s, Spanish film moved away from gritty, loose narratives into more classical styles, and she became an oddity, always communicating something in excess of the narrative requirements. Her next collaboration with Gutiérrez Aragón, La mitad del cielo (Half of Heaven, 1986), showed her more disciplined and more in control, but perhaps less effective than in previous appearances. Jaime Chávarri’s Las cosas del querer (Little Matters of Love, 1989) preserved some of her previous qualities, but this revision of the folkloric musical is also a step backward in her career, as she seems to try to impersonate the character instead of bringing the character into her world. In the 1990s, Molina worked less in Spain. Gimlet (José Luis Acosta, 1995), Sagitario (Sagitarius, Vicente Molina Foix, 2001), and El mar (The Sea, Agustí Villaronga, 2000) showcased her maturity. The most polished performance of her late career was in Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne Trémula (Live Flesh, 1997), in which the director made brilliant use of her original uncouthness, casting her as the forlorn unfaithful wife to José Sancho’s policeman. In later years, she has become something of a character actress, perfect in roles in which she is required to project simultaneously strength and vulnerability, a wounded soul barely holding herself together, as in Ramón Salazar’s Piedras (Stones, 2002) and Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces, Pedro Almodóvar, 2009). MOLLÁ, JORDI (1968– ). Although relatively inactive in recent years, Jordi Mollá was one of the most promising performers of the 1990s. He was first noticed in the role of a young man with oedipal problems and an obsession with food and women in Bigas Luna’s Jamón, Jamón (1992). This was the start of a series of consistently accomplished performances ranging from his shrill gay man in Perdona bonita pero Lucas me quería a mí (Sorry, Darling, But Lucas Loved Me, Dunia Ayaso and Félix Sabroso, 1997) to more contained ones in comedies and period dramas, as in La celestina (The Matchmaker, Gerardo Vera, 1996). In 1997, he won critical recognition in Ricardo Franco’s La buena estrella (The Good Star, 1997). Mollá gave a raw, intense, sympathetic reading of a part that could easily have become either dull or caricaturesque of a young criminal with strong sexual magnetism. He

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was nominated for the Goya that year, but lost to the more restrained and central performance by Antonio Resines. After enjoyable parts as a student in Los años bárbaros (The Barbarian Years, Fernando Colomo, 1998); as Godoy, advisor to the King in the 19th century, in Volavérunt (Bigas Luna, 1999); and as a psychopathic criminal in Nadie conoce a nadie (No One Knows No One, Mateo Gil, 1999), he was featured as a closet homosexual in Gerardo Vera’s Segunda piel (Second Skin, 1999). It was a misguided effort in a misguided film. The character was difficult to pin down, and Molla’s unfocused combination of charm and psychopathy was hard to enjoy. With the new decade, he tried the international scene, participating in Blow (Ted Demme, 2001), his Hollywood debut; The Alamo (John Lee Hancock, 2004); the Peter Greenaway project The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003–2004), and as King Philip II in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, 2007), but he has yet to find another role that allows him the intensity and intelligence of his early career. MONTIEL, SARA (1928– ). Sara Montiel was the most international Spanish star of the 1950s and 1960s. Her musicals were popular in France and Italy, where she was regarded as Spain’s answer to Italian “maggioratas” such as Gina Lollobrigida. She was born into a very modest family and had an impoverished childhood. She came to Madrid and found the support of influential older men like playwright Miguel Mihura, who became her gateway into the film industry in the mid-1940s. At the time, she was practically illiterate and had to learn dialogues phonetically. She discusses her affairs candidly in her memoirs, but far from being an ordinary gold digger Montiel worked hard to perfect her art; what she lacked in acting talent she made up for in star personality. Montiel was strikingly beautiful, with the kind of beauty that was gloriously captured by the camera. She had small parts in a series of prestigious productions, such as Bambú (Bamboo, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1945), Mariona Rebull (José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1947), Don Quijote de la Mancha (Don Quixote, Rafael Gil, 1947), and Locura de amor (Madness for Love, Juan de Orduña, 1948). In the last title, she was directed by Juan de Orduña, who would call her back eight years later to offer her the role that would redefine her career.

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Then Montiel moved to Mexico, where she was featured with great success in a few unremarkable films (the only one still remembered today is Miguel M. Delgado’s Cárcel de mujeres [Women’s Prison, 1951]) before trying Hollywood, where she was given a series of roles as a Mexican in westerns (Veracruz, Robert Aldrich, 1954; Run of the Arrow, Samuel Fuller, 1957). She became a typical starlet, playing the publicity game (she was in the last picture taken of James Dean before his car crash) and marrying director Anthony Mann. Some performers devote their efforts to stretching their range, but Montiel, canny about her limitations, opted for specialization. She knew her only hope at stardom was to do one thing very well, and she set out to control every aspect of filmmaking that could showcase her best qualities. This spurred her interest in the technical side of filmmaking, where glamour could be manufactured by the camera. Unhappy about all the Indian and Mexican character roles she was offered, she accepted, without great expectations, Orduña’s offer to do a musical in Spain. El último cuplé (The Last Torch Song, 1957), as the film came to be titled, was a surprise hit, a once-in-a-lifetime box-office wonder. For decades, it remained among the highest grossing Spanish films. Here we have all the features of the typical Sara Montiel vehicle for the next 20 years: a musical melodrama, often set in a show business background, centered about her emotional strife, and wrapped into a rags-to-riches narrative. She remained a limited actress, but a consummate star, who knew how to cultivate a certain image, both on screen and off. In the process, she pushed the boundaries of acceptability for film star behavior. Where others, such as Amparo Rivelles or Aurora Bautista, had been manipulated by the regime, she, to her credit, never allowed this, and consequently her films ran into difficulties with the censor. She played fallen women who make up for their transgressions with gorgeous costumes and a rise to stardom. Her star vehicles were often international co-productions that sold well abroad. Although mostly indistinguishable from each other in terms of artistic merit, La violetera (The Flower Seller, Luis César Amadori, 1958), Carmen la de Ronda (Carmen from Ronda, Tulio Demicheli, 1959), and Tuset Street (Jorge Grau, 1967) stand out for the subtle variations in her star image, and Esa mujer (That Woman, Mario Camus, 1969) is, with its knowing excess in handling conventions, the peak of her

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late career. She retired from the movies in 1974, after the failure of Cinco almohadas para una noche (Five Pillows for a Night, Pedro Lazaga, 1974) indicated that her particular kind of seductiveness was becoming outmoded. This was timely: the end of censorship would have presented challenges to her career that she probably was not interested in taking up. Unlike other actresses of her generation, she felt unable or unwilling to reinvent herself, and cultural change had phased out her glamorous heroines. She had a thriving career in her own theater shows during the 1980s, playing mostly to a devoted gay audience. Her iconic qualities were briefly glimpsed in Pedro Almodóvar’s La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004), in which she appears on screen as the priestess blessing the budding romance of two young boys. MORALES, GRACITA (1929–1995). Gracita Morales was among the most popular character actresses of the 1960s, specializing in droll, working-class types, and fondly remembered for her mannered, emphatic diction. She was born in Madrid to a theatrical family, and did extensive stage work before her film debut in 1954 with Elena. This followed on her great stage success in Terence Rattigan’s The Prince and the Showgirl, in which she played the role that Marilyn Monroe would make famous on screen. With her shrill voice and recurrent malapropisms, Gracita Morales became a predictable presence in supporting parts, specializing in maids just arrived from the village in films like Prohibido enamorarse (Keep out of Love, José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1961) and Casi un caballero (Almost a Gentleman, José Maria Forqué, 1964). In the mid-1960s, she was at the peak of her popularity and starred in the successful comedy Sor Citroen (Sister Citroen, Pedro Lazaga, 1967), about a nun who learns to drive and causes havoc in Madrid’s streets. She also starred in a series of adventure comedies with José Luis López Vázquez. Los Palomos (The Pigeon Couple, 1964), based on a successful play by Alfonso Paso, and Cómo casarse en siete días (How to Marry in Seven Days, 1971), are among the most accomplished of her films, and in both she was directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez. Also with López Vázquez, Operación Mata-Hari (Operation Mata-Hari, Mariano Ozores, 1968), parodied secret agent plots and Un vampiro para dos (A Vampire for Two, Pedro Lazaga, 1965)

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poked fun at horror films. Into the “comedia desarrollista” period, her image and style remained unchanged in films like Operación cabaretera (Operation Cabaret Singer, Mariano Ozores, 1967), to date one of the biggest box-office hits of Spanish cinema, and Objetivo Bi-ki-ni (Target: Bikini, Mariano Ozores, 1968). Her limited screen persona meant eventually tired audiences, and she worked very seldom (and always in brief appearances) after the Transition. MOVIDA. “Movida” means “shaking up,” and the term has been used as a way to describe the exploratory spirit of the years immediately following Francisco Franco’s death in 1975, as expressed through sexual liberation, a hyperactive nightlife, the first taste of freedom of expression, and an interest in artistic manifestations that assimilated the lessons of various avant-gardes of the period, particularly punk and the Warhol Factory. The Movida is a notoriously hard to define cultural phenomenon with no precise boundaries. Indeed, some critics claim that it was the attempt to turn it into something specific (it was even encouraged by the popular Madrid mayor Enrique Tierno Galván) that finished it off around 1983, declaring that “movida” should be something “lived” not something pinned down in discussion. Still, some central aspects included sexual polymorphousness, interest in drugs, irony, and the recycling of established cultural forms (the latter aspect explains why, in the early 1980s, movida was identified with postmodernism). The most emblematic cinematic manifestations of the movida spirit are two early films by Pedro Almodóvar: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, 1981) and Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passion, 1982). Iván Zulueta’s Arrebato (Rapture, 1980) also came from the experiences of the period. Other interesting examples of the influence of la movida on film are En penumbra (In the Shade, José Luis Lozano, 1987) and, in the 1990s, Más que amor frenesí (More Than Love, Frenzy, Alfonso Albacete, Miguel Badem, and David Menkes, 1996). In all cases, Madrid constitutes an ideal background for loose narratives about marginal types. MUERTE DE UN CICLISTA / DEATH OF A CYCLIST (1955). Exactly contemporary to the Salamanca Conversations, Muerte de un ciclista boldly expressed the restlessness of young Spanish intel-

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lectuals, who felt smothered by the older generation and unable to act. Influenced by Marxist ideas on bourgeois bad faith and, more specifically, by Michelangelo Antonioni’s Story of a Love Affair (1950), also starring Lucia Bosé, it brought a sense of modernity and philosophical substance to Spanish cinema beyond reactionary historical recreations, earnest rural dramas, and ironic costumbrismo comedies. The film’s focus is on ethical choice, a dangerous topic in Spain at a time when any sense of ethics was dominated by facile versions of Christian doctrine. An adulterous couple, Juan and Maria José (played by Alberto Closas and Bosé) run over a cyclist in the middle of an empty road, and they decide not to say anything for fear of being discovered. The event affects their lives differently. María José is the bored wife of a wealthy and powerful man, and she distances herself from her lover. But for Juan, this is the start of a series of crises in which he comes to reconsider his life, his choices, and the society he inhabits. When a strange man gives hints that he knows their secret, Juan must make a decision. Released in the year of the Salamanca Conversations, it was practically a manifesto for a new generation of filmmakers that also included Berlanga, Saura, and Martín Patino. It was also shown out of competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the International Critics’ Award. MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS / WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (1988). Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios brought the consecration of Pedro Almodóvar as a major filmmaker after the problematic reception of the excessively gay (for some critics) La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1987), and the film was rewarded with five Goyas (including best film, Almodóvar for best script, and Carmen Maura as lead actress) and 11 further nominations. In the best director category, Almodóvar lost to Gonzalo Suárez, responsible for the earnest, literary Remando al viento (Rowing with the Wind, 1988). The film went on to a triumphant international career. It was nominated for a plethora of international awards, including by the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, and it was distributed in the United States by Orion pictures, which immediately bought an option for a Hollywood version

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starring Jane Fonda or Whoopi Goldberg, to be directed by Herbert Ross, which never materialized. One key source of inspiration for Almodóvar was Jean Cocteau’s La voix humaine (which had also been featured in La ley del deseo), but the dramatis personae grew to a gallery of perfectly defined characters whose lives intercrossed in a clockwork, finely threaded plot. The film followed a small group of women whose mental stability is endangered by cold, uncommunicative men. Pepa (Carmen Maura), the central character, is an actress (specialized in dubbing films) who desperately tries to speak to her ex-partner Iván before he leaves for a long trip. Her friend Candela (María Barranco) has been betrayed by her terrorist lovers and seeks refuge in Pepa’s flat, where she coincides with young couple Carlos (Antonio Banderas) and Marisa (Rossy de Palma), prospective tenants. Marisa is cold and remains an unsatisfied woman who has never been sexually fulfilled (she will be before the end of the film). Then there is Lucía (Julieta Serrano), Iván’s ex-wife who has been in a mental hospital since the 1960s and who clings to the fashions of the period. Although comedy had been a staple of Spanish film in the 1960s, these quick, low-quality films were impossible to export and unfunny to foreign audiences. There was something embarrassing about the Gracita Morales vehicles, and they had become a critical cliché of the kind of cinema to be derided. No matter how great their popularity, this was not the kind of quality film to be supported in Socialistgoverned Spain. In many ways, however, they remain Almodóvar’s inspiration, explicit in the character of Julieta Serrano as a woman interned in a sanatorium since the 1960s and refusing to believe time has passed. But Almodóvar combined other important influences. The flat color patterns and surfaces had something of the light comedies by Stanley Donen or Vincent Minnelli in Hollywood during the 1950s and early 1960s. The sexual cheekiness was very Spanish, had been prominent throughout Almodóvar’s career and had its roots in the spirit of the movida and the modernity that had installed itself in the country after Francisco Franco’s death. Finally, he combined these elements with a female-centered perspective, which sometimes suggested, no matter how ironically, Hollywood melodramas.

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As in theatrical vaudeville, the rhythm was hectic and there was a certain unity of time (one day from the moment Pepa woke up until she was ready to go to bed) and space (Almodóvar has drawn attention to the similarities between Pepa’s spacious flat and the one the protagonists of Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire inhabit). MUÑOZ SUAY, RICARDO (1917–1997). In spite of an unremarkable career as director and a largely unimpressive list of actual credits, Ricardo Muñoz Suay is one of the central personalities in Spanish film under Franco for his support of dissident cinema and ambitious artistic initiatives as a producer, as well as for his collaborations as a scriptwriter, which helped to define the aesthetics of both the Nuevo cine español and the Escuela de Barcelona. Muñoz Suay became a Communist in 1932 and fought the Civil War on the Republican side. When the war was over, he was jailed for five years, but remained affiliated with the clandestine Communist party until 1962, where he was the officer in charge of cultural activities. Muñoz Suay became, consequently, the bridge between dissident ideologies in Franco’s Spain and the film world. He started in the film industry as a critic before the war, and then, from 1951, carried out a range of minor tasks as assistant director (for instance in Esa pareja feliz [That Happy Couple, Luis G. Berlanga and Juan Antonio Bardem, 1953] and ¡Bienvenido Míster Marshall! [Welcome, Mr. Marshall! Luis G. Berlanga, 1953]) or production secretary. In 1955, he was one of the key players of the Salamanca Conversations and, to a large extent, he was the author of the final statement that sought a more fluid relationship between filmmakers and power structures. He was one of the founders of the UNINCI production company in its second period, backed by the communists, which supported Bardem’s films of the 1950s (among others), and was also instrumental in getting Luis Buñuel back to Spain to direct Viridiana (1961). In the 1960s, he was one of the main players behind the Nuevo cine español initiatives, with particular support of such figures as Basilio Martín Patino and Francisco Regueiro. He was involved as assistant director in an important series of films including El verdugo (The

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Executioner, Luis G. Berlanga, 1963), Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Basilio Martín Patino, 1966), Tuset Street (Jordi Grau, 1967), and Ditirambo (Gonzalo Suárez, 1969). Although from the mid-1960s he also helped to shape the aesthetics and the cohesion as a group of the Escuela de Barcelona movement, whose values he tirelessly promoted, his main credits for the remainder of the Franco period are as writer of genre films and co-writer in co-productions of the late 1960s. Between 1965 and 1970, he was also executive producer for Filmscontacto, and then until 1985 he worked for Profilmes, backing work by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Jaime Camino, and even Joseph Losey. After the Franco period, his work behind the scenes in support of free expression was finally brought to attention. He contributed to the foundation of the Valencian Filmoteca in 1985, an institution he led until 1990. He was awarded the Medal for Fine Arts in 1990. MUR OTI, MANUEL (1908–2003). Manuel Mur Oti was one of the most visually adventurous directors of the early Franco period. In a series of intense dramas often focused on strong women, he pushed the classical model into expressionism through original use of music, framing, editing, and dealing with unusual themes. Against the grain of Spanish cinema of the period, passion and psychology took precedence in his films over the banality of religious drama and historical epics or the ideology of war films. A Galician by birth, Mur Oti was a poet, critic, and novelist before turning to cinema. He lived in Cuba before returning to Spain in 1933. In a period of charged political atmosphere, he sympathized with the Republicans during the war. The fact that he became a prominent filmmaker in the late 1940s belies simplistic views that argue the case of a “fascist cinema” in that decade that left no room for alternative perspectives. Although he never attempted to deal with the Civil War directly, its consequences can be felt in the conflicted psyches of his protagonists. Mur Oti wrote the early scripts of Álvaro del Amo (Cuatro mujeres [Four Women, 1947] and El huésped de las tinieblas [Guest of Darkness, 1948] are of particular interest), a similar case of muted dissidence in the decade, before going on to direct his first film. Although he started as a scriptwriter and always took pride in his grip

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on structure and narration, what first impresses in his early works as director, particularly in Cielo negro (Black Sky, 1951), Condenados (Condemned, 1953), and Orgullo (Pride, 1955) is a developed cinematic imagination that uses complex devices (long takes, travelings, classical music, powerful framings), to tell intense stories about heightened states of mind. Un hombre va por el camino (A Man Walks Along the Way, 1949) is a typically powerful variation on the rural drama, about a vagabond who settles with a widow living on a mountain top and helps her to cultivate the land. The original title was “Virgin Earth,” and the images were pregnant with symbolism: for the first time, he uses the image of plowing the land in reference to fertility. The film then moves into more typical territory when the villagers begin to criticize the widow for having taken in a wanderer. His next film, Cielo negro, an urban melodrama with a strong neorealist influence about a poor girl who is going blind, was received with hostility by critics who interpreted engagement with social reality as political dissidence. It did not help that Mur Oti showed his individuality by using a complex visual rhetoric that seemed in excess of the story told: the final shot, for instance, is a technical tour de force which follows the protagonist, drenched in rain, from the bridge where she is about to commit suicide to the church where she finally finds redemption. It was felt to be overly bombastic for audiences who were used to seeing excess associated with politics, and not personal emotions. Condenados was a return to rural drama, Mur Oti’s favorite genre, and to some of the themes of his first feature. Through a curiously uneventful plot (which helps to emphasize the symbolic aspects in the narrative), it tells the story of Aurelia (played by Aurora Bautista, the CIFESA star, in a remarkable change of register), a peasant woman whose husband is in jail, and who hires a laborer to help her keep her property. Mur Oti’s earnest approach is once again in evidence: the first shot follows the protagonist as she returns from a day in the fields accompanied by Beethoven music, no less. Obviously, it is a metaphorical worldview rather than a story that Mur Oti is attempting to express. Orgullo, his next film and regarded as his best by critics, introduces into the Spanish rural drama themes and elements that powerfully recall Hollywood Westerns about old feuds, which

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allowed him to replay his personal version of the more typically Spanish rural drama. Fedra (1956), an adaptation from a classical tragedy starring Vicente Parra, was his last innovative film before a long series of conventional features that made up his output in the next three decades. From the 1960s, he devoted himself mostly to television. His work there was thoroughly professional, at a time when there was very little leeway for TV directors to be inventive.

– N – NADIE HABLARÁ DE NOSOTRAS CUANDO HAYAMOS MUERTO / NO ONE WILL TALK ABOUT US WHEN WE ARE DEAD (1995). Agustín Díaz Yanes had been writing for the movies for eight years before tackling this personal project. The training years paid off in terms of personal as well as professional maturation. Although not “autobiographical” in a literal sense, the film contains personal memories about his parents and, in a more general sense, a notion of the impact past history has on the lives of ordinary people. The story has two distinct narrative strands that fruitfully converge in a deeply felt reflection on the value of solidarity and an earnestly ethical view of the value of human existence. The first one is a thriller, and tells of a police operation gone wrong and a band of Mexican drug dealers trying to recover a secret notebook that contains the details of money-laundering operations. One of the leading hit men (Federico Luppi) is going through a crisis of conscience and experiences a conflict between his job and the demands he feels God is making of him (his daughter is terminally ill, and it is suggested she could be killed by his bosses if he does not succeed). The second strand is the central one and tells the story of Gloria (Victoria Abril), the alcoholic wife of a comatose bullfighter who abandoned her husband and ended up as a prostitute in Mexico. She was at the botched police operation and took the notebook with her. With the drug dealers after her, she moves back to Madrid to start a new life. The focus of this line of development is her regeneration as a human being, which is marked by the friendship and support of her husband’s mother, Doña Julia (Pilar Bardem), who had been a

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teacher and a feminist under the republic and now survives by giving private lessons. The character becomes the soul of the film, its moral center. Although betrayed by life, she has not betrayed her ideals: she keeps close to her ex-republican friends and has through decades and in spite of poverty and pain held on to her ethical principles. In Doña Julia, we see the dignity of a dynasty of women history has passed by. Victoria Abril, on the other hand, incarnates the need to overcome poverty and succeed at all costs, and in her evolution we see some kind of redemption. In the film’s early scenes, she follows the leads in the notebooks, and tries to steal money from the drug dealers, but this only gets her deeper into trouble. Finally, she accepts that it is only through personal effort that she will manage to get ahead. Hers is an extraordinarily detailed performance, expressed through an intense physicality: Abril performed her own stunts, and her small body being abused is a potent image of powerlessness combined with the need to raise herself above poverty. The film was received enthusiastically by critics and the public. Victoria Abril won the Silver Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and Díaz Yanes was awarded the Special Jury Prize. It also won eight Goyas (including best film, best new director, and best lead actress) in a remarkable year for Spanish cinema. NASCHY, PAUL (1934– ). Some actors think they were born to play Hamlet, some top their career with a magisterial King Lear; since he was a kid, Jacinto Molina (a.k.a. Paul Naschy) decided he wanted to play the wolf-man. His dream was fulfilled on no less than 12 occasions, with his impersonation of Waldemar Daninsky, a hugely popular character he invented and played to great success in a series of horror films since 1967. Naschy’s career as an actor, scriptwriter, producer, and director raises some questions about what is central or marginal to film history. Working systematically in the artistic margins of the industry, apparently with limited ambition to embark on more prestigious movies, always dealing with very low budgets, he is, nevertheless one of the most international Spanish performers ever, and a filmmaker with a stronger fan base, as evidenced by blogs and numerous tributes. He became an icon for horror fans and also for fledging filmmakers like Alex de la Iglesia, and an example for

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those who aim to produce films on shoestring budgets that are both personal and popular. After working as an extra in the movies, Naschy decided to put together his own projects. He has recalled the revelation it was for him, as a child, when he was taken to see a classic in which Count Dracula was engaged in combat with a werewolf. In 1967, he starred for the first time as wolf man Waldemar Daninsky in Mark of the Wolfman (a.k.a. Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Enrique López Eguiluz, 1968). The film was released internationally to great success. In a Spanish context, it was an adaptation of Hammer-style horror, although without the nudity that was becoming frequent at the time. A sequel, The Monsters of Terror (Hugo Fregonese, 1970) followed shortly after, and in 1971, he made the greatest hit in the series, Walpurgis Night (a.k.a. Werewolf’s Shadow, a.k.a Blood Moon, León Klimovsky). Although Naschy plays the same character in all of them, no continuous narrative thread links the movies; they simply recycle violent deaths, moody atmospheres, and cheap make-up transformations. Still, their international impact and low budgets was sustainable, and Naschy developed a very personal stamp which, in its simplicity, was attractive to wide audiences: as with Disney, there is always a new generation with this particular kind of demands. Some of the early films were directed by Leon Klimovsky, although Naschy took on directing responsibilities in the early 1970s. His films became slightly more sophisticated over the years, and he drew from other horror traditions, as is the case with The Mummy’s Revenge (1973). He also expanded his range in the mid-1970s, with a number of issue-centered films popular in the early Transition including El francotirador (The Sniper, Carlos Puerto, 1977), Pecado mortal (Mortal Sin, Miguel Ángel Díez, 1977), and El Transexual (The Transexual, José Lara, 1977). The latter was the only one that had any impact at all, a feature that included documentary sections and was inspired by an actual sex-change case. After these attempts, he went back to horror, including self-parodies like Buenas noches señor monstruo (Good Night, Mr. Monster, 1982). Naschy’s career slowed in the 1990s, but by that time he had become a legend among young audiences and, by the end of the decade, he received a number of tributes and experienced a second wave of popularity that allowed him to act again in a number of

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films, directed by others, which exploited his career. His more recent movies as an actor include: El lado oscuro (The Dark Side, Luciano Berriatúa, 2002), El corazón delator (The Tell-Tale Heart, Alfonso S. Suárez, 2003), Rojo sangre (Blood Red, Christian Molina, 2004), and A Werewolf in Amazonia (Ivan Cardoso, 2005), an update of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. NEOREALISM. The ending to the original (dubbed) Spanish version of Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948) included a voice of hope that was meant to counterbalance the grimness of the original. This not only underlines the problems neorealism encountered under Francisco Franco’s regime, but also shows the very real difficulties of any kind of approach that did not follow the official government version of Spain as a nation with no major problems. It was not easy for Spanish cultural authorities to explain their reluctance to allow neorealism to be introduced into Spanish cinema. Of course, some of the movement’s leading creators were communist or at the very least Left-wing, but there was also a Catholic and conservative trend apparent in the movement. The earliest attempts to assimilate the lessons of neorealism into Spanish cinema was Surcos (Burrows, 1951), directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde, a film not dissimilar in plot to Luchino Visconti’s later Rocco and His Brothers (1960): in both, a family from the country comes to a tenement house in the big city and find their hopes dashed against the inhumanity of urban life. The realist impulse was loaded with warning against progress, and ideologically it was closer to Falangism than to a working-class perspective, but at last Spanish film had dared to deal with social reality. The same year, Edgar Neville similarly used a realist approach to bemoan the disappearance of traditional lifestyles in El último caballo (The Last Horse, 1950). The neorealist model was too influential to be ignored, and although its basic honesty was frowned upon by the authorities, some of its social awareness could be felt in films by Juan Antonio Bardem, particularly Cómicos (Comedians, 1954) and Calle mayor (Main Street, 1956). Rather than De Sicca or Visconti, he chose to be influenced by Federico Fellini: the latter is very close in atmosphere to I vitelloni (1953). Some other films used ideas of neorealism, although social critique was almost absent. Ladislao Vajda’s Mi tío

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Jacinto (Uncle Jacinto, 1956) is among the best examples of a balance between social concerns and sentimentality. One of the adaptations of a neorealist cinema in Spain would be to infuse it with black humor. Disguised as comedy, and pushed to absurdity, realism could be better assimilated. One of the master practitioners of this trend was Marco Ferreri, who did a few satiric comedies in the late 1950s: Los chicos (The Kids, 1959), El pisito (The Little Flat, 1959), and El cochecito (The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960). This is the kind of approach Luis G. Berlanga would also follow in his two masterpieces: Plácido (1962) and El verdugo (The Executioner, 1964). Although both remain comedies, he learned from neorealism an awareness of reality as a social construct. Neorealist inspiration was also used effectively by Carlos Saura in 1960 in a film entitled Los Golfos (The Lazy Guys, 1960). The realist impulse continued strong in Spanish cinema after the main neorealist period had ended. NEVILLE, EDGAR (1899–1967). Edgar Neville worked as a diplomat before he became a playwright and a filmmaker. He traveled extensively around Spain and abroad. A good friend of philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and of experimental novelist Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Neville was very much part of the cultural ferment that also produced the Generación del 27. In 1929, he became cultural attaché in the Spanish Embassy in Washington. During a holiday, he visited Hollywood, where he met Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks; he became fascinated with the world of film, and he resigned from his position to become dialogue adapter at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. On his return to Spain, he made a whimsical comedy that reflected his Hollywood experience, ¡Yo quiero que me lleven a Hollywood! (I Want to Be Taken to Hollywood! 1932), which was among his earliest films. During the republican period, he also directed El malvado Carabel (The Wicked Carabel, 1935) and La señorita de Trévelez (The Trevelez Girl, 1935), both adapted from stage sainetes. Neville remained active in the industry during the Civil War, producing short documentaries in support of Franco’s army. Throughout the 1940s, he was one of the most distinctive directors in Spanish cinema, and more specifically, he is regarded as one of the great

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exponents of costumbrismo, a brand of topical humor that arises with the use of culturally specific habits. Neville used a repertoire of cultural types from stage comedy and put them in more substantial film plots. Although costumbrismo permeates all of his work, La vida en un hilo (Life on a Thread, 1945), El baile (The Dance, 1959), both based on Neville’s own stage plays; Domingo de carnaval (Carnival Sunday, 1945), acclaimed as one of best comedies of the 1940s; and Mi calle (My Street, 1960) are the most representative films he wrote and directed in this style. But Neville is also important for his work in other genres. La torre de los siete jorobados (The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks, 1944) is an unusual instance of fantasy in Spanish cinema (and absolutely unique in the 1940s in using an approach to sets reminiscent of expressionism), and El crimen de la calle Bordadores (The Crime of Bordadores Street, 1946) is a good detective thriller set in a typical Madrid background. El último caballo (The Last Horse, 1950) was a key film in the introduction of neorealism to Spanish cinema. It concerns a man who decides to keep a horse in the big city but realizes progress is making this increasingly difficult. Like Nieves Conde’s Surcos (Burrows, 1951), it voiced a reactionary concern for vanishing old traditions and lifestyles. NO-DO. NO-DO (Noticiario Documental) was the official newsreel that had to be projected in Spanish cinemas before every film between January 1943 and September 1975. Most prominently, it was part of the ideological project of the Franco regime, as it controlled the information distributed to the general population in a wideranging medium. Each program consisted of a series of short news items, which today constitute a record on the way the regime liked to present itself. Although there were exchange programs with similar newsreel producers in other countries for international coverage, NO-DO focused primarily on Spanish material. On one level it was obvious propaganda: General Francisco Franco was seen attending official events, and very especially inaugurating public works, giving speeches and, in general, he was shown to be in control of issues important to citizens. However, most items simply reflected everyday life, in an attempt to convey an idea of normality. Even in the harshest period

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(which lasted into the 1950s), there was frequent reporting on fashion shows, entertainment and sports events (most notably bullfighting), and parties. As the 1960s progressed, NO-DO lost its centrality to the increase of alternative media, including a variety of publications and, especially, television. The fact that it was compulsory and exclusive had an impact on the Spanish documentary industry. No other documentaries could be projected in cinemas, and there was no point for an alternative industry. Also, no other supplements (such as fiction shorts) could be included in cinemas, which denied such essential training practice any visibility. Compulsory NO-DO ceased in 1975, and alternative newsreels were accepted from 1978. In 1980, NO-DO disappeared as an independent company and was absorbed into Spanish television. During the first half of the 1980s, cinemas attempted to include other newsreels, documentaries, or shorts with their programs, but these practices never caught on. NOIR, FILM. If we accept David Thomson’s veredicto that noir is something that “happened to American cinema in the 1940s,” it is easy to understand why the style could not catch on in Spain at the time. Noir reflected a certain moral ambiguity during the 1940s that could not possibly find expression in a country where a dogmatic view of Catholicism and its certainties was imposed by the state. Even in an atmosphere of censorship, femmes fatales like Gilda or Double Indemnity’s Phyllis were allowed to appear on American screens, but the Spanish regime was too watchful of feminine virtue and frowned on any suggestion of promiscuity and limited noir imports: when Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1947) reached Spain, there were political demonstrations in front of the cinemas where it was exhibited, with outraged pro-Franco citizens claiming it was an affront to Spanish decency. The one element of noir that found some kind of echo in Spanish cinema was the notion of the big city as a dark and dangerous background, as featured prominently, for instance in Out of the Past (Jacques Tournerur, 1947) or The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950). This idea is articulated in non-noir films like Surcos (Burrows, Jose Antonio Nieves Conde, 1951), which actually has an interesting

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cast of characters that seems to have been inspired by noir, as well as in thrillers like Brigada criminal (Criminal Brigade, Ignacio F. Iquino, 1950), Apartado de correos 1001 (P.O. Box 1001, Julio Salvador, 1950), and Distrito quinto (Fifth District, Julio Coll, 1958). In these instances, the idea of a corrupting city was very much in tune with ideologies of early Francoism that defended rural values, but for obvious reasons the police had to be honest and representative of essential national virtues. In the 1960s, some key Escuela de Barcelona films, like Fata morgana (Vicente Aranda, 1965) and Ditirambo (Gonzalo Suárez, 1969) recycled noir conventions as part of their intertextual project. The revival of noir in the 1970s coincided with the Transition, as there was a new generation of cinephile directors who wanted to emulate their classic masters. One of the earliest manifestations of hardboiled noir in Spanish cinema was José Luis Borau’s Hay que matar a B. (B. Must Be Killed, 1975), which was followed by José Luis Garci’s El crack (The Best, 1981) and its sequel, El crack 2 (1983). After that, noir (or neo noir) has become a solid tradition in Spanish cinema, which became increasingly more inventive in the 1990s. One strand uses noir characters, moods, and conventions to engage with the post-Civil War period. The most important examples are Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell, Vicente Aranda, 1989), Beltenebros (Prince of Shadows, Pilar Miró, 1991), and Madregilda (Mother-Gilda, Francisco Regueiro, 1993), the two latter films quote Gilda and its cultural impact on the 1940s. Updated instances of noir that translate the feeling of ethical ambiguity and gloomy aesthetics into more contemporary settings include Vicente Aranda’s Asesinato en el comité central (Murder at the Central Committee, 1982) and Fanny Pelopaja (Fanny Straw Hair, 1984), Enrique Urbizu’s Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, 1991), Marcelo Piñeyro’s excellent Plata quemada (Burnt Money, 2000), and Daniel Calparsoro’s early films, including Pasajes (1996), A ciegas (Blindly, 1997), and Asfalto (Asphalt, 2000). NORIEGA, EDUARDO (1973– ). Eduardo Noriega’s handsome looks have been central to his personality as a performer. For Tesis (Dissertation, 1996), his debut in a substantial part, Alejandro Amenábar needed an actor who could convey both charm and a sense of threat,

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and who could justify the character’s womanizing and the sexual jealousy he elicits in Fele Martínez’s video freak. Physical beauty was also central to Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes, 1997), his second film with Amenábar, in which he played “the guy who has it all” and suffered stern punishment for it. He has played a variety of roles, but his strength lies in his portrayal of action men, as in Plata quemada (Burnt Money, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2000), Nadie conoce a nadie (No One Knows No One, Mateo Gil, 1999), El lobo (Wolf, Miguel Courtois, 2004), and the Hollywood thriller Vantage Point (Pete Travis, 2008). As he enters maturity, he has become effective in roles defining the sleek, self-possessed, cold executive of films like El método (The Method, Marcelo Piñeyro, 2005) and the same type’s costume drama version in Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006). He has been nominated for the Goyas twice, for Abre los ojos and El lobo, in which he played a police mole who infiltrated the ETA terrorist group. NUEVO CINE ESPAÑOL / NEW SPANISH CINEMA. The 1955 Salamanca Conversations ended with a series of proposals for a renovation of Spanish cinema in order to strengthen the industry and make films more socially relevant and artistically ambitious. But the government’s lack of interest in cinema and the obstacles set up by a system of censorship with no explicit rules made this very difficult. In 1962, José María García Escudero, who had served in Franco’s army and participated in the Salamanca gathering as a representative of the authorities, was made General Director for Cinematography with a specific agenda aimed at addressing the crisis in Spanish cinema. He intensely disliked the banality and irrelevance of commercial Spanish cinema and thought the way forward lay with the new generation of filmmakers graduating from the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC). He believed it was necessary for the government to support more ambitious filmmaking that could be presented at international festivals abroad and which also engaged with domestic reality. Of course, the new generation would have to be kept under control ideologically. One of García Escudero’s earliest measures was to introduce a new, more detailed censorship code that could act to limit the artistic ambitions of young filmmakers. At the same time, he

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instituted a series of funding measures to support innovative cinema. The films that came out of this situation are known as Nuevo cine español, a movement that was at the time a ray of hope for Spanish auteurs, but which lasted only as long as García Escudero held his post. The group of recent IIEC graduates who made their first films during this period includes Basilio Martín Patino, Francisco Regueiro, Miguel Picazo, Manolo Summers, Angelino Fons, Mario Camus, Julio Diamante, Jose Luis Borau, Pedro Olea, Jordi Grau, Víctor Erice, Antonio Mercero, and José Luis Egea. Some emblematic titles are La busca (Fons, 1967), Young Sánchez (Camus, 1964), Nueve Cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Berta, Patino, 1966), Juguetes Rotos (Broken Toys, Summers, 1966), El buen amor (Good Love, Regueiro, 1963), Del rosa al amarillo (From Pink to Yellow, Summers, 1963), De cuerpo presente (In the Presence of the Body, Eceiza, 1967), and La tía Tula (Aunt Tula, Picazo, 1964). By 1967, García Escudero was dismissed and official support for this particular approach to film had ceased. In a sense, the idea of an alternative to commercial cinema remained, but the measures that had made it possible disappeared. In broader terms, Nuevo cine español was an opportunity for Spanish cinema to become part of the aesthetic rebellions of European film in the 1960s, led by the French nouvelle vague, free cinema in Great Britain, and new German cinema. However, limitations to freedom of expression made Spanish films less daring and less critical than their European counterparts. New Spanish films dealt in an elliptical way with the heritage of the Civil War and a subtle expression of discomfort known as “critical realism.” Typical New Spanish cinema films were impregnated with a mood of melancholy and repression, and much less open about sexual issues than their European counterparts; they focused on provincial life and family relations, often as the metonymy of Spanish isolation and to symbolically articulate aspects of the generational clash between those who took part in the Civil War and their children. Although Nuevo cine español was a bold attempt to change the Spanish film industry, the overall result of its policies is far from positive. Most of the films were box-office flops, and very few actually won awards at international festivals (which had been one of the initial goals). The industry became reliant on government funding,

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and this support was ultimately used by more commercial producers, rather than innovative auteurs. Some filmmakers (for instance, Antxon Eceiza) saw their careers interrupted by the less supportive political context that followed, with difficult trajectories that, in some cases, only revived after the Transition (Francisco Regueiro is an example of this); others, like Basilio Martín Patino, attempted cinematic forms less risky than the feature film; and finally, the larger group, including Manuel Summers and Mario Camus, was absorbed into the industry to tackle increasingly commercial projects.

– O – OLEA, PEDRO (1938– ). Pedro Olea was born in Bilbao, in the Basque Country. He interrupted his degree in economics to study film in the Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC). His first engagements as director were theater adaptations for Spanish Television, and this love for literary works dominated the early part of his career. After Días de viejo color (Days of an Old Color, 1967), which received an award for best new director, he became established with El bosque del lobo (The Forest of the Wolf, 1971), a film with a little-known literary source about an epileptic peasant who carried out a series of gruesome murders in the heart of the forest, possibly influenced by legends about werewolves. Partly rural drama, partly horror story, the film succeeded in creating a very specific world in which superstition and truth collided. The film shows Olea’s passion for storytelling coupled with a muted interest for expression in terms of original camerawork. Also, like most of his films, it was set in the past (in this case the 19th century). Strong storytelling skills, good performances, and unremarkable visuals are also present in the two films with Concha Velasco that followed. Tormento (Torment, 1974) was an adaptation of a Benito Pérez Galdós novel about a man who decides to marry below his class. In addition to Velasco, Ana Belén, and Francisco Rabal were excellent in the main parts. His next project, Pim, pam, pum . . . fuego! (Ready, Aim . . . Fire! 1975) was among the most remarkable films of 1975, telling story of a chorus girl in the immediate postwar who is in love with a young republican but seduced by an older

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racketeer. The literary theme of the individual unable to cope with the demands of society was also present in Un hombre llamado Flor de Otoño (A Man Called Autumn Flower, 1978), which belonged to the first wave of Spanish films dealing with homosexuality and was based on a stage play inspired by a real-life 1920s Barcelona lawyer who worked at night as a drag performer. In the 1980s, Olea returned to his homeland to benefit from the funding schemes set out by the Basque autonomous government. Akelarre (1984) was a return to the world of superstition portrayed in El bosque del lobo, although this time it dealt with the Inquisition as a repressive structure. Eventually, he found this return to his roots frustrating, and he returned to Madrid. In 1991, he directed the Isabel Pantoja musical El día que nací yo (The Day I Was Born, 1991), and this was followed by the period thriller El maestro de esgrima (The Fencing Master, 1992), an adaptation from best-selling author Arturo Pérez Reverte. The latter was a return to familiar ground, and the film was awarded several Goyas. Next came Morirás en Chafarinas (You Shall Die in Chafarinas, 1995) another thriller, this time contemporary and set in an army camp, and Más allá del jardín (Beyond the Garden Walls, 1996), an incursion into Tennessee Williams territory, with Velasco again starring as a dissatisfied middle-aged bourgeois woman (another literary adaptation, this time of a novel by Antonio Gala). His last film to date is the 2003 marital drama Tiempo de tormenta (Stormy Weather), about a weather forecast woman (Maribel Verdú) and a record company promoter (Darío Grandinetti) who leave their wounded, vulnerable partners (Jorge Sanz and María Barranco) to start a relationship. ORDUÑA, JUAN DE (1902–1974). In his prime as director, Orduña became synonymous with good taste and a certain decorativism within the film industry. He was a favorite of actresses, loved working with them, and gave them undivided attention, not unlike Hollywood’s George Cukor. He knew the mechanisms of the womancentered film, and discovered the star potential of Aurora Bautista and Sara Montiel, arguably the two biggest stars of the Franco period. In the light of contemporary Spanish cinema, he is regarded as a representative of the “wrong” kind of Spanish traditions. He never aspired to art, but his focus on women performers, ruffles, and vases

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is also part of the particular magic of cinema—the kind of magic that very few did better during the classic period. Orduña started in the movies as an actor in 1924 (in the first version of La casa de la Troya [The House of Troya]), and he became popular as a leading man in a series of titles throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the most popular being Pilar Guerra (José Buchs, 1926), El misterio de la Puerta del Sol (The Mystery of the Puerta del Sol, Francisco Elías, 1929), El Cura de Aldea (The Village Priest, Francisco Camacho, 1936) and, especially, Nobleza baturra (Aragonese Nobility, Florián Rey, 1935). But his ambitions went beyond acting. As early as 1924, he set up Goya Film, a production company specializing in zarzuela and literary adaptations. He collaborated with Benito Perojo, starring in the successful Boy (1925). In 1927, he began alternating acting and direction. After the war, Orduña created a new producing company, POF, under which he went on to make some of his most successful films between 1941 and 1966, including La Lola se va a los puertos (Lola Goes to the Ports, 1947) and Cañas y barro (Mud and Reeds, 1954). He started working for CIFESA in 1942, taking responsibility for 12 titles in the company, among them some of their biggest successes of the 1940s including ¡A mí la legion! (On with the Legion! 1942). From 1949, he became the main artistic force behind a series of successful historical melodramas, a genre for which he was particularly well suited. Three of these starred Aurora Bautista: Locura de amor (Madness for Love, 1948), Agustina de Aragón (1950), and Pequeñeces (Small Matters, 1950); the fourth, Alba de América (Dawn of America, 1951) was a box-office failure and brought an end to the cycle. For the company, these films were an attempt to earn government funding with historical and patriotic plots, but for Orduña they became an opportunity to try his skills at lavish costume pictures with generous budgets. They have not stood the test of time well: their rhythms are too slow to be entertaining, their stories too corny and bombastic to be taken seriously. They remain, however, singular, extremely well crafted films attempting a new approach to the genre. After the fall of CIFESA, Orduña returned to his own company. A second wave of popularity as director came with El ultimo cuplé (The Last Torch Song, 1957). Although ultimately Sara Montiel benefited

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most from its huge success, the film stands as a monument to Orduña’s very particular talents. El ultimo cuplé became the blueprint for Montiel’s succeeding star vehicles, but Orduña’s career flagged again in the 1960s. After four decades in the movies, neither comedia desarrollista nor social drama, the most prominent formulas of the period, suited him. He tried costume drama once more in Teresa de Jesús (1961), starring his favorite actress, Aurora Bautista, but times had changed and the film was largely ignored in a country that was preparing itself for modernity. The latter part of his career as a filmmaker was taken up by conventional comedies (La tonta del bote, [The Dumb Girl, 1970]), Manolo Escobar musicals (Me has hecho perder el juicio [You Made Me Lose My Judgement, 1973]), and even one spaghetti Western (Delitto d’amore, 1965) directed without an ounce of flair or distinction. By the late 1960s, he turned to television, where he successfully filmed a series of zarzuelas. ORISTRELL, JOAQUÍN (1958– ). Barcelona-born Joaquín Oristrell had a substantial career as a scriptwriter before he made his first feature film. He had been one of the writers for the classic TV contest Un, dos, tres . . . responda otra vez (One, Two, Three . . . Reply Again) before turning to film. He worked extensively since the 1980s, and made important contributions to Manuel Gómez Pereira’s innovative comedies of the 1990s Salsa rosa (Pink Sauce, 1992), Boca a boca (Mouth to Mouth, 1995), and El amor perjudica seriamente la salud (Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health, 1996). The quality of his work as a writer became his main strengths as director: a preference for ensemble comedies, good skills at characterization, cheeky treatments of sex. In the first decade of the 21st century, Oristrell became one of the most established comedy directors in Spanish cinema. His first feature as director was ¿De qué se ríen las mujeres? (What Do Women Laugh About? 1997), a companion piece to Gómez Pereira’s earlier Todos los hombres sois iguales (All Men Are the Same, 1994), for which he won the Goya award for best script. Novios (Couples, 1999), his next film, featured three couples about to get married. Sin vergüenza (Without Shame, 2001), set in the world of theater, is mostly a group portrait of a series of acting students and their teachers. Inconscientes (Unconscious, 2004) is an accomplished period

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comedy on the impact of Freudian theories on two Barcelonians and their unstable partners at the start of the 20th century. OTROS, LOS / THE OTHERS (2001). One of the most phenomenal successes in Spanish cinema, The Others was shot in English, starring Nicole Kidman with Tom Cruise as producer (it was their last collaboration before their divorce). The stars’ interest in the talented Alejandro Amenábar dates back to Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes, 1997), Amenábar’s previous film, which Cruise bought for a Hollywood adaptation. Although this interest attracted funding from the Weinstein brothers and other American producers, Los otros remained a largely Spanish production, with substantial input from director José Luis Cuerda and Fernando Bovaira. Amenábar’s script included certain themes from Henry James’ gothic novel The Turn of the Screw and a plot twist similar to that in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999), which opened as Amenábar’s film was in postproduction and caused some concern among the filmmakers. The action is set in a big isolated mansion in the Jersey countryside in the years following World War I, where a young mother (Kidman in a strong performance) lives with her two children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), who are photosensitive and cannot stand strong light for very long. As a consequence, rooms must be darkened and doors closed all the time. This device contributed to a particular emphasis on the use of light in the film, reflected in Javier Aguirresarobe’s inventive cinematography based largely on natural sources. The arrival of a mysterious group of servants coincides with strange noises in the house and the suspicion that things may not be as they seem. The children themselves start seeing ghosts, who seem malignant and threaten their lives by opening curtains and doors. The film made almost $207 million worldwide, soon becoming the highest-grossing Spanish film ever. It was particularly successful in the United States, where its release coincided with the Kidman– Cruise divorce and where it stayed fourth in box-office income for several weeks. The Others was the first film to win the Goya for best Spanish film with no Spanish spoken, and it became a watershed in the internationalization of the Spanish film industry, particularly in the areas of fantasy and horror.

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OZORES, MARIANO (1926– ). Mariano Ozores was born into a family of performers. Son of actor Mariano Ozores, both his brothers Antonio and José Luis were also actors (the latter was among the most beloved comic players of the 1950s), and the dynasty has continued with José Luis daughter, Adriana Ozores. Although critically dismissed, he is a fundamental personality in Spanish cinema. He directed almost a hundred films (many of which he also co-wrote) between his debut in the vaudeville Las dos y media . . . y veneno (Two and a Half . . . and Poison, 1959) and his last film El pelotazo nacional (The National Coup, 1993), thus covering the evolution of popular comedy in Spain from the beginning of desarrollismo, through the 1960s to landismo, sexy comedy, and reactionary political satires in the 1980s. Ozores started as a scriptwriter and TV director in the mid-1950s. Although his style was conventional, he tended to work with solid actors who, in his first decade as filmmakers, turned out solid comic performances, as for instance in the successful series with José Luis López Vázquez and Gracita Morales (Operación cabaratera [Operation Cabaret Singer, 1967], Operación Mata-Hari [Operation MataHari, 1968]) and, in the early 1970s, with Paco Martínez Soria (Hay que educar a papá [Bringing Up Dad, 1971] and El abuelo tiene un plan [Granddad Has a Date, 1973]). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he made 13 films with the hugely successful comic team of Andrés Pajares and Fernando Esteso, which turned out to be among the biggest box-office hits of the era.

– P – PAREDES, MARISA (1946– ). Marisa Paredes was born in Madrid. She studied acting and, since the 1960s, had a strong career as a dramatic actress onstage and also in a series of television classics, including Shakespeare and Chekhov parts, for which she won critical praise. Her film roles, however, were for decades very short and unsubstantial, sometimes in commercial co-productions. Until the 1990s, she is only remembered for her part as a drug-addicted nun in Pedro Almodóvar’s Entre tinieblas (Dark Habits, 1983). A risktaking actress, she also accepted roles in Agustí Villaronga’s Tras el cristal (Behind the Glass, Agustí Villaronga, 1987).

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Paredes’ revelation as an actress who could carry a film came with her portrayal of Becky del Páramo in Almodóvar’s Tacones lejanos (High Heels, 1991), playing a glittering stage diva who was the selfish mother to Victoria Abril’s brittle Rebeca. From that moment on, her film career took off and she had a number of parts as a mature, glamorous, sophisticated woman in La reina anónima (The Anonymous Queen, Gonzalo Suárez, 1992), Tierno verano de lujurias y azoteas (Tender Summer of Lust and Rooftops, Jaime Chávarri, 1993) and, more recently Reinas (Queens, Manuel Gómez Pereira, 2005), in which her character as a diva who worked with Almodóvar had an element of self-parody. She was outstanding as a woman writer on the verge of suicide in Almodóvar’s La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret, 1995), a moving performance that successfully balanced the demand of classic melodrama’s “wounded soul” with Almodóvar’s irony. She would return to work with the director in a supporting part in Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999). Paredes has appeared in a number of international productions, including Amos Gitai’s Golem, l’esprit de l’exil (1992); Daniel Schmid’s Zwischensaison (1992), in which she played Sarah Bernhard; Arturo Ripstein’s Profundo carmesí (Deep Crimson, 1996), Roberto Begnini’s Life Is Beautiful (Roberto Begnini, 1997), and Francesca Joseph’s Four Last Songs (2007). Paredes was president of the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas between 2000 and 2003. PARRA, VICENTE (1931–1997). Handsome, serene, and elegant, Vicente Parra fits the bill of the leading man, and he was ideal as the eponymous king in ¿Dónde vas Alfonso XII? (Where Are You Going, Alfonso XII? Luis César Amadori, 1957) and its sequel ¿Dónde vas triste de ti? (Where Are You Going, Sad Man? Julio Balcázar and Guillermo Cases, 1960), a kitschy, sentimental approach to the life and loves of monarchy along the lines of the Sissi films: rather than ruling the country, Alfonso XII was seen falling in love with María de las Mercedes and being utterly and tearfully shattered when she died (definitely Francoism’s preferred version of political history). Their phenomenal success was something of a curse for this serious actor, who had started his career in serious theater and resented typecasting. His earlier roles were far from conservative, however:

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in parts for Francisco Rovira Beleta (El expreso de Andalucía [Andalusia Express], 1956) and Manuel Mur Oti (the homoerotic Fedra, 1956 and El batallón de las sombras [The Battalion in the Shadows], 1957) he played young rebels or artistic personalities. Life after Alfonso XII was difficult for Parra, who tried to balance the image he had been identified with (in musicals like Nobleza Baturra [Aragonese Nobility], 1965 and La verbena de la paloma [The Fair of the Dove], 1963) and edgier, if less successful, parts in more substantial films including Varietés (Variety, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1971) and Nadie oyó gritar (No One Heard the Screams, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1973). One of the most radical attempts to change his image was his role in La semana del asesino (1972, known internationally as Cannibal Man), in which he played a working-class serial killer who, Sweeney Todd-like, put his victims through the grinder at a meat factory. In spite of these efforts, his career never took off again, and his appearances were limited to brief iconic parts in films like Las largas vacaciones del 36 (The Long Vacation of 1936, Jaime Camino, 1976), La guerra de papá (Dad’s War, Antonio Mercero, 1977), and Suspiros de España (y Portugal) (Sighs of Spain [and Portugal], José Luis García Sánchez, 1995), which used irony tinged with echoes of his former image. PENELLA, EMMA (1930–2007). In a period dominated by brittle beauties and meek personalities, Emma Penella clearly stands out as one of the greatest female screen presences of her generation. Although her film debut was dubbing Amparo Rivelles in La duquesa de Benamejí (The Duchess of Benamejí, Luis Lucia, 1949), directors and producers objected to her raspy voice, whose carnality and earthy voice clashed with their notion of feminine virtue. She appeared in Los ojos dejan huellas (The Eyes Leave a Trace, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1952), Los peces rojos (The Red Fish, José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1955), and Carne de horca (Condemned to Hanging, Ladislao Vajda, 1953) before acting for the first time with her own voice in Juan Antonio Bardem’s Cómicos (Actors, 1954). From then on, a number of solid performances followed through the decade, including her two protagonists for women-specialist Manuel Mur Oti in Fedra (1956) and in El batallón de las sombras (Battalion of Shadows, 1957).

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Penella’s role in Luis G. Berlanga’s El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963) remains one of her best-remembered appearances: in her part as daughter and wife to an executioner she projected a disarming fleshly candor. She was also good in Lola espejo oscuro (Lola Dark Mirror, Fernando Merino and José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1966) and in La busca (The Quest, Angelino Fons, 1967). In the early 1970s, she starred in two quality adaptations of 19th-century novels, Fortunata y Jacinta (Fortunata and Jacinta, Angelino Fons, 1970) and La Regenta (The Regent’s Wife, Gonzalo Suárez, 1974). In the latter, she was a very credible Ana Ozores, one of the greatest and most complex characters of 19th-century Spanish fiction. After the Transition, she had iconic supporting roles in Padre nuestro (Our Father, Francisco Regueiro, 1985), El amor brujo (Love the Magician, Carlos Saura, 1986), and La estanquera de Vallecas (The Vallecas Tobacconist, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1987). PEROJO, BENITO (1894–1974). Perojo had a long and controversial career that started with the dawn of the Spanish film industry. He began as an actor and director of short features in 1913. A few years later, he founded a production company, Patria Films. He worked as an actor in France and Italy. Back in Spain, he founded another production company with Nobel Prize-winning playwright Jacinto Benavente, Films Benavente SL, and worked continuously throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s to produce a series of films that included the box-office success El negro que tenía el alma blanca (A Black Man with a White Soul, 1927), Boy (1925), and Malvaloca (1926). It is interesting to note that even though locations for these films were in Spain, the studio work for Perojo’s films before the mid-1930s was carried out in France; by taking advantage of French technology and innovations, he effectively introduced them into the Spanish film industry. In the early 1930s, he directed Spanish versions of foreign films in France and Hollywood. He was the most prolific Spanish director in the Republican years (he directed eight films between 1931 and 1936). He also had strong detractors among critics. In part, their objections had to do with the fact that he had become the best-known Spanish director abroad (in France he was widely regarded as a French filmmaker during the late 1920s). His exuberant use of film

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technique also worked against him: Spanish reactionary nationalism had always mistrusted technological prowess to the detriment of what were regarded as “essential values of the motherland.” A recurrent element in the condemnation of his work was, therefore, chauvinistic: Perojo was “too cosmopolitan.” According to such critics, he was not making the kind of films Spanish audiences (and the country itself) really needed. He was therefore unfavorably compared with Rey, who was regarded as someone more in touch with Spanish folklore and tradition, something that films such as La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village, 1930), La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpice, 1934), and Morena Clara (1936) made evident. In the post-Civil War period, Perojo directed a series of very conventional films, including Lo que fue de la Dolores (Whatever Became of Dolores, 1947) and La posada del Caballito Blanco (The Inn of the Little White Horse, 1948), with disappointing results. He largely concentrated on production after the mid-1950s, and was responsible for a range of projects, especially costume dramas and musicals, including Novio a la vista (Boyfriend in Sight, Luis G. Berlanga, 1954), Aventuras del barbero de Sevilla (The Adventures of the Barber of Seville, Ladislao Vajda, 1954), Morena Clara (Luis Lucia, 1954), Le chanteur de Mexico (The Singer from Mexico, Richard Pottier, 1956), a number of Sara Montiel vehicles including La violetera (The Violet Seller, 1958) and Carmen la de Ronda (Carmen from Ronda, 1959), as well as Marisol’s debut Un rayo de luz (A Ray of Light, Luis Lucia, 1960). PLÁCIDO (1962). Plácido is one of the undisputed masterpieces by Luis G. Berlanga. The script, co-written by Berlanga and Rafael Azcona (the first in a long series of collaborations), is both complex and witty, funny in its fierce attack on a hypocritical society and sad in its empathy for those who suffer injustice. The plot events take place in a few hours and revolve around a Christmas benefit organized by the society ladies (led by Amelia de la Torre) of a provincial town: every family will have a poor person dining for them on Christmas eve. At the same time, Plácido (Cassen) is in need of a paltry amount of money to pay for the truck he uses for work, the same amount owed to him by the organizers. Plácido’s real need contrasts with the false charity of the organizers. The comedy

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turns pitch black when one of the poor falls mortally ill at the dinner table and has to be married quickly to his life companion to keep him from dying in sin. Plácido is called to take the dead man to his house, so that the corpse does not spoil the celebrations. Berlanga’s style is fully formed here: the ensemble cast playing small roles in a network narrative, the long takes that move among characters, taking us seamlessly from one plot to another, reminding audiences that whatever the situation, our lives are unavoidably interlinked. The film follows, Nashville-like, the stories of about a dozen important characters during the few hours before dawn on Christmas day. Most were played by actors who would go on to develop long careers, most notably José Luis López Vázquez, Agustín González, Amelia de la Torre, Elvira Quintillá, and Luis Ciges, along with the veteran Julia Caba Alba. PONCELA, EUSEBIO (1947– ). In the late 1960s, Eusebio Poncela performed for a number of independent theater companies. His film debut was as an ambiguous young man in Eloy de la Iglesia’s La semana del asesino (Cannibal Man, 1972). It was the first in a series of controversial roles that echoed a reputation as a nonconformist, fiercely original actor. During the Transition, he took on risky parts in adventurous projects and became one of the most reliable performers of the period. Roles from this period include a terrorist in Operación ogro (Operation Ogre, Gilo Pontecorvo, 1979). In 1980, Poncela was the film-obsessed protagonist of Iván Zulueta’s radical Arrebato (Rapture). Poncela shared with the world of the film a movida background, including experimentation with drugs, an issue he has discussed candidly. Poncela became a popular actor after his part in the television series Los gozos y las sombras (Joy and Shadows, 1982), which would be followed by further television work, and his role as detective Pepe Carvalho in a series based on noir novels by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán remains among his best remembered appearances. The links between life and work continued during the 1980s, with his two roles for Pedro Almodóvar. He played a policeman in Matador (1986) and Almodóvar’s alter ego in La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1987). Poncela also played a police detective in the little-known Diario de invierno (Winter Journal, Francisco Regueiro, 1988). He was

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typically excellent as the devil in the period drama El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, Imanol Uribe, 1991), but his career slowed, probably related to personal issues, and in recent years he has expressed discontent with his choices and his work during this period, referring to films like El laberinto griego (The Greek Labyrinth, Rafael Alcázar, 1993). In the mid-1990s, he decided to leave everything behind and moved to Buenos Aires with good friend Cecilia Roth, where he worked little but rebuilt his private life. Poncela returned to Spain in 1996, and this was the start of his mature phase. Theater work was followed by a critically acclaimed part in Adolfo Aristaráin’s Martín (hache) (Martín, Jr., 1997), which once more had a strong autobiographical input. The rawness of his part as opinionated, mercurial Dante inspired audiences, and he repeated a similar character in Vicente Molina Foix’ Sagitario (2001). Together, these are his two most accomplished performances. Following Sagitario, he alternated intimate, personal work, as in Roger Gual’s Remake (2006), with character parts in period films like Los Borgia (The Borgias, Antonio Hernández, 2006) and Teresa el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa, the Body of Christ, Ray Loriga, 2007). PONS, VENTURA (1945– ). Very few filmmakers in the world today can boast an output as steady and wide-ranging as Ventura Pons. He has been making movies since 1978, but only hit his stride when he set up his own production company, Els films de la Rambla, in the mid-1980s. Since then, his stories have grown in complexity, depth, and maturity. He came from the theater, and it has remained one of his recurring interests. Many of his films are stage play adaptations (Actrius [Actresses, 1997], Amic / Amat [Friend / Beloved, 1999], Barcelona (un mapa) [Barcelona: A Map, 2007]), and most of them feature theater actors, particularly from Catalonia. His birthplace is also a distinctive aspect in his work. Pons was born in Barcelona, and no director has done more to show the city’s many faces. In a way, his work can be approached as a poem to Barcelona: her moods, her people, her architecture. His first film, Ocaña: Retrat intermitent (Ocaña: An Intermittent Portrait, 1978), was a documentary (with inserted dramatized sequences) about a colorful gay Andalusian artist who became a denizen of the world of the Ramblas. Because of Pons’ interest in the artist as

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performer of identity, Ocaña was not simply one of the most articulate expressions of gay discourse in Spanish film, but also a reflection on the Transition as a time for the reemergence of repressed feelings and identities. During this period, he shifted between theater (he directed the Catalan version of Harvey Firestein’s Torch Song Trilogy) and film, specializing in vaudeville-inspired comedies (Que te jugues, Mari Pili? [Wanna Bet, Mari Pili? 1991], Aquesta nit o mai [Tonight or Never, 1992]) with large casts, consisting mainly of character actors and plots based on confusion of identity. This represented very well the Barcelona that rose to international recognition around the time of the Olympics in 1992: a progressive city, gorgeous, full of possibilities, and sexually relaxed. In the mid-1990s, his vision became progressively darker, and he showed an increasing mastery of film technique as he delved deeper into a range of vehicles. Actrius was a comedy-drama starring the three greatest divas of Catalan theater playing roles very close to themselves: Núria Espert, Rosa Maria Sardá, and Ana Lizarán. His films of the late 1990s are ambitious, earnest, and aesthetically substantial. Caricies (Caresses, 1998) and Amic / Amat were a return to network narratives, but where once there was simply fun, now he found emotional depth. Caricies is a series of short sketches, in the style of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, about Barcelonians seeking intimacy. Amic / Amat featured a towering performance by Josep Maria Pou as a homosexual facing death. Formally, Pons’ films were also becoming increasingly varied. Returning to his roots, he directed a series of dramas that used handheld camera and a degree of gritty realism in the style of John Casavettes, like Morir (o no) (To Die [or Not], 2000) and Amor idiota (Idiotic Love, 2004). Anita no perd el tren (Anita Does not Miss the Train, 2001) was another collaboration with Rosa María Sardá and became an international hit in the festival circuit. But he could shift to a different key, as with the elegant, polished, softly lit comedy of manners of Food of Love (2002), based on David Leavitt’s novel The Page Turner. In 2003, he came back to documentary with El gran gato (The Great Gato, 2003), about Gato Pérez, one of Barcelona’s most distinctive musicians. After two interesting but flawed dramas (Animales heridos [Wounded Animals, 2006] and La vida abismal [The Abysmal Life, 2007]), he returned to form with Barcelona (un mapa), which showcases the best of his cinema: intense perfor-

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mances shot with close-ups (again Pou, Espert, and Sardá) and an investigation of the complex identity of his hometown. POP MUSICAL. Musical films in Spain until the early 1960s were of two kinds: either adaptations of zarzuela (the homegrown variety of European operetta) or folkloric musicals. In both cases, they fit into the Francoist ultra-nationalist project to cultivate songs and dances that had Spanish roots. In a way, the pop musical can be seen as an offshoot of the desarrollismo comedy, an attempt to deal with foreign popular culture influences. The genre dominated the 1960s in a series of comedies starring some of the stage stars of the period: Raphael, Karina, Rocío Dúrcal, Julio Iglesias, El dúo dinámico, Los Brincos, and Pili y Mili, among others. The stars and the styles were now younger, and they were set in more modern, urban backgrounds. Like the desarrollismo comedy, these films were colorful, pursuing stylized, unproblematic plots. One of the most relevant characteristics of the genre is the fact that these followed European trends. Whereas a Juanita Reina or Lola Flores vehicle was irreducibly Spanish, Raphael had a screen personality very similar, for instance, to Cliff Richards, and Rocío Dúrcal was Spain’s answer to Rita Pavone. The plots also reflected those of European pop musicals. Stars tended to play characters very close to their artistic selves. In La vida sigue igual (Life Remains the Same, Eugenio Martín, 1969), Julio Iglesias plays a character named Julio Iglesias. Plots tend to revolve around a star being discovered and launched: En un mundo nuevo (In a New World, Fernando García de la Vega and Ramón Torrado, 1972), for instance, was a reworking of The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) starring Karina. In this case, the protagonist, a budding singer, arrives at the mansion of a producer to work as a nanny and ends up participating in that year’s Eurovision song contest. Iván Zulueta’s Un, dos, tres . . . al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three . . . Gotcha! 1970), produced by José Luis Borau, is a refreshing parody of the genre, which also works as a tribute to the look and sounds of the 1960s. PORTABELLA, PERE (1929– ). Pere Portabella’s work as producer and director has largely taken place on the margins of the film industry.

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Although he will not accept the label “underground,” he takes pride in the fact that his films have never been “commercial,” a word he despises. Following the lead of Jean-Luc Godard and the more radical artists from the nouvelle vague, he experimented with film language, always questioning the classical, linear, straightforward notion of narration and representation. In his own words: “I have always thought that the main political dimension of my films lies in attacking linguistic codes. Ideology impregnates society through the dominant languages. I have never seen myself as working on a film that is ‘transparent’ of supposedly more ‘comprehensible’ codes. I understand their tactical function in certain political situations. But what I think has maintained the interest in my films beyond their juncture, is the way in which they are all related, within their contexts, through the complexity, rather than the complication, of language, and a subversion of the dominant codes.” Portabella studied chemistry at college, and his first artistic vocation was painting: he befriended and collaborated with Antoni Tàpies and Antonio Saura. Following the path set by dissident directors after the Salamanca Conversations, in 1959 he decided to set up his own company, Films 59. He immediately financed some of the best projects of the season: Carlos Saura’s feature length debut Los golfos (The Lazy Young Men, 1959) and Marco Ferreri’s El cochecito (The Motorized Wheelchair, 1960). Films 59 also participated (with Gustavo Alatriste and Ricardo Muñoz Suay’s UNINCI) in the financing of Luis Buñuel’s return to Spain Viridiana (1961), but the problems generated by this film contributed to put an end to the company. In the early 1960s, Portabella became very active in the Catalan artistic context, supporting some of the key filmmakers of the Escuela de Barcelona. He never cared much about mass audiences and sought the use of film as a vehicle for artistic expression. In 1967, he made his debut as director with No compteu amb els dits (Do Not Count with Your Fingers, 1967). This was also his first collaboration with avant-garde Catalan poet Joan Brossa, whose work experimented with the limits between the visual, the poetic, and the dramatic. Nocturno 29 (Night Music 29, 1968), made the following year, was an astounding instance of radical cinema that absorbed the cultural effervescence of the Catalan capital in the late 1970s. His career as director continued in a similar vein with a series of films including

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Umbracle (Under the Canopy, 1970), Cuadecuc vampir (Cuadecuc Vampire, 1970), also co-written with Brossa, and El sopar (The Dinner, 1974). At this time, he was also a Socialist militant. During the Transition to democracy, Portabella devoted himself to politics, becoming a senator as a representative of the Catalan Socialists. In the 1990s he returned to filmmaking, supporting as producer the experimentalism of José Luis Guerín’s Tren de sombras (Train of Shadows, 1997) and directing, among others, Pont de Varsovia (Varsovia Bridge, 1990) and Die Stille vor Bach (The Silence Before Bach, 2007).

– Q – ¿QUÉ HE HECHO YO PARA MERECER ESTO!! / WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? (1984). Pedro Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! remains one of his most critically appreciated films in Spain, perceived as belonging to two privileged traditions within Spanish cinema: social realism and costumbrismo. Both at the time and in more recent accounts, Spanish critics focused on the film as a documentary on rural migration to the city and the peculiarities and interaction among the members of the workingclass family who are the central protagonists, thus, as usual when dealing with Almodóvar, demonstrating their lack of sense of irony and a refusal to engage with camp. Gloria (Carmen Maura) is a bitter Madrid housewife who is going through a particularly rough patch because of lack of money, her husband’s violent, harsh temper, and too much work. When she attempts sex in the shower with one of the customers at the gym where she works as a cleaner, he turns out to be impotent. She lives with her husband, her mother-in-law, and her two sons in a huge ugly building next to a motorway. The husband (Ángel de Andrés López), a taxi driver who remembers fondly an old love, is constantly grumpy and cannot satisfy her sexually. Her only support is Cristal (Verónica Forqué), a cheerful gold-hearted prostitute who lives next door. One day, after a particularly difficult argument with her husband, she kills him accidentally with a ham bone, and a police investigation ensues.

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Grim as it sounds, ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! is a very funny film that actually sends up the conventions of melodrama and social realism. Although it is true that Almodóvar draws on Spanish traditions, he also was inspired by Hollywood women’s films centered on troubled housewives, and there is an element of camp in his reconstructions of TV programs. On another level, it is a story of characters lost in an alien background, which was closer to his own experience than acknowledged: Gloria’s cinephile and artistically gifted younger son is a version of Almodóvar himself as a child, and the ending, in which the boy saves his mother from suicide, is a deeply felt fantasy. The film was Almodóvar’s most accomplished effort so far. His original camera movements and framings (the shots from inside electric appliances that display Gloria surrounded by technology) were becoming more inventive and more narratively relevant. The film also was blessed with outstanding performances by Maura, Forqué, and Chus Lampreave. QUEREJETA, ELÍAS (1930– ). Elías Querejeta is the producer most closely associated to the Nuevo cine español movement of the 1960s. He was born in Hernani (the Basque country), and in his early years developed a range of interests including football. He was active in the cine club movement of the 1950s, and his passion for cinema goes back to adolescence, when he practiced shooting films with a home camera. He studied chemistry and then law at college, but both degrees were interrupted before graduation (he was actually dismissed from both). His earliest contributions to film were as scriptwriter, most often in collaboration. In 1956, he co-wrote with his friend Antxón Eceiza a script that would go on to win a national award but was never shot. After discovering that his real vocation was shaping the film as a whole, rather than focusing on one part of the project, he set up his own production company with Eceiza, and they supported the production of shorts on a small scale. He moved to Madrid in the late 1950s, and worked with the communist party–supported production company UNINCI, where he made important contacts for his future career as independent producer.

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In the early 1960s, he participated in a number of projects for established companies. In 1964, he finally set up Elías Querejeta Producciones Cinematográficas to take advantage of the new measures for the encouragement of quality cinema introduced by General Director of Film José María García Escudero. One of the earliest efforts of the new company was Carlos Saura’s La caza (The Hunt, 1966), and Querejeta would continue to support Saura’s work until 1981’s Dulces horas (Sweet Hours). He encouraged work by Antxon Eceiza, Ricardo Franco, Jaime Chávarri, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, and was the driving force behind Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973) and, 10 years later, El sur (South, 1983), two films that mark the summit of a certain canonical tradition in Spanish cinema that finds recognition in film festivals all over the world. Elías Querejeta’s productions shared an outlook and followed artistic paths very seldom tried in Spanish film of the 1960s. A typical Querejeta film tended to be slow moving, earnest, reflective, sparse, and had more in common with the aesthetics of Robert Bresson or Abbas Kiarostami than with Hollywood commercial cinema. In an atmosphere of institutional repression, he opted for metaphors, obscurity, and symbolism. Thematically, his films looked back to the Civil War period and the deep wounds left in the country’s soul, a subject that did not go down well with the authorities. Querejeta was outspoken against censorship and the restrictions censorship put on the free development of an artistic Spanish cinema, and his films repeatedly ran into trouble with the authorities. His films were seldom box-office hits, but their international success, however muted, helped Querejeta to continue to produce the kind of films he believed in. His continuing support allowed Saura to spread his wings as a director and produce work increasingly original and, against the commercial grain of the times, increasingly hermetic: it is unlikely that anyone else would have supported works like Peppermint Frappé (1967) or Stress es tres tres (Stress Is Three Three, 1968) with the level of funding Querejeta put into these enterprises. When the Transition came, Querejeta was left without an enemy to fight, but his films remained recognizably artistic, and he constantly sought new talent. He supported Montxo Armendáriz, whose whole

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output he produced, including Tasio (1984) and 27 horas (27 Hours, 1986). More recently, he was the first to recognize Fernando León de Aranoa’s talent, producing his first and boldly original effort Familia (Family, 1996). In recent years, he has championed the film career of his daughter Gracia Querejeta, producing Estación de paso (Transit Station, 1992), El último viaje de Robert Rylands (The Last Journey of Robert Rylands, 1996), and Siete mesas de billar francés (Seven French Billiard Tables, 2007). QUEREJETA, GRACIA (1962– ). Gracia Querejeta is the daughter of legendary producer Elías Querejeta, who backed some of the most artistically ambitious film projects of the 1960s and 1970s. Her film debut at seven was as a reluctant actress in Antxón Eceiza’s Querejeta-produced Las secretas intenciones (The Secret Intentions, 1970). She shares with many of her father’s projects a focus on family relations (particularly among women) and a reflective mood. Her first work as director was Tres en la marca (Three on the Mark, 1988), a contribution to an umbrella project called Siete huellas (Seven Footprints). This prepared her for her feature debut, Una estación de paso (Transit Station, 1992), in which themes of the past, family, and memory were prominent. Her next project, El último viaje de Robert Rylands (The Last Journey of Robert Rylands, 1996) was inspired by a short section of Javier Marías’s Oxford-set novel Todas las almas (All Souls), and shared some themes with her first film. Both films were co-written by her father. In 1998, she coordinated a television project on the Socialist Party primaries, which alternated between the two candidates and became the documentary Primarias. Her next feature was Cuando vuelvas a mi lado (When You Come Back to Me, 1999), the story of three very different sisters, estranged for years, who go on a journey to fulfill their mother’s last wish and uncover dark areas in their lives. It was a heartfelt film, Querejeta’s most personal to date, and featured superb performances by Mercedes Sampietro and Adriana Ozores. The latter also had a substantial part in Héctor (2004), a coming-of-age story about an orphaned boy who comes to live with his aunt in a blue-collar district in Madrid. Siete mesas de billar francés (Seven French Billiard Tables, 2007) returns to the theme of mourning and family legacies. Again, it focuses on

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Ángela and Charo (played by Maribel Verdú and Blanca Portillo), who grapple with the passing away of a man who was the former’s father and the latter’s husband.

– R – RABAL, FRANCISCO (1926–2001). Like so many actors of his generation, Francisco Rabal had to become a star in a series of popular films before he could follow a more personal career in international film, one that grew in depth and versatility during the post-Franco period. He started as an electrician in the CIFESA film studios and was discovered by producer Vicente Escrivá, who signed him to an exclusive contract. His earliest roles are as earnest army men, priests, and bullfighters. Indeed, during the 1950s, he was selected by the regime’s most prominent directors to become the embodiment of dignified masculinity in a number of bombastic films, including La guerra de Dios (God’s War, Rafael Gil, 1953), Hay un camino a la derecha (There’s a Road to the Right, Francisco Rovira Beleta, 1953), El beso de Judas (Judas’ Kiss, Rafael Gil, 1954), Todo es posible en Granada (Everything’s Possible in Granada, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1954), and Murió hace quince años (He Died Fifteen Years Ago, Rafael Gil, 1954). He contributed to these a sense of dignity and a quiet masculinity very much in keeping with the stories. But Rabal had come from a staunchly Republican family background, and as he became more established, it became clear that he was not another docile actor in the mould of Alfredo Mayo. He became increasingly more vocal in the expression of a libertarian ideology and more uncomfortable with the roles he was called on to play. It was Luis Buñuel who discovered depths in his character that made him ideal for the angst-ridden priest of Nazarín (1959). Buñuel used Rabal twice more: as the cynical illegitimate son in Viridiana (1961) and as one of the customers, a racketeer from Murcia, in Belle de jour (1967). This launched a prolific international career. He worked extensively in France and Italy, with roles ranging from the laconic husband in Antonioni’s The Eclipse (1962) to supporting parts in Jacques Rivette’s La religieuse (The Nun, Jacques Rivette, 1966) and in the Luchino Visconti segment of Le Streghe (The Witches, 1967).

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Rabal’s roles in Spanish cinema were varied and included the outlaws of José María Forqué’s Amanecer en puerta oscura (Dawn at Dark Gate, 1957) and Carlos Saura’s elegy for legendary bandit hero José María “El Tempranillo” Llanto por un bandido (Tears for an Outlaw, 1964) and the bullfighters in Los clarines del miedo (Bugles of Fear, Antonio Román, 1958) and the 1960s version of the classic Currito de la cruz (Rafael Gil, 1965), which reinforced a specifically Spanish persona. In the late 1960s, his career in Spain settled into conventional parts in comedies and thrillers, but this changed at the end of the Transition period. By that time, Rabal had become an icon of anti-Franco dissidence, which echoed in some of his 1980s performances. The latter and more accomplished part of his career starts with Mario Camus’s La colmena (The Beehive, 1982), in which he played a writer, and a second wave of international recognition arrived with his awardwinning Azarías, the fool in Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984). He went on to play strong, hot-blooded patriarchs, including the father who rapes his daughter in Tiempo de silencio (A Time of Silence, Vicente Aranda, 1986). His wounded brother to Fernando Rey’s cardinal in Padre Nuestro (Our Father, Francisco Regueiro, 1985) showed his versatility. In Pedro Almodóvar’s ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down!, 1990), he played a despotic film director in love with a drug-addicted actress. Other substantial parts in his late career include one of the most important male parts in Spanish theater, in Valle Inclán’s adaptation Luces de Bohemia (Lights of Bohemia, Miguel Ángel Díez, 1985), as well as in La vieja música (Old Music, Mario Camus, 1985), Divinas palabras (Divine Words, José Luis García Sánchez, 1987), and Así en el cielo como en la tierra (In Heaven as in Earth, José Luis Cuerda, 1995). The last substantial role of his career was the painter Francisco de Goya in his last collaboration with Carlos Saura, the reflective Goya in Burdeos (Goya in Bordeaux, 1999). RAZA (RACE, 1942). Originally, Raza was a narrative written in dialogue form by General Francisco Franco to convey, through the experiences of a courageous soldier, his particular vision of recent Spanish history, from the defeat and loss of the Cuban colony in

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1898 until the end of the Civil War. Although it was not directly autobiographical, the central figure of José Churruca (to be played by Alfredo Mayo in the film) could easily be read, in essence, as Franco’s idealized alter ego who went on to save both family honor and the Spanish nation from disaster, and the rest of the dramatis personae were thinly veiled versions of several relatives, including his less ideologically pure brother. Dissatisfied by the lack of heroism in current film depictions of the Fascist “crusade,” Franco decided to make Raza into a film epic. José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, the General’s brother-in-law and a man whose ideological stance was beyond reproach, was chosen to rework the script (finally credited to “Jaime de Andrade”) and direct the project, which remains one of the most emblematic examples of the “crusading cinema” of the immediate postwar. No expenses were spared to turn this into one of the most spectacular films of its time. No matter how trite the story, Sáenz de Heredia, with the precious cooperation of cinematographer Alfredo Fraile, used every expressive device available to give the characters and their actions heroic stature. The story follows the saga of the Churruca family. The father had fought and lost in the Cuban war, and the sons witness the social and political unrest in the early decades of the 20th century. Although one of the brothers wavers in his political ideals and joins the wrong party, he will finally see the light. Like Franco, José Churruca fights in Africa and is presumed dead before he makes a return to the war and saves the country from the corrupt hands of communists. There was also a love story of sorts, in which Ana Mariscal played the unassailably faithful sweetheart to the hero. The film ends with a big parade in which the regime shows off its triumphant power and fascist-like approach to discipline, a manifesto on the new dawn that had just started. The film went through several transformations during the Franco period, aiming to tone down the excessively bombastic ideology of the original. In 1977, Gonzalo Herralde used Sáenz de Heredia’s film as the basis for Raza: El espíritu de Franco (Race, Franco’s Spirit), in which the original was slightly recut and punctuated with an ironic interview with the general’s sister Pilar and contributions from Alfredo Mayo.

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RECHA, MARC (1970– ). Marc Recha was brought up to become an artist, and as a boy he was sent to a special school that nurtured creativity. Although he has grown into just that, he is cynical about what constitutes art and has remained outside the artistic mainstream, and his sparse, hermetic films are a reflection of that attitude. His notion of film is almost the polar opposite of that represented by his contemporaries of the glittering Young Spanish Cinema generation that consolidated in the mid-1990s and which included Alejandro Amenábar and Álex de la Iglesia. If the latter turned their attention to Hollywood genres, Recha is unwaveringly anti-Hollywood in his outlook and approach. In several interviews, he has been explicit about his references, listing not just classical European figures like Robert Bresson, but also Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. From his earliest shorts, Recha experimented with time, observation, and mood. Although he obtained support from the Catalan government, he was vocal in expressing his discontent about the conditions of such funding. L’arbre de les cireres (The Cherry Tree, 1998), a title with echoes from Kiarostami, was shot in Catalan and set in the Valencian countryside. It tells a story that is consciously uneventful but intensely emotional and detailed in its view of ordinary people’s lives. The film and its director were saluted by the more serious critics as new hope in the landscape of intellectual film. It was followed by three more full-length titles, all thinly plotted and visually serene. Pau i el seu germà (Pau and His Brother, 2001) was nominated for the Cannes Palme d’Or and confirmed Recha as one of the most interesting new talents in Spanish art cinema. Las manos vacías (Empty Hands, 2003) was even slower and more impressionistic in representing a frieze of off-beat characters living in a French-Catalan village. The director himself and his brother David starred in Recha’s last film to date, Dies d’agost (Days of August, 2006), a travelogue that chronicles a journey of self-discovery with substantial autobiographical input. REGUEIRO, FRANCISCO (1934– ). Francisco Regueiro’s early career is representative of the stifling situation filmmakers with artistic ambition and an independent outlook went through during the latter part of the Franco period. After studying direction at the Escuela Oficial de Cine, he soon came into contact with nuevo cine español

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filmmakers like Mario Camus or Antxón Eceiza, with whom he would co-write a few years later De cuerpo presente (In the Presence of the Body, 1967). After graduating, he went on to direct his own feature El buen amor (The Good Love, 1963), produced by Elías Querejeta, which, typically for a characteristic Nuevo cine español project, met with release and distribution obstacles. His unusual approaches were not “commercial” enough (in the 1960s only pop musicals and comedia desarrollista were generally considered “popular”), and such individual projects seldom found their way into screens in the 1960s and early 1970s. Finally, some of his ambitious and obscure films that evidenced a playful outlook, like the intellectual Si volvemos a vernos (If We Meet Again, 1968), the almost experimental Me enveneno de azules (I Get Poisoned with Blues, 1971), Carta de amor de un asesino (Love Letter From a Murderer, 1972), and the surrealistic and very funny Duerme, duerme mi amor (Sleep, Sleep, My Love, 1975), were such disappointments at the box office that by 1975 he decided to leave the film industry. The new legislative situation that developed during Pilar Miró’s period at the Dirección General de Cinematografía supported quality Spanish films that engaged imaginatively with history, and Regueiro was inspired to attempt new projects. The three original films he completed between 1985 and 1995 are among the most complex, literate, and imaginative of the period. They share a common thread on betraying or absent fathers, and all were co-scripted with established novelist Ángel Fernández Santos. Padre Nuestro (Our Father, 1985) is an excellent example of his talent with a distinctively Buñuelian flavor in the casting of Fernando Rey and in its religious-blasphemous resonances. It tells the story of a Vatican cardinal who comes back to visit his brother (played by Francisco Rabal) and acknowledge his long-lost prostitute daughter before he dies. Diario de Invierno (Winter Journal, 1988), again with Rey, centers around a reunion between a father and son years after the son tried to kill his father; it is a hermetic, multithreaded story with lost, trapped characters. As in his other titles of the period, the theme of settling accounts with the past is central to the understanding of Regueiro’s intentions. Madregilda (Mother Gilda, 1993), his last film, is also his most accomplished work: dark, playful, and heartfelt, it contains a far-reaching

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reflection on Spanish history. One narrative thread introduces Francisco Franco as a wimp with oedipal issues, who plays cards with his Civil War comrades. In the film, he dies in the early 1950s and is replaced by a double. A second storyline introduces a boy who is fascinated and sexually aroused by Rita Hayworth’s Gilda on the screen and comes to identify her incestuously with his real mother, who is involved in a convoluted story of espionage during Francoism. The film resorted to deeply Hispanic cultural traditions (again Buñuel and black humor, but also Goya and Valle Inclán) to give a deeply troubling vision of the past as a poisoned inheritance. REINA, JUANITA (1925–1999). Juanita Reina is one of the greatest copla singers, and she had a brief but captivating film career. She came from a middle-class Seville family, and her father decided to support her career when he saw her success singing at cafés in the immediate postwar years. She quickly rose to fame, becoming a popular stage and recording star in the early 1940s. There were doubts about the photogenic qualities of her face, but these vanished after her debut in La blanca paloma (The White Dove, 1942), followed shortly by Eduardo García Maroto’s costumbrismo drama set in Andalusia Canelita en rama (Wild Cinnamon, 1943). On film, she was a refreshing presence, more self-assured and relaxed than Lola Flores and more soulful than Carmen Sevilla, Reina’s two main rivals in the copla musical genre. As in other cases of female performers in Franco-period cinema, it was director Juan de Orduña who best understood Reina’s star qualities. Her presence in two CIFESA titles was particularly remarkable. In La Lola se va a los puertos (Lola Leaves for the Ports, 1947), directed by Orduña, she played a mythical singer who was both the essence of Spanish song and an icon of femininity. It was an astoundingly mature performance for a 22-year-old singer with no acting training. The film was based on a play by the Machado brothers, and Reina’s character had to decide among several suitors who represented different approaches to Spanish masculinity. In the highly charged ending, she remains free and alone, standing boldly for a brand of sexless womanhood that was both motherly and virginal. Less earnest, Lola la piconera (Lola the Coalgirl, Luis Lucia, 1952) is a period musical in which Reina plays 19th-century singer

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who carries out a dangerous mission to keep the French away from her beloved Cádiz. The film is brightened by the songs, her lifeloving character, and Lucia’s sense of entertainment. There followed more roles in a similar vein. Reina tended to play women with the names of local images of the Holy Virgin, thus emphasizing her iconic qualities as a saintly image of womanhood, and she was the queen of a certain kind of folkloric musical. Other titles include Serenata española (Spanish Serenade, Juan de Orduña, 1947), Vendaval (Whirlwind, Juan de Orduña, 1949), and Gloria Mairena (Luis Lucia, 1952). She was less successful in nonmusical films like Aeropuerto (Airport, Luis Lucia, 1953). By the late 1950s, she had largely retired from the screen and devoted herself to recordings and live concerts. RELIGION. In the early part of the 20th century, religion remained central to Spain’s image as a traditional country dominated by old traditions. A distinctive aspect of Spanish culture in the context of European religious debates was the exclusivity of the Catholic Church and, even to date, the scarce interest shown by mainstream artists in other religious confessions. (Jews and Muslims were officially expelled from Spain in the late 15th century, and no efforts were made for their rehabilitation.) Institutionalized religion set up an alliance with absolutist tendencies in politics, and the Church became a source of power that continued into the start of the 20th century: religion remained one of the main aspects that divided the country in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Centralization of religion in Spain accounts for its strength but also for its lack of flexibility. In the early years of film, religious authorities distrusted cinema deeply. As in the United States, the Church led efforts to establish a system of censorship. In the 1930s, however, the Catholic authorities realized that cinema could be used to their advantage as propaganda. In a country divided between a strong anticlerical movement (both among intellectuals and among the urban working classes) and a virulent pro-church stance (mostly rural classes, aristocracy, and industrialists), the former side seldom got to use film for their purposes, but the Church did so repeatedly. Even toward the end of the Republican period, a number of films sympathetically portrayed

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priests and nuns as heroes. The most popular is El cura de aldea (The Village Priest, Francisco Camacho, 1936), which is at the origin of a tradition in Spanish cinema about goodly priests who act as fathers to their rural communities by exercising a benign moral authority. But a religious impulse was present in many plots, as the repertory of positive qualities and accepted endings came straight from the pulpit. After the Civil War, with a government that declared its allegiance to the Catholic Church and forbade public expression of any other system of beliefs, this trend intensified. Although there was no religious cinema in the early postwar period, one could argue that all films were pro-church, as Catholic values were the only ones allowed. The censorship committees consisted basically of priests, together with staunch Catholics from the military and the Falange party. Taking inspiration from Hollywood films about miracles (Song of Bernadette, Henry King, 1943), a more specific religious vein became prominent in Spanish cinema in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One important factor was the growing importance the Church started to have in politics after 1951 through the Opus Dei organization (just as the Falange was marginalized). Films with religious subjects became a small industry in themselves. They were the only ones allowed to open during the Holy Week and Easter festivities, and the country’s climate of repression made them very popular. As in the pre-war period, the preferred stories were centered on conversions and the life of priests. The phenomenally successful Balarrasa (1951), directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde, established the trend, which continued with such titles as Misión blanca (White Mission, Juan de Orduña, 1946), La mies es mucha (Plentiful Harvest, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1948), La señora de Fátima (Our Lady of Fatima, Rafael Gil, 1951), Marcelino pan y vino (Marcelino, Bread and Wine, Ladislao Vajda, 1955), La herida luminosa (The Luminous Wound, Tulio Demicheli, 1956), El frente infinito (The Endless Front, Pedro Lazaga, 1959), Molokai (Luis Lucia, 1959), and Teresa de Jesús (Saint Teresa, Juan de Orduña, 1961). Missionaries, nuns, monks, and other holy men became screen heroes for a whole decade. Although less centrally, the decade also featured a series of biblical stories, as in El judas (Ignacio F. Iquino, 1952). The films

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were earnest and humorless, often with high production values and verging on a hysterical belief in the literal contents of the Gospel. As social progress and technological development slowly replaced the more traditional religion-centered view of Spanish society, the image of the Catholic Church on film began to change. Institutions stopped believing in miracles, at least officially. There were still films with hero-priests, but these were now low-key protagonists of sentimental comedies in which, for instance, an old meddlesome rural priest sorted out the lives of families going astray, as in Un curita cañon (The Rocking Priest, Luis Maria Delgado, 1971), or, as in Sor Citroen (Sister Citroen, Pedro Lazaga, 1967), a nun could learn how to drive. Following the lead of The Sound of Music, singing nuns were back in fashion, and Rocío Dúrcal starred in a new version of the musical La hermana San Sulpicio (1927, 1934, and 1952), this time titled La novicia rebelde (The Rebellious Nun, Luis Lucia, 1971). Sara Montiel also portrayed a singing nun (raped by enemy soldiers early into the plot) in Esa mujer (That Woman, Mario Camus, 1969). The Transition brought a backlash in the treatment of religious issues on screen. Suddenly, as in Eloy de la Iglesia’s El sacerdote (The Priest, 1978), priests were sexual perverts, or, as in Tasio (Montxo Armendáriz, 1984) and some early Pedro Almodóvar films, selfish, corrupted, and repressive. Given the Church’s obsession with (and their tight grip on) the representation of all things sexual for four decades, the temptation to show the clergy as sex maniacs was strong and seldom resisted. This is apparent even in Right-wing films like La boda del señor cura (The Priest’s Wedding, Rafael Gil, 1979). In other films, like Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984), the Church was just corrupt and selfish and their representatives just cowardly and deceitful. Fun nuns who doubled as romance writers, or were drug addicts or masochists, were the protagonists of Pedro Almodóvar’s Entre tinieblas (Dark Habits, 1983), but the director was too generous with his characters for this to be taken as a negative depiction. As democracy became more stable and resentment less heated, treatment of religious issues became more balanced. Carlos Saura’s Noche oscura (Dark Night, 1989) was a lay approach to San Juan de la Cruz’s mysticism, and the more recent Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo

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(Teresa, Body of Christ, 2007), directed by Ray Loriga and starring Paz Vega, certainly eroticized Saint Teresa’s experience of God, but with a deep respect for the character and her work. Almodóvar’s La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004), is a recent reminder of the effects of repressive religious education. RESINES, ANTONIO (1954– ). During the 1980s, Antonio Resines was one of Spanish cinema’s biggest clichés, an actor trapped in a particular image and disinterested in shaking it off. He played with relish the protagonist’s best friend character, usually a cheeky, opinionated, and selfish womanizer. This describes exactly his first substantial part (aptly named Antonio), in Fernando Trueba’s Ópera prima (First Work, 1980), and he remained true to the type in a series of comedies including Estoy en crisis (I Am in Crisis, Fernando Colomo, 1982), La línea del cielo (Skyline, Fernando Colomo, 1984), Sal gorda (Get Out, Fat Girl, Fernando Trueba, 1984), Sé infiel and no mires con quién (Be Wanton and Tread No Shame, Fernando Trueba, 1985), and Lulú de noche (Lulu at Night, Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 1986). Then, in 1991, he surprised audiences and critics with a restrained performance as a hard-boiled cop in Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, Enrique Urbizu), and he started to show a range and versatility very few casting directors seemed to suspect. He was funny in a completely different register as the scheming head of a terrorist group fighting for the rights of the disabled in the futuristic spoof Acción mutante (Mutant Action, Álex de la Iglesia, 1993), and several performances through the 1990s established him as one of the best actors of his generation. Maybe the most remarkable was his castrated, good-hearted husband in La buena estrella (The Lucky Star, Ricardo Franco, 1997), in which he achieved rare emotional depth, going on to win the Goya award for his part. Since then, he has been a reliable performer in a wide range of registers and genres, alternating between his old image and more complex work, including comedies, thrillers, and even musicals. La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, Fernando Trueba, 1998), Ataque verbal (Verbal Attack, Miguel Albaladejo, 2002), El portero (The Goalkeeper, Gonzalo Suárez, 2000), El embrujo de Shanghai (The Shanghai Spell, Fernando Trueba, 2002), La caja 507 (Box 507, Enrique Urbizu, 2002),

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and Al sur de Granada (South of Granada, Fernando Colomo, 2003) are of particular interest, although he owes his lasting popularity to the long-running television sitcom Los Serrano, in which he plays father to the eponymous family. REY, FERNANDO (1917–1994). Fernando Rey’s impressive adaptability made him one of the most popular Spanish actors both at home and abroad. In terms of approach to acting, he perfected a mask through accent, diction, demeanor, and looks, that, together with high professional standards, allowed him to work in a career spanning over six decades, in contexts as disparate as CIFESA, Nuevo cine español, the post-Franco film industry, French film, and Hollywood, including fine work for directors such as Juan de Orduña, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Francisco Regueiro, Luigi Comencini, Jean Becker, Robert Altman, Vincente Minnelli, and William Friedkin, to name a few. Portly, affable, and elegant, something about his presence commanded respect. Rey was born in La Coruña, the son of a Republican colonel. He found his way into acting almost by chance: For his debut, he had a part in Benito Perojo’s Nuestra Natacha (Our Natacha, 1936), but the war interrupted whatever career ambitions he might have had at the time. His first steady jobs in the postwar were in dubbing, where he started to develop the beautiful, crisp tones that would make his words so effective and brimming with authority, and he also did a lot of work as a stage and film extra before landing featured parts in the mid-1940s. He was a prominent presence in some of CIFESA’s historical cycle, most remembered as Aurora Bautista’s unfaithful husband in Locura de amor (Mad for Love, Juan de Orduña, 1948) and as Philip V in La Princesa de los Ursinos (The Princess of the Ursines, Luis Lucia, 1947). Inevitably, he also took part in some patriotic films like Los últimos de Filipinas (Last Stand on the Philippines, Antonio Román, 1945). But by the start of the 1950s, he also started showing interest in less conventional roles. His poet in Cielo negro (Black Sky, Manuel Mur Oti, 1951) is one of the earliest signs that he found the mainstream film industry unsatisfactory, and in 1953 he lent his star charisma, authoritative restraint, and knowing voice to Juan Antonio Bardem’s Cómicos (Players, 1954).

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Throughout the 1950s, Rey chose to work in some challenging projects, while maintaining an important presence in more commercial films like the Luis Mariano operetta Le Chanteur du Mexico (The Singer from Mexico, Richard Pottier, 1956). But it was thanks to his participation in Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana (1961) that his international reputation took off. In this film, the pain and frustration came across delicately through the aristocratic mask he had perfected, in the role of a mature man obsessed by a nun. His participation in this film was a turning point in his career and also the start of a fruitful collaboration with Buñuel that would include three more titles: Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeisie (1972), and the director’s final project, That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). To all of them, Rey contributed not only the resonances of “traditional Spain” required by the director, but also a piercing irony that was perfectly suited to Buñuel’s cheekiness. In spite of a growing activity abroad, Rey continued to work in popular films in Spain in the 1960s, and was in Los palomos (The Pigeon Couple, Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964) and Zampo y yo (Zampo and Me, Luis Lucia, 1966), and he also did dramatic specials for television. In 1970, he debuted in Hollywood, lending gravitas to a series of suave villains in The French Connection films (1971 and 1975) and in Caboblanco (J. Lee Thompson, 1980), as well as a part in Vincente Minnelli’s final film A Matter of Time (1976), which took advantage of his European roots. Still, his most enduring acting in the 1970s was for Carlos Saura in Elisa, Vida mía (Elisa, Life of My Life, 1977), in which he played a dying intellectual who fantasizes about his daughter. During the Transition years, Rey came back to regular work in Spain and delivered a series of extraordinary performances that punctuated the last years of his career, including three parts for Francisco Regueiro’s ambitious films of the period: the Cardinal in Padre Nuestro (Our Father, Francisco Regueiro, 1985), the patriarch in El diario de invierno (Winter Journal, 1988), and a brief cameo as Francisco Franco’s father in Madregilda (Mother Gilda, 1993). His last film was in the comedy El cianuro solo o con leche (Your Poison, Weak or Strong? José Miguel Ganga, 1994).

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REY, FLORIÁN (1894–1962). In the mid-1930s Florián Rey’s fame rivaled that of any other Spanish director. Like Hollywood colleagues Ernst Lubitsch or Frank Capra, his name was a guarantee of high production values, recurring themes and settings, and a certain style. But if audiences did not always have a very clear idea of style, they were keen on anecdotes, and in the minds of audiences Florián Rey was the Pygmalion who created Imperio Argentina, Spanish cinema’s most glittering star. Rey was born in La Almunia de Doña Godina, Aragón, and debuted in the film industry in 1920 after a short stint as a journalist. He was a leading man for José Buchs’ zarzuela adaptation La verbena de la Paloma (The Fair of the Virgin of the Dove) among other films. In 1924, he debuted as director. His early films, including zarzuela adaptations La Revoltosa (The Trouble-Maker, 1924) and Gigantes y Cabezudos (Giants and Big Heads, 1926), as well as a 20th-century updating of Golden Age novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1925), were remarkable for his sense of visual flair, a rare quality in funds-starved Spanish cinema. He also directed the first version of El cura de aldea (The Village Priest, 1927), one of the classic dramas of the period set in a rural background, which shares central motives with his later masterpiece La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village, 1930). In 1927, Ray shot a silent version (the first in a long series of adaptations and reworkings) of the 19th-century novel La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpice), the story of a self-sacrificing nun, starring Imperio Argentina. Florián Rey’s work with Argentina could be compared to that of Josef von Sternberg with Marlene Dietrich: in both cases, the performer came with limited but intense qualities that the director encouraged and shaped in a number of vehicles. Rey and Argentina complemented each other: his taste for the musical genre and her performing abilities and screen presence, his lightness of touch and her comic timing, recurred in all of their films together. They were central to the short-lived period that would later be recognized as the prewar Golden Age of Spanish cinema (1931–36). After their first hit together, he did a number of less remarkable titles on his own before his first talkie, Fútbol, amor y toros (Football, Love and Bullfighting, 1928). Unhappy with the sound quality of this film, when it was time to add sound to his next effort, he used

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Paris studios. La aldea maldita, Rey’s most ambitious project to date remains one of the undisputed masterpieces of early Spanish cinema. Again, this is a rural melodrama in which catastrophe strikes a small village, affecting the lives of a married couple and driving the wife to prostitution. Critics have remarked on the pictorial quality of the images and Rey’s experimentation with framing and light. He would go on to direct another version of this same story after the Civil War, which was technically more accomplished, but more heavy-handed from a narrative point of view. Sound gave Rey the possibility to work on full-fledged musical films, for which he sought the collaboration of Argentina. Together, they achieved mastery in the folkloric musical, with stories set mostly in Andalusia. They started by remaking La hermana San Sulpicio (1934), and followed this with Nobleza baturra (Aragonese Nobility, 1935), one of the hits of the Republican period, which was set in Aragón and shared the theme of woman’s honor found in La aldea maldita or El cura de aldea, featuring dignified plain-speaking peasants with regional accents and essential feminine virtue. Next came Morena Clara (1936), in which Argentina played a loquacious gypsy in one of the most often reworked plots in Spanish cinema. By this time, the Rey-Argentina team had reached international fame. In 1936, they were preparing a film to be shot in Paris, but were then called for a series of features at Hispano Film Produktion with German technicians, an experience that inspired Fernando Trueba’s La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998). The results, Carmen la de Triana (Carmen from Triana, 1938) and La canción de Aixa (Aixa’s Song, 1939), did not live up to the standards of their best collaborations. They broke up, personally and professionally, on their return to Spain. Rey tried to revive the genre with Conchita Piquer in La Dolores (1940). Piquer was probably the biggest star in Spanish song, but her screen presence was never as intense as Argentina’s, and despite her presence, the film was not a success. In 1942, he did the aforementioned second version of La aldea maldita. By this time, Rey had become something of a legend in Spanish cinema, his previous hits no more than a memory, incongruous with sadder times, and his career flagged. Rey’s films of the Franco period were still solid commercial projects, but he never regained his previous popularity.

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He found it hard to get funding for his projects, and his films became increasingly more conventional. Titles of this period included Ana María (1944), Ídolos (Idols, 1943), the excellent Orosia (1944), Cuentos de la Alhambra (Tales from the Alhambra, 1950), which confirmed Carmen Sevilla’s stardom, and La danza de los deseos (The Dance of Desires, 1954), a vehicle for a new star of folkloric musicals, Lola Flores. RIVELLES, AMPARO (1925– ). Amparo Rivelles was among the most glamorous stars of early Francoism, only rivalled by Aurora Bautista. Unlike Bautista, she was quite content with the prescribed roles she was offered (in comedies and costume dramas) and with her star persona as created by producers. She was born into a family of stage actors, and debuted on film at 15 with Mari Juana (Armando Vidal, 1940). Her early appearances were as an enchanting young lady in the costumbrismo comedy Alma de Dios (Soul of God, Ignacio F. Iquino, 1941) and the more risqué role of a girl who, in spite of censorship restrictions, comes across as a prostitute (aptly redeemed at the end), in Malvaloca (Luis Marquina, 1942). At CIFESA, star personality often took precedence over actual roles, and her parts tended to look very homogeneous. In spite of a wide range of characters, including an adulterous murderer in El clavo (The Nail, Rafael Gil, 1944), the sparkling lead in comedies like Deliciosamente tontos (Deliciously Silly, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1943), and a supporting appearance as Queen Isabella in Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951), her characterizations were always aspects of elegant, sophisticated, haughty Amparo Rivelles. Her career peaked in 1947, when she was awarded one of Spain’s most prestigious acting prizes for her parts in La fe (Faith, Rafael Gil) and Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Román). But as CIFESA faltered in the early 1950s, so did the style the company and Rivelles had represented. Rivelles quickly became outmoded and unable to find a place in the new industrial context. Her attempts at playing a working-class woman in El batallón de las sombras (The Battalion of Shadows, Manuel Mur Oti, 1957) failed, and in that year she decided to move to Mexico where she settled, becoming a popular stage, film, and soap opera star. Among the most important films in her Mexican career are the melodramas El amor

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que yo te di (The Love I Gave You, Tulio Demicheli, 1960), El día de las madres (Mother’s Day, Alfredo B. Crevenna, 1969), and Cuando los hijos se van (When the Children Leave, Julián Soler, 1969). Rivelles returned to Spain in 1977 as something of an icon of conservative drama, an aspect that highlighted in her last film appearances: La coquito (Pedro Masó, 1977), Soldados de plomo (Lead Soldiers, José Sacristán, 1983), Hay que deshacer la casa (The House Must Be Unmade, José Luis García Sánchez, 1986), Esquilache (Josefina Molina, 1989), and El día que nací yo (The Day I Was Born, Pedro Olea, 1991). RURAL DRAMA. Spain remained a mostly rural country until the 1960s. Isolated farms and villages, with a culture centered around small community life and old traditions, and an economy based on agriculture, were effective backgrounds for stories representing essential Spanish culture. Rural drama is one of the stronger traditions in Spanish literary and cinematic mythologies. In a number of silent films, the countryside is used as the setting for a particular brand of drama that was perceived to be more deeply Spanish than that evoked by more generic, urban locations. For instance, whereas in urban contexts the old ideologies concerning women’s honor were slowly disappearing, they seemed to remain alive in rural cultures. La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village, Florián Rey, 1930) is just one of the titles that represent this rural view of life, and the film has some of the elements of the village as a symbolic locus—honor and jealousy, the struggle with nature, the corrupting call of the city—that would be developed in an important series of films through the 1930s, 1940s, and even the 1950s that exalted rural life. Films like Surcos (Burrows, José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1951) add a social context to the distinction between village and city life, but this was actually frowned upon by the authorities. Images of the countryside had to be idealized, depleted of any social element, although not necessarily rendered apolitical. Two rural dramas of the 1950s directed by Manuel Mur Oti are of particular interest for their attempt to create stylized tragedy rather than social realism: Condenados (Condemned, 1953) and Orgullo (Pride, 1955). In most films of the 1950s and 1960s, the Spanish countryside was represented increasingly as the reserve of preferred traditional values and

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Spanish essences. Such exaltation became one of the key aspects of a certain strand in desarrollismo films, like the Paco Martínez Soria comedies (for instance, the aptly titled La ciudad no es para mí [The City Is Not For Me, Pedro Lazaga, 1966]) in which the country hick must sort out his family’s problems created by the challenges of modern life. Rural backgrounds have remained a way of creating effective drama in Spanish cinema, as if a sense of tragedy remained alive to surface boldly during the Transition in a series of films including Furtivos (Poachers, José Luis Borau, 1975), Demonios en el jardín (Demons in the Garden, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1982), Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984), Tasio (Montzo Armendáriz, 1984), El aire de un crimen (Hint of a Crime, Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1988), and El disputado voto del señor Cayo (The Disputed Vote of Mr. Cayo, Antonio Giménez Rico, 1986). The social and political dimension of rural life becomes more prominent: the murder of the Señorito in Los santos inocentes, for instance, is an effect of power structures and can be perceived as vengeance for the character’s arrogant behavior. In recent years, rural drama has experienced a resurgence, as evidenced by a series of very remarkable films including Secretos del corazón (Secrets of the Heart, Montxo Armendáriz, 1997), Julio Medem’s Vacas (Cows, 1991) and Tierra (Earth, 1996), La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly Tongue, José Luis Cuerda, 1999), Flores de otro mundo (Flowers from Another World, Icíar Bollaín, 1999), El séptimo día (The Seventh Day, Carlos Saura, 2004), La noche de los girasoles (The Night of the Sunflowers, Jorge Sánchez Cabezudo, 2006), and La soledad (Solitude, Jaime Rosales, 2007), a recent Goya award–winning film that plays on the opposition between rural and city life. The use of the rural mythologies in some films by Pedro Almodóvar deserves special mention: the director came from rural La Mancha and early in his career became an urbanite. Still, a certain (ironic?) nostalgia for rural life features prominently as the solution for his characters in a series of films including ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984), ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down!, 1990), La flor de mi secreto (Flower of my Secret, 1995), and Volver (2006). The atavistic spirit of rural Spain continues to pull the strings of character’s fates.

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– S – SACRISTÁN, JOSÉ (1937– ). José Sacristán was born in Madrid. He trained as an actor with small roles in a number of touring companies until his film debut in 1965, in La familia y uno más (The Family . . . And One More, Fernando Palacios, 1965). Soon he became one of the recurring presences in desarrollismo comedy casts, normally playing a shy, put-upon, indecisive young man. Although he did some landismo films (Lo verde empieza en los pirineos [Smut Starts in the Pyrenees, Vicente Escrivá, 1973]) playing a typically repressed Spanish male, he replayed this character in a more progressive context, increasingly adding a layer of bafflement in the face of new sexual customs in a number of Tercera vía comedies. He represented the Spanish male in a liberal position, one who had to keep up with the new view of life. Films like Españolas en París (Spanish Women in Paris, 1971), Vida Conyugal Sana (Healthy Conjugal Life, 1974), and Los nuevos españoles (The New Spaniards, 1974), all directed by the driving force behind Tercera Via, Roberto Bodegas, are very characteristic of the period, and perfectly showcase Sacristán’s ability to play this particular kind of man: something about his unremarkable physique and put-upon grin made credible his parts as a very ordinary guy. The Transition period came naturally both for the persona Sacristán had polished, which evolved to keep up with the new challenges of increased sexual freedom, and for the actor himself, who became something of an icon of the period. Consequently, he became very prolific, maybe excessively so: he made eight films in 1977, and no less than 20, mostly playing protagonists, between 1977 and 1981. His role in José Luis Garci’s Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject, 1977), in which once again he played a man who struggles to catch up with change, and particularly to overcome sexual repression, became emblematic for a generation of Spaniards. The range he was allowed to show was narrow: he was more an easily identifiable presence, who carried with him particular traits, than a performer. Even in parts potentially distant from his persona, like the transvestite performer in Un hombre llamado Flor de otoño (A Man Named Autumn Flower, Pedro Olea, 1978), he seemed remote and unremarkable (never a good quality for a drag queen). Still, as one of the key ac-

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tors of his generation, he participated in some of the most important films of the immediate post-Franco years, and very different directors exploited his qualities in interesting ways, as evidenced in a number of films including Las largas vacaciones del 36 (The Long Vacation of 1936, Jaime Camino, 1976), Solos en la madrugada (Alone in the Small Hours, José Luis Garci, 1978), El diputado (The Member of Parliament, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1979), La colmena (The Beehive, Mario Camus, 1982), Epílogo (Epilogue, Gonzalo Suárez, 1984), La noche más hermosa (The Most Beautiful Night, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1984), and La vaquilla (The Heifer, Luis García Berlanga, 1985). He also directed three films: Soldados de plomo (Toy Soldiers, 1983), Cara de acelga (Dumb Face, 1987), and the hit play adaptation Yo me bajo en la próxima, ¿y usted? (I Get Off at the Next Stop. . . How About You? 1992). Sacristán began to slow down in the late 1980s, and becoming more selective of his roles, with the consequence that his work became more distinctive. New depths were revealed in his role as the central character in Fernando Fernán Gómez’s El viaje a ninguna parte (The Journey to Nowhere, 1986), and from then on, he did very distinctive performances making use of a variety of registers: satirical in Madregilda (Mother-Gilda, Francisco Regueiro, 1993), earnest and idealistic in Un lugar en el mundo (A Place in the World, Adolfo Aristaráin, 1992), or world-weary in El pájaro de la felicidad (The Bird of Happiness, Pilar Miró, 1993). He also had an important stage career, including, quite unexpectedly, as a musical star. In the 1990s, he played Professor Higgins in the Spanish version of My Fair Lady and Cervantes / Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. SÁENZ DE HEREDIA, JOSÉ LUIS (1911–1992). Sáenz de Heredia is the most emblematic director of high Francoism, both for the kind of cinema he promoted and for his personal relationship with Francisco Franco as his brother-in-law. Not only did he fight with the Fascists during the Civil War, he also directed the General’s script for Raza (1942) and was one of the artistic forces behind the Cine de cruzada (Crusading Cinema) of the early 1940s. He debuted as film director in the Republican period with Patricio miró una estrella (Patricio Looked at a Star, 1934), and he trained at Filmófono Studios, under Luis Buñuel’s supervision, where he had some input

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in the melodrama La hija de Juan Simón (Juan Simón’s Daughter, Nemesio M. Sobrevila, 1935), but his career took off only after the Civil War. His political connections gave him a privileged place in the regime’s film industry (very small in the immediate postwar years), and guaranteed exceptionally high production values in many of his projects. A “Sáenz de Heredia” film raised expectations of quality and solidity, along with ideological soundness. But he was also a professional, respected even by the younger generation, later becoming representative of the “official” film industry in debates over the difficulties of Spanish film in the 1950s, particularly the Salamanca Conversations. Sáenz de Heredia’s films never attempt artistic originality, but he showed skill at certain kinds of emphatic visual style that suited the earnestness of the regime. His most popular films in this vein were El escándalo (The Scandal, 1943), Bambú (Bamboo, 1945), Mariona Rebull (1947), and La mies es mucha (The Harvest Is Plentiful, 1948). One aspect often forgotten in his career is how good he was at comedy. He directed some of the period’s best comedies, including El destino se disculpa (Destiny Apologizes, 1945) and Historias de la radio (Radio Tales, 1955), which had a follow-up 10 years later, predictably titled Historias de la televisión (Television Tales, 1965). Sáenz de Heredia’s style became outdated in the 1960s, and the reverberations engendered by his political stance made him a difficult example to follow for the new generation and for an important section of the public. He continued to make conventional comedies, which today have a mechanical feel to them and lack the edge of previous decades. He discovered the potential of young Concha Velasco and supported her career in a number of musicals, the best of them with singer Manolo Escobar. Fittingly, his last film, the landismo comedy Solo ante el streaking (Alone in Front of Streaking, 1975) was released the year of Francisco Franco’s death. “S” CLASSIFICATION. The “S” classification, which labeled films with erotic or extremely violent content, was introduced in 1977 immediately following the demise of government censorship. The first film exhibited with the new label was Una loca extravagancia sexy (A Mad Sexy Extravagance, Enrique Guevara), spearheading a wave

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of predominantly soft-core porn that dominated Spanish screens for six years. Each “S” film carried a warning that it could hurt the audience’s sensitivity, but given the cultural situation of a country just out of a severely repressive period, the rating rapidly became a publicity tool. The public who attended “S” films were indiscriminate with regard to content, plot, or acting, as long as they could see images previously forbidden. However, the classification did not include hard porn, the logical next step, and cinemas for explicitly pornographic films, labelled “X,” were only regulated in 1984 as one of the consequences of the legislation introduced by Pilar Miró. Very few films were classified “S” for their violent content, Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) being one instance of this, along with some horror films. The “S” classification was applied to both Spanish and foreign films, and in many cases casts and personnel were international. The ratings publicity value had an impact on the Spanish film industry of the Transition, which had been hit by a funding crisis, by becoming an important way of producing cheap films and employing many film workers. Given the small investment required, these films became good business. Some of the old Francoist directors, like Ignacio F. Iquino and Carlos Aured, were kept employed making “S” films, as well as others like Jesús Franco who had worked in other popular genres. When Pilar Miró became General Director for Cinematography, she introduced legislation designed to reinforce quality, and the category became financially less viable, particularly when X cinemas were authorized. The 2008 feature Los años desnudos (The Naked Years, Dunia Ayaso and Félix Sabroso), starring Candela Peña and Goya Toledo is set in the murky world of “S” cinema and brought about the first substantial renaissance of what once was a well-established genre. SALAMANCA CONVERSATIONS / CONVERSACIONES DE SALAMANCA. The 1955 gathering of film professionals known to film historians as the “Conversaciones de Salamanca” was an important turning point in Spanish cinema. This was the first opportunity for a group of young graduates from the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (Spain’s first official film school), to air their views on their situation as artistically ambitious

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and socially progressive filmmakers in a stifling cultural context. More broadly, this was among the earliest instances in which discontent was articulated by dissident intellectuals and artists. It was only one year later that signs of unrest appeared in universities. Several strands converged in the different panels and discussion groups. The framework that enabled the discussions to take place was the Salamanca University Film Club, run by director-to-be Basilio Martín Patino, but the main impulse came from communist critic producer and scriptwriter Ricardo Muñoz Suay, at the time editor of the journal Objetivo, and director Juan Antonio Bardem who drafted the main proposals. Other, less politically committed filmmakers, like Fernando Fernán Gómez and Luis G. Berlanga, also contributed to documents and discussions. At the time, the debate would have been unthinkable without the participation of official representatives, who held tight control on the state of cinema. The main voice to represent the government was former (and future) General Director for film and theater José María García Escudero, as well as José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, an unequivocally Francoist filmmaker (he had helmed the Franco-scripted Raza in 1942), respected at the time by the younger generation and some intellectuals from the Falange movement (the Fascist party that gave ideological grounding to Francisco Franco’s early dictatorship). Bardem’s contribution famously stated that Spanish cinema was “politically useless, socially false, intellectually low, aesthetically negligible, and industrially ailing.” This was a veritable declaration of principles that laid the foundations for a debate on what cinema should be and what measures could be taken to improve the value of filmmaking in Spain. Economic support measures were sought, but also clearer guidelines in terms of censorship (the practice was believed to be applied arbitrarily at the time) and more flexibility in allowing films that reflected social realities. The value of the outcome has been widely debated. Whereas for most historians this was the beginning of a new era of better cinema in the country, away from the empty, inane, and formulaic efforts by the previous generations, others, including Berlanga himself, have claimed that the approach resulting from the conversations made Spanish film too dependent on government support, to the point that the Spanish film industry never fully developed in relation to audience demands.

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SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL. The most important film festival in the Spanish-speaking countries and one of the most established in Europe takes place in the Basque country each year in late September. It is managed by official institutions—some cultural ones, including the government Institute for Audiovisual Arts (Instituto de Cinematografía y Artes Escénicas, ICAA), and some more obviously political ones (the Basque and the city governments). San Sebastian is a prosperous northern city that had been a popular and glamorous spa during the first third of the 20th century. After the Civil War, however, the golden years seemed well in the past. In 1953, two of the city’s most prominent businessmen thought that one way for the city to regain its former glory would be the organization of a small-scale “film week” devoted to Spanish film. In only two years, it had become a full-blown “film festival” with a B grading awarded by the International Federation of Associated Film Producers (FIAPF). In 1957, the San Sebastian Film Festival was promoted to the A category, which meant that it became a proper showcase for international film and that awards could be offered. From the point of view of the regime, it was also an early occasion for Spain to be perceived internationally in a civilized, cultural context, rather than as a reactionary country with repressive laws. During late Francoism, tensions existed between attempts on the side of the government to use the event as a way of showing a kind, glamorous face to the world and the discontent of Spanish filmmakers with that government’s attitude toward them, culminating in the demonstrations of 1975 and instigated by the last death sentences signed by Francisco Franco that year. The Festival went through a difficult period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, owing to organizational issues. Today, the festival has problems finding new films for the competition when there is so much demand from Cannes and Venice, but with proper funding it has maintained substantial prestige and is again attracting film personalities like David Cronenberg. The premier official San Sebastian award is the Golden Shell, although a number of Silver Shells are awarded to directors, actors, and for professional careers as a whole. In particular, the Donostia prize annually celebrates the accomplishments of a relevant actor

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(and is often shared by two performers). Also, the Jury distributes awards for best cinematography and best script. Along with these, a number of unofficial prizes are given: one for new directors, another for scriptwriters, an audience award, and a youth award, among others. Finally, the International Association of Film Press Professionals (FIPRESCI) awards its own prize at the Festival. SANTOS INOCENTES, LOS / THE HOLY INNOCENTS (1984). Los Santos inocentes, directed by Mario Camus, is one of the most accomplished films of the 1980s, promoted as an example of the success of recently introduced Socialist legislation that encouraged quality films in a clear attempt to fight the flood of cheap comedies and soft porn that dominated the film industry in the immediate postFranco years. After its success at the 1984 Cannes Festival, it became a symbol of the success of General Director for Cinematography Pilar Miró’s measures and of the potential for the Spanish film industry to penetrate foreign markets. The film emphasized some of the cinematic elements that the socialist legislation sought to promote: a social conscience, technical dexterity, seriousness, and engagement with the past, as well as solid production values, and it became something of a calling card for post-Franco Spanish films. Based on a Miguel Delibes novel that links with the tradition of rural drama, it follows in a series of flashbacks the lives of the members of a poor peasant family in the heart of rural Spain who work for a despotic landowner. The film follows the relationship between the father, Paco, played by Alfredo Landa, and his employer, Iván (Juan Diego), who to him is something of a god who can give and take away privileges. Paco’s continuous fawning and the way he boasts about a situation close to enslavement is almost painful to watch, especially since it was so recognizable to so many people. The story is narrated in flashbacks, when Paco’s son and daughter come back to their old home and remember the events that led their uncle, simpleton Azarías (Paco Rabal), to kill señorito Iván as revenge for the latter having shot his favorite bird. But rather than a plot-driven narrative, Camus was interested in reconstructing a whole way of life, a snapshot of certain social structures. In this sense, Hans Burman’s cinematography added a layer of neatness that

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was incongruent with the background, but not entirely unwelcome to audiences, and focused on every detail of the peasants’ grim lives. Imaginative casting was one of the film’s boldest decisions. The film became a milestone in revealing hitherto hidden (or simply unacknowledged) acting skills in Alfredo Landa (who won acting awards in international festivals for this performance), and it relaunched Francisco Rabal’s career as a character actor. He would play the same kind of rough, uneducated type in ensuing films. Both shared the best-actor Cannes award that year. SANZ, JORGE (1969– ). Jorge Sanz was discovered by Pedro Lazaga, who chose him for a small part in La miel (Honey, 1979). He went on to play Conan as a child (and therefore Arnold Schwarzenegger’s younger self) in John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian (1982), and he became established as a child actor in protagonist roles in Valentina (José Antonio Betancor, 1982) and La rebelión de los pájaros (The Bird’s Rebellion, Lluís Josep Comerón, 1982). Sanz might have been just one more bland young performer who vanishes at maturity had it not been for his vivid performance as teenager Manolo in Fernando Trueba’s El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, 1986). Arguably, Trueba was the director who best understood him as a growing man, and his roles in other Trueba films follow Sanz’s evolution as a young adult and as a performer. He played an older and more sexually aware version of Manolo in Belle epoque (1992), and, later a flawed leading man in La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998). Vicente Aranda, on the other hand, moved him further away from blandness, giving him roles that allowed Sanz to explore darker emotions as the upstart in Si te dicen que caí (If They Tell You I Fell, 1989) or the woman-dominated young man in Amantes (Lovers, 1991). Both directors seemed keenly aware of Sanz as a passive male, indecisive and always lusted after by stronger women (four of them in Belle epoque, two in Amantes). However, it is an old-style passivity that never allows for homoeroticism: his failed collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar (intriguingly, he was meant to have starred in Carne Trémula [Live Flesh]) suggests that Sanz is less adaptable as an actor (in a way less penetrable) than other handsome leading

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men such as Antonio Banderas or Javier Bardem. Even when playing the object of desiring glances, he seems to be an alter ego for directors, unable to take the further step toward identifying with the feminine perspective. After Belle epoque, Sanz became one of the most popular young stars in Spanish film and was featured in a series of unchallenging war-of-the-sexes comedies including ¿Por qué lo llaman amor cuando quieren decir sexo? (Why Do They Call It Love When They Mean Sex? Manuel Gómez Pereira, 1993), Los peores años de nuestra vida (The Worst Years in Our Lives, Emilio MartínezLázaro, 1994), and ¿De qué se ríen las mujeres? (What Do Women Laugh About? Joaquín Oristrell, 1997). His rentboy in Hotel y domicilio (Hotel and Home, Ernesto del Río, 1995) was a flawed attempt at moving into riskier areas, and his limitations as a dramatic actor were evident in projects like the thriller Tuno negro (Black Serenade, Pedro L. Barbero and Vicente J. Martín, 2001) and Tiempo de tormenta (Stormy Weather, Pedro Olea, 2006), in which he played a shrill drug addict. By the late 1990s, both Sanz’s looks and his roles were becoming less interesting. He continued to work, with an occasional attempt at serious acting in a supporting part in El Lobo (Wolf, Miguel Courtois, 2004), where he was excellent and almost unrecognizable as the ETA leader. Into his fourth decade as an actor he has yet to find a role, like Antonio Resines’ in La buena estrella (Lucky Star, Ricardo Franco, 1997), that can redefine his career. In recent years, he has specialized on television, with only brief forays into film, with supporting roles in Torapia (Karra Elejalde, 2004) and Bienvenido a casa (Welcome Home, David Trueba, 2006). SARDÁ, ROSA MARÍA (1941– ). A diva of Catalan theater who debuted on stage with the Spanish version of Ann Jellicoe’s The Knack, Rosa María Sardá has also had a substantial career on film. After years playing serious roles in plays by Moliere and Bertolt Brecht in independent theater, she became a television hostess and cultivated a wry, dead-pan humor that became the secret of her early success. She debuted on film in the forgotten El certificado (The Certificate, Vicente Lluch, 1970), but no director used her as lovingly as Ventura Pons, who chose her for an early comedy role as a part of the

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ensemble cast of El vicari d’Olot (Olot’s Vicar, 1980), the real starting point of her film career. Sardá’s collaborations with Pons constitute a detailed catalogue of her moods and a tribute to her range and authority: she was very good in Actrius (Actresses, 1997), playing a role very close to herself as a person and inspired by her TV career; a brief appearance in the ensemble piece Caricies (Caresses, 1998) as a mother; another mother in Amic / Amat (1999), in which she was allowed to show emotional vulnerability; and exceptionally good in Anita no perd el tren (Anita Won’t Miss the Boat, 2001), as a mature woman who discovers sexuality. Their last collaboration to date is Barcelona (un mapa) (Barcelona [a Map], 2007), in which she vividly portrayed a disappointed teacher. In addition to her Pons collaborations, she gave a touching, delicate performance as a mature woman who shocks her daughters by coming out as gay and developing a relationship with a pianist in A mi madre le gustan las mujeres (My Mother Likes Women, Daniela Féjerman and Inés Paris, 2002). She was very funny as an actress in Fernando Trueba’s La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1999). Otherwise she has specialized in broader, dominating mother types, as in Alegre ma non troppo (Gay, But Not That Gay, Fernando Colomo, 1994), Airbag (Juanma Bajo Ulloa, 1997), Te doy mis ojos (I Give You My Eyes, Icíar Bollaín, 2003), and Chuecatown (Juan Flahn, 2007) a film in which, unsurprisingly, she played mother to a closet gay man. SAURA, CARLOS (1932– ). Saura studied engineering in Madrid before turning to photography. This was his first passion, and in later years his work as a documentary photographer would be exhibited throughout Spain. Documenting reality was at the core of his earliest films, Tarde de domingo (Sunday Afternoon, 1957) and Cuenca (1958). This impulse to record reality merged fruitfully with a highly individual understanding and assimilation of neorealism, and the result was his first feature film, Los golfos (The Lazy Young Men, 1960). Saura only came back to directing in 1963, with Llanto por un bandido (Tears for an Outlaw, 1964), an attempt at a more commercial film with an established star (Francisco Rabal). The film

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was not without merit, but was a critical and box-office failure. La caza (The Hunt, 1966) was more difficult and artistically ambitious, and far more representative of his work as filmmaker for the next 15 years, as he became firmly established as the epitome of the dissident Franco-period filmmaker. This is a metaphorical story about a group of males who go hunting. The tensions between them, subdued at the beginning, finally explode in a bloody finale. Two elements present in this film recur in his later filmography. First, a self-conscious use of metaphor; second, the centrality of the role of memory and the impact of the past on the present. The authorities distrusted his elusive style, and immediately suspected rebelliousness and dangerous ideas. At the same time, during the late 1960s, he replaced Luis G. Berlanga as Spain’s most international director. Because he was less literal than his colleague, it was harder for censors to cut or forbid his films. He was also lucky to be working in the García Escudero years, when artistic films were at least nominally encouraged and supported with extra funds. In 1967, Saura started a professional collaboration with Geraldine Chaplin, who would become his companion, and they made seven films together: the first period of their work together includes Peppermint Frapé (1967), Stress es tres tres (Stress Is Three Three, 1968), and Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves, 1973). Mamá cumple cien años (Mom Is One Hundred), a sequel of sorts to the latter, was made in 1979. These films are increasingly elliptical, and weighed down by symbols. In terms of narrative, they assimilate the lessons of late 1960s European art films, exhibiting a leisurely pace and tending to be densely intellectual. The trend continues in his great films of the 1970s, when he stretches himself thematically and takes advantage of increasing freedom to rework some previous themes: Elisa, Vida mía (Elisa, Life of My Life, 1977), Los ojos vendados (Blindfolded, 1978) and, especially, Cria Cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1976), which became a success in the international festival circuit. This was shot at the very end of Francoism. Without Chaplin and before the end of the Franco period, he made La prima Angélica (Cousin Angelica, 1974), a fascinating play on memory with a great central performance by José Luis López Vázquez playing both a mature man and his younger self in the Civil War years, when he was in love with his cousin. The

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film is still regarded as his most complex effort, and a perfect balance between art and audience-friendly storytelling. The end of the political Transition cycle eventually left Saura with no further need for obscurity and suggested meanings. Consequently, his films became more accessible, and he explored new venues. His approach changed in ways that would have been difficult to predict during the early 1970s. Deprisa deprisa (Faster, Faster, 1981) was a return to his neorealist roots that was not very well received. However, his first musical trilogy, a series of ballet films on Spanish themes (Bodas de sangre [Blood Wedding, 1981], Carmen [1983], and El amor brujo [Love the Magician, 1986]) was hugely popular, both in Spain and abroad. He also tried his hand at an expensive, complex international production shot in Costa Rica, El Dorado (1988), about explorer López de Aguirre, which was not a success and some feared could signify the end of his career as filmmaker. But he returned to form and commercial success with ¡Ay Carmela! (1990), an important film in which he collaborated again with Rafael Azcona. It was based on a famous play, and it revisited the Civil War as source of inspiration. In the 1990s, Saura tried different genres: the social thriller in Taxi (1996), sports documentary in Marathon (1992), rural drama in El séptimo día (The Seventh Day, 2004), sentimental comedy in Pajarico (Little Bird, 1997), and artists’ biopics in Goya in Burdeos (Goya in Bourdeaux, 1999) and Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón (Buñuel and the Table of King Solomon, 2001). He continued exploring a variety of musical styles in films that range from the documentary to autobiographical fiction. His Tango (1998), in some ways a reworking of his earlier Carmen, is a postmodern narrative about a film director, in many ways an alter ego for Saura himself, who lives out the lyrics of the songs in his film projects. He also did documentaries featuring Andalusian songs and dances (Sevillanas, 1992; Flamenco, 1995; Iberia, 2005) and Portuguese popular torch song style (Fado, 2007). SEGURA, SANTIAGO (1965– ). Although he has directed few features, Santiago Segura is a key personality in contemporary Spanish film, not simply as the creator of a very personal set of references, but also as a creative influence. Like many stars, he has cultivated an

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image that audiences can easily relate to: fat, long-haired, unkempt, he looks like a cartoon version of the school geek and has been regarded as a response to a certain film culture based on glamor and taste. Segura studied film, and his early shorts (in which he created the character of Evilio, very close to his own persona in later films) show his inclination for the less respectable reaches of popular culture. Perturbado (Disturbed, 1993) was awarded the “best short” Goya in 1994. By then he had already become an actor and soon became an alter ego to director Álex de la Iglesia in the latter’s films. He had a small part in De la Iglesia’s Acción Mutante (Mutant Action, 1993), followed with a more substantial co-starring role in El día de la bestia (Day of the Beast, 1995), as a “satanist from Carabanchel,” which cemented his image. Following El día de la bestia, he was in two more films by De la Iglesia: the international production Perdita Durango (1997) and in Muertos de risa (Death by Laughter, 1999), where he starred as an unfunny TV comedian. Although they did not collaborate again, his image was associated with De la Iglesia’s world. Other roles include La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, Fernando Trueba, 1998), El oro de Moscú (Moscow’s Gold, Jesús Bonilla, 2003), and Una de Zombies (Zombie Movie, Miguel Ángel Lamata, 2003). He exploited his gross image in Isi / Disi Amor a lo bestia (AC / DC: Love in a Big Way, Chema de la Peña, 2004) and its sequel, Isi / Disi Alto voltaje (AC / DC: High Voltage, Miguel Ángel Lamata, 2006), in which he played a hard rock fan. In 1998, Segura directed his first feature, Torrente: El brazo tonto de la ley (Torrente: The Silly Arm of Law), which he also wrote. This satire on a corrupt Franco-loving policeman went on to become one of the biggest box-office hits in the history of Spanish cinema. Although intended as a mockery of trash and reactionary attitudes, the complete lack of substance or intellectual content had the effect of promoting the very same attitudes it was supposed to satirize. The film has spawned two sequels: Torrente: Misión en Marbella (Mission in Marbella, 2001) and Torrente 3: El protector (Torrente 3: The Protector, 2005). In addition to his film appearances, Segura has become an indefatigable self-promoter: his appearances on Spanish TV stations when

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publicizing his Torrente film have become something of a media cliché. SERRANO DE OSMA, CARLOS (1916–1984). Carlos Serrano de Osma was one of the most stylish and distinctive directors of the early Franco period. A Republican soldier during the Civil War, he was one of the few directors of the period who not only was highly cultivated but also approached film experimentally. He led a faintly articulated group in the immediate postwar known as “Los telúricos” (“the telurics”) that promoted a view of cinema removed both from realist and costumbrista conventions and from idealized comfortable filmmaking (other names associated with this group were Lorenzo Llobet García, Fernando Fernán Gómez, and Pedro Lazaga). Closer to expressionism and the intensity of poetic vision, he is a unique figure in the conventional landscape of the 1940s who always worked on the margins of the official industry. Unfortunately, Serrano de Osma’s efforts were not always successful with critics. In 1947, he directed three very unusual films, all stylistically striking and thematically complex. His debut was a complex version of Pío Baroja’s Abel Sánchez (1947), which audiences found hard to follow, prodigal as it was with odd camera positions and startling editing effects. The same year he directed La sirena negra (The Black Mermaid, 1947), an equally expressionistic film with gothic elements. Embrujo (Enchantment, 1947) was an emphatic attempt to intellectualize flamenco music, starring Lola Flores and Manolo Caracol, but critics found the Freudian imagery inimical to the essence of the music. His career lost momentum after these efforts. In 1951, he co-directed (with Daniel Mangrané) a version of Wagner’s Parsifal. The box-office failure of this film was largely responsible for his decline. From 1947, he became a founder and one of the most respected teachers of film direction at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (which he directed in the fruitful period 1961–68), with an interest in Einstein and Russian montage. SEVILLA, CARMEN (1930– ). Carmen Sevilla came across on film as a coquettish, perky, if somewhat soulless teenager endowed with

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unblemished skin, lively huge eyes, and Andalusian spontaneity. As in the case of other stars of the late 1940s, she conveyed a very meek, unerotic image. Discovered by Florián Rey when she was just a teenager earning a living dancing in Andalusian shows, she became one of the biggest stars of the 1950s, through her long association with Suevia Films production company. Although she did not possess a great voice, she could carry a tune, which was good enough for her vehicles, and it was in musicals that she made her mark. On the other hand, she could not convey the intensity or “racial” (or traditionally Spanish) temperament that other stars of the period (like Juanita Reina or Lola Flores) had in spades. Despite this, Sevilla had the longest career of the three. In the 1950s, under contract with Suevia, she played in a popular series of films, including Cuentos de la Alhambra (Tales of the Alhambra, Florián Rey, 1950); Un caballero andaluz (An Andalusian Gentleman, Luis Lucia, 1954); La pícara Molinera (The Flirty Miller, León Klimovsky, 1955), a new version of the Imperio Argentina classic La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister Saint Sulpice, Luis Lucia, 1952); and La fierecilla domada (The Taming of the Shrew, Antonio Román, 1956). Of particular sociological interest are the hugely successful operettas (in co-production with France) in which she starred with Spanish-born legend Luis Mariano: El sueño de Andalucía (The Dream of Andalusia, Luis Lucia, 1951), La belle de Cadix (Beauty of Cadiz, Raymond Bernard and Eusebio Fernández Ardavín, 1953), and especially the box-office sensation Violetas imperiales (Imperial Violets, Richard Pottier, 1952) are good examples of the genre. Thanks to the charm she brought to these, by the mid-1950s, Sevilla was an international star who participated in several coproductions with Latin America, France, Italy, and Hollywood (she had a small role as Mary Magdalene in Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings [1961]). As she became less credible as a virginal young lady, she also attempted more ambitious roles, as in Juan Antonio Bardem’s La venganza (Revenge, 1958). José Luis Sáenz de Heredia’s El balcón de la luna (The Balcony of the Moon, 1962) brought together the three great Andalusian divas of the period (the other two were Flores and Paquita Rico), but the disinterest shown by critics and audiences was an early sign that the genre was faltering.

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In the early 1960s, Sevilla entered a long crisis as her popularity faded. One attempt to mature on screen was to play in increasingly erotic and horror films for Eloy de la Iglesia (El techo de cristal [The Glass Ceiling, 1971], Nadie oyó gritar [No One Heard Screaming, 1973]) and Pedro Lazaga (Una mujer de Cabaret [Cabaret Woman, 1974], Terapia al desnudo [Naked Therapy, 1975]), but by 1977, after a part in Mariano Ozores’ El apolítico (The Apolitical Man), she left movies for good. She came back to public life as a television hostess in the 1980s, when she regained her former popularity and made brief appearances on film. SIERRA DE TERUEL. L’ESPOIR / TERUEL MOUNTAINS. HOPE (1939). There are occasions in which the making of a film becomes a legend and an epic in itself, no matter what the film is about. Sierra de Teruel, based on a novel by André Malraux’s who also directed, is one example of ambitious filmmaking that would only achieve recognition in Spain after Francisco Franco’s death. The French writer was part of a group of intellectuals who came to Spain at the beginning of the Civil War to support the Republican government. When he saw how the Fascists dealt the legal government and the promise of republicanism, and the support Nazi Germany and Mussolini were giving them, he set up a flight squadron to assist the government in the war effort. The adventure failed for lack of equipment and international support, but it provided the material for a war epic about a group of courageous pilots who defend a position on the Aragon front. After his fighting experience, he wrote a novel, L’espoir (Hope), whose third section would become the basis of a film script. He toured the United States to promote the loyalist cause and came back to work on his film project with funding provided by the Spanish government. The result is a daring, exciting narrative that uses literary devices and film style learned from contemporary Soviet cinema. He shot in Spain in late 1938, struggling against lack of negative stock and difficult conditions; by early 1939, with the Fascist troops surrounding Barcelona, he had to leave Spain. Arriving in France, he realized that he did not have enough material to cover the whole narrative, and he shot the necessary images in Paris studios. By the time the film was completed, the war was over and the Fascists had won.

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The French government allowed an early exhibition of the film, but on the eve of World War II they did not want to be seen as too involved in Spain’s internal affairs, and withdrew their support for the project. At the same time, the Fascists in Spain were using the film’s power for propaganda purposes. When the Nazis arrived in Paris shortly after, the film was destroyed, but luckily a print had been salvaged. It had a triumphant opening in Spain in 1977. SOLAS / WOMEN ALONE (1999). Thanks to audience response, Benito Zambrano’s modestly budgeted Solas was the surprise boxoffice hit of 1999 and went on to win several Goyas, in competition with Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999), no less. In spite of low production values, no stars, and a plot that provided few thrills, audiences soon found themselves empathizing strongly with the story and the performances. It tells the story of two women, a mother and daughter (played by Maria Galiana and Ana Fernández, respectively), as they meet life’s challenges in contemporary Seville. The mother, who lives in a small village, is in town to take care of her husband, who has been interned in a hospital. The daughter is a cleaner who lives on her own, in an untidy flat. She drinks and is finding it difficult to keep jobs. One of the main narrative themes focuses on their difficulties in dealing with violent men: they are both on their own as their men are insensitive and harsh. Although at first the daughter is reluctant to share any confidences with her mother, the film follows their developing relationship as she realizes she has a lot in common with her. Another thread has the mother movingly bonding with a lonely neighbor who is a widower and starting something that, for someone belonging to another generation, could have developed into an affair. Visually, Zambrano chose gritty realism, dwelling on unattractive surfaces and atmospheres, never glamorized, in reference to neorealist approaches. It was produced by independent Maestranza Films, with substantial financial support from the Andalusian government. The film touched a raw nerve in many spectators, particularly those who had family in rural Spain and had similar experiences to those of the protagonist.

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SPAGHETTI WESTERN. A large proportion of spaghetti Westerns were actually Hispano-Italian co-productions, shot first in the Monegros region in Aragón and later mostly in the Almería desert. From the late 1950s, the perceived decadence of Hollywood film and its production system, and the parallel rise of the European film industry after the postwar period, enabled European filmmakers to explore recognizable genres that could compete with American product. Examples of this were the sword-and-sandal epics of the early 1960s, filmed as co-productions among Italy, France, Spain, and even Hollywood. Production values were never very high, and they still required the presence of American actors (or at the very least Italian actors with English names), but still they succeeded in creating a substantial fan base. The spaghetti Western can be seen as a further (and less shortlived) step along this line of evolution. Although early attempts to work on European productions of Westerns go back to the early 1950s, the film that pinned down the formula was Sergio Leone’s Italian-Spanish-German co-production For a Fistful of Dollars (1964), starring an unknown actor named Clint Eastwood. Some of the main features are already here: Hollywood actors, violence, and an interesting use of music, lenses, and narrative rhythms. In many of these films, the co-production aspect was often merely nominal: at the time, funds were devoted exclusively to the development of international projects, and even with only small percentages of the budget, it was in the interest of producers to enter such productions. Although some key personnel came from Italy, most technicians and small acting parts were Spanish, which gave a centrality to the genre there. The Spanish spaghetti film industry peaked in the late 1960s, with emblematic actors like Fernando Sancho, Aldo Sanbrell, Frank Braña, and Antonio Casas. Spanish directors associated with the genre were the Balcázar brothers, Joaquín Romero Marchent, and Eduardo Manzanos, and even familiar names like Juan de Orduña, León Klimovsky, Ignacio F. Iquino, and José Luis Borau (who directed Brandy). The trend lasted well into the 1970s, when the success of the genre began to wane, having been replaced internationally by cheap horror thrillers.

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SPAIN IN NON-SPANISH FILM. In ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! (Welcome, Mr. Marshall! Luis G. Berlanga, 1953), a group of Castilian villagers pretend they are Andalusians so that they can appear more worthy candidates for assistance from the Marshall Plan committee. This is a good allegory of how Spanish identity has been portrayed abroad, to become attractive (or merely marketable). Spain, with Italy, was always a part of the mythical South. Given the authority and cultural centrality of northern Protestant discourses, Spaniards were represented as “others.” In the imagination of 19thcentury travelers, Spain was mostly Andalusia, and the Alhambra in Granada was a symbol of the country’s inherent exoticism. Another signifier of the Spanish ethos was bullfighting: purportedly cruel, colorful, and violent, this entertainment came to represent ancestral rituals. Whereas Italy was identified with the Renaissance, and writers could therefore look at it in terms of an alternative civilization, Spain was unruly, violent, dangerous, backward. The fact that Spanish intellectuals like Luis Buñuel or even Federico García Lorca came back to those bold images only strengthened these ideas in the first half of the 20th century. The second thematic strand in the way foreigners saw Spain has to do with sensuality and, more specifically, with sex. One of the most enduring (and most often retold) stories with a Spanish background is Carmen, a story of passion. In spite of a strict moral agenda enforced by Church authorities in the country, an unrepressed and dangerous sexuality was always part of the representation of Spaniards abroad. The brooding Rodolfo Valentino played a Spaniard in The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Rex Ingram, 1921), and he played a bullfighter in the silent version of Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, 1922). A garish 1947 color reworking of the latter, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, featured Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth as the sultry Doña Sol. Spanish otherness was also recurrent in some classic Hollywood musicals, as represented by the temperamental flamenco performer. Two important Hollywood films of the 1950s (both by Joseph Leo Mankiewickz) have important sections set in Spain, and sensuality is featured prominently in both: in The Barefoot Contessa (1954), the Ava Gardner character, a Spanish dancer, represented some essential sexuality in her promiscuity; the climactic flashback of Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), also took place in a vil-

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lage on the Spanish coast (Cabeza de Lobo), which was at the time a favorite destination for sexual tourism. This image of a backward, sensual country lingered in narratives during the 1950s and even into the 1960s, particularly given the isolationist policies adopted by the Franco governments. When the time came to open the country to foreigners, as the ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! plot device suggests, authorities decided that the image could be used in terms of picturesqueness to attract tourists. In many ways, this clashed with the conservative ideologies being imposed on Spaniards, but it was good marketing. After the Transition came a process of “Europeanization” of the country, but aspects of the old stereotypes have remained useful in providing Spanish culture with a recognizable repertoire of images. In a way, Pedro Almodóvar could be seen as emblematic of this “new image.” The sensuality, exoticism, and colorfulness associated with Spanish culture remains in his films, but the negative implications have disappeared. SUÁREZ, GONZALO (1934– ). Gonzálo Suárez’s surrealistic, almost experimental fictions were brimming with film references and motifs even before he turned to filmmaking. Throughout his career, literature would be a creative framework and theme. His character Ditirambo, the protagonist of some of his tales, was partly hard-boiled detective, partly adventurer, and he explored whimsical worlds. In spite of coming from the north of Spain (he was born in Oviedo), he became one of the most distinctive filmmakers of the Escuela de Barcelona. Suárez’s early filmwork shared the same sources of inspiration as his narratives: Kafkian fantasy and detective stories. He started exploring the medium in a series of shorts including El horrible ser nunca visto (The Never-Seen Horrible Being, 1966) and Ditirambo vela por nosotros (Ditirambo Watches Over Us, 1967). His fictional character, played by himself, was also the protagonist of his featurelength debut Ditirambo (1969). Then he announced a series of 10 narrative experiments, starting with El extraño caso del Doctor Fausto (The Strange Case of Doctor Faust, 1969), a personal reworking of the classic story, in which he played Mephistopheles. After the second installment in the series, Aoom (1970), which was never even released in cinemas, the project was interrupted.

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For a while Suárez turned his attention to straightforward adaptations, like La Regenta (1974), based on Leopoldo Alas’s “Clarín” masterpiece; Beatriz (1976), from a tale by Ramón del Valle-Inclán; and Parranda (Binge, 1977), inspired by a homosocial short novel by Eduardo Blanco Amor, but response was muted. More liberated, he came back to his more personal obsessions with Epílogo (Epilogue, 1984), a filmic exercise on meta-literature starring José Sacristán and Francisco Rabal as rival writer-detectives. In the 1980s, he made sporadic appearances as an actor, most prominently in Pedro Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This? 1984), in which he played an alcoholic writer who plans on publishing Adolf Hitler’s diaries. In 1985, he directed for television a very conventional miniseries based on a famous novel on Galician rural society, Los Pazos del Ulloa (The Manors in the Ulloa, 1985), which became a great success. After this, Suárez found renewed inspiration (and funding) for a series of original reworkings of literary classics. Remando al viento / Rowing with the Wind (1988), shot in English with a largely British cast, was the first of them. The film covered the events leading up to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with Hugh Grant in a remarkable performance as Lord Byron. The story had been told before (for instance, in the prologue to James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein), but Suárez introduced a deeply romantic perspective and a strong sense of visual composition. This was followed by Don Juan en los infiernos (Don Juan in Hell, 1991), possibly his masterpiece. In this film, one version of Don Juan wanders the wasteland of depressed, magical 17th-century Spain, haunted by memories, ghosts, and old lovers. Although El detective y la muerte (The Detective and Death, 1994), his most Kafkian film, had numerous literary elements, they came from a variety of sources (including his own fiction) rather than from a particular work. Fascinating in many ways (particularly in the visual creation of dark atmospheres), the plot, involving a detective and the young woman he has been asked to kill by a mysterious death figure, became too convoluted to make for good film storytelling. Mi nombre es sombra (My Name Is Shadow, 1996) was a well-scripted version of Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. In that decade he also directed La reina anónima (The Anonymous Queen, 1992), a

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metaphysical, absurdist comedy starring arch-sophisticate Marisa Paredes and a post-Almodóvar Carmen Maura. Suárez’s more recent films are less distinctive, but the throughlines of his career (literate dialogues, narrative experimentation) are recognizable in El portero (The Goalkeeper, 2000), a story engaging with Spanish past and memories of the Civil War, and Oviedo Express (2007) a return to Suárez’s native Asturias. SUEVIA FILMS. Founded by Cesáreo González in 1941, Suevia Films was the most prolific production company during the Franco period after the demise of CIFESA in the early 1950s. Born to a very poor Galician family, González’s rags-to-riches story is the stuff film legends are made of: he emigrated to Cuba in the mid-1920s, traveled to Mexico, and returned after the Civil War to his native Vigo in 1931, with a solid knowledge of the film industry. One of the early films produced by Suevia Films, Polizón a bordo (Stowaway on Board, Florián Rey, 1941), was actually based on his experiences abroad. Even in the 1940s, Suevia was one of the most important companies of the country, producing an unusual two to three films a year in the critical mid-decade years. Although never interested in buying property to build his own soundstages (Hollywood style), González used some aspects of the studio system, such as a more or less permanent team of directors (including José Luis Sáenz de Heredia and Florián Rey) and technicians, and, most importantly, a group of stars under exclusive contracts who were discovered and molded by the producer. Among them, the most important were Lola Flores, Carmen Sevilla, José Suárez, Paquita Rico, Joselito, Sara Montiel, and Marisol. The 1960s were the golden period for Suevia Films, which produced a number of artistically unambitious but very commercial films with the potential to be exhibited abroad. Musicals, especially the colorful folkloric variety, were a strength of the company, as well as light comedies with theatrical sources. González worked hard at co-productions (particularly with Mexico, but also with Italy, France, and Great Britain) and internationalization. In that decade, he set up the most successful Spanish distribution network abroad, which gave visibility to his projects. When González died unexpectedly in 1968,

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the company was still doing very good business, although without its leader it soon entered a phase of decadence. SUMMERS, MANUEL (1935–1993). Manuel Summers studied film direction at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas and was one of the filmmakers identified with the Nuevo cine español movement. He was also a cartoonist, and his film work was a mixture of satire and bittersweet comedy. Del rosa al amarillo (From Pink to Yellow, 1963), his film debut, was a portmanteau film consisting of two independent stories revolving around different attitudes to love. His next film, La niña de luto (The Girl in Mourning, 1964), was a gentle satire on Spanish village life that featured a woman who was prevented by mourning customs from becoming engaged to the man she loved. This project established his reputation as a keen observer of social life and witty scriptwriter. It was followed in 1966 by Juguetes rotos (Broken Toys, 1966), a documentary on the lives of has-been performers, bullfighters, and sports personalities when they reach old age. After this solid period, Summers’ career became more conventional. Aunque la hormona se vista de seda (Even If Hormones Are Dressed in Silk, 1971) was a weird approach to homosexuality in which he starred with Ana Belén. Although in Adiós cigüeña, adiós (Goodbye, Mr. Stork, Goodbye, 1971), on adolescent sexuality, and in Ángeles gordos (Fat Angels, 1982), there were still traces of a personal outlook, most of his post-1960s films are comedies that increasingly exploit sexual freedom. His candid-camera film To er mundo e güeno (People Are Good, 1982) was a big box-office hit and spawned two sequels. He was also the father of pop singer Guillermo Summers, a member of the group Hombres G, and in 1987, they starred in the musical Sufre mamón (Suffer, You Sucker, 1987). SURCOS / BURROWS (1951). Surcos led a return to realism in Spanish cinema after a decade and a half of patriotic films, literary adaptations, folkloric musicals, fancy comedies, and historical epics. The film tells the story of a family from the country who move to the big city to survive, but find the conditions and culture clash painful. They all have difficulties adapting, and the family unit starts to dissolve: the father is unable to find work in factories and is humili-

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ated by having to work in the house and wear an apron; the daughter becomes the lover of a racketeer and gets into show business; the older son becomes obsessed with the wrong kind of woman and has to work for the black market in order to keep her happy; only the naïve younger son eventually finds a better life by meeting a nice traditional girl (daughter of a puppeteer) and leaving the tenement house in which the family lives. What was original about this film was that, for the first time, reality on film had a social interpretation in the narrative: beyond the melodrama and individual situations, the film actually deals with the difficulties of traditional Spanish culture in face of critical upheavals, and it commented on the false hopes peasants had as illusions wrongly promoted by the system. A way had to be found, the film suggested, to provide balanced living conditions in their villages. The film was directed with a precise eye for urban landscapes and using largely real locations by Falangist José Antonio Nieves Conde, and in that year it was the main contender for every award. It competed against Alba de América (Dawn of America, Juan de Orduña, 1951), the last of CIFESA’s historical epics, and in some cases it won the contest. No doubt Surcos was the better film, but the reasons had to do with power struggles and different views on the potential social role of film. What was at stake was the definition of what Spanish cinema should be. Surcos was one of the examples set up by young filmmakers in the Salamanca Conversations as the new kind of film that the country needed. Nieves Conde assimilated the lessons of neorealism in a series of sequences shot in the street (even in the underground) bursting with the activity of everyday urban life.

– T – TE DOY MIS OJOS / I GIVE YOU MY EYES (2003). In 2003, open debate on domestic violence was still relatively muted in Spain. In the past, the idea had been that progress and women’s education would eventually make this deeply rooted problem disappear as Spain became a less traditional society. However, after almost 30 years of systematic efforts and support mechanisms, statistics suggested the

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issue only seemed to be getting worse. Indeed, public awareness of this specifically feminine problem was low: even as late as 1996, judges could claim that the defendants in cases of sexual harassment were actually provoking their assailants. Icíar Bollaín’s Te doy mis ojos became an effective vehicle to bring private suffering into the open and to suggest that legislation was not enough to stop a problem based in economics, education, images, history, and even emotional mythologies that most people would not find easy to let go. The film tells the story of Pilar (Laia Marull), a balanced, intelligent woman, who lives in fear of her husband Antonio’s bursts of violence. At the start, she leaves her home in the middle of the night with her son to move in with her sister Ana (Candela Peña). She is terrified. We know something has happened, but not seeing it only increases our perception of the horror this woman can be feeling. Her sister, who is in a more relaxed relationship, asks her to repudiate Antonio (Luis Tosar) and never go back. Pilar has to rebuild her life by finding a job and new friends, but her husband continually says he will change and claims his life makes no sense without her. Gradually, she is won over and comes back. Shortly after, the inevitable happens and, in a searing, uncomfortable to watch sequence, Antonio violently humiliates Pilar just as she is leaving the house for a job interview. At the end of the film, she decides to finally put the issue in the hands of the legal system. Te doy mis ojos works both in terms of melodrama and as a contribution to social debate. The acting is superb. Marull’s performance communicates the contradictory feelings of this woman who is deeply in love with the man who beats her and cannot bring herself to escape. Her strength seems to be in resisting hell. Her features register every hesitation, every pang when she feels her husband is about to show his violent side. Luis Tosar is threatening and seductive, a confused child who is nevertheless dangerous. It is in those two performances where the film’s depth lies: audiences understand these people, the web of contradictions they inhabit, but also are aware that Pilar must leave a situation that is not just holding her back but that may eventually kill her. As a discussion film, the different positions are all simply and clearly delineated. Bollaín spoke to victims of domestic violence and also tried to represent their partners’ mentalities: men trapped

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in chauvinist ideologies, whose emotions are blocked and who need reeducating. Antonio goes to support groups for help, but the lack of communication is evident: the psychologist can help him verbalize his problem, but his outbursts are provoked by emotions that are beyond words. Pilar’s mother (Rosa Maria Sardá) represents traditional female identity in Spain: not only does she encourage her daughter to go back to her husband, she seems to have identified with the image of sufferer of a violent husband. Finally, Ana represents a new womanhood that chooses her partner more wisely (in this case an adorable Scottish man who cooks, plays guitar, and is supportive of her) and who has escaped the pressures of Spanish traditional gender stereotypes by living abroad. Still, her position is also problematic. At one point, she is accused by Pilar of turning her back on reality. The solutions the film suggests are never easy: women have to go against their feelings or betray their roots and go away to escape the hell created by stifling versions of gender roles. TEJERO, FERNANDO (1967– ). From the late 1990s, through his appearances on film and television, Fernando Tejero has quickly become one of the most popular Spanish actors, following in a tradition of common comic types, such as those represented in the past by Alfredo Landa or Paco Martínez Soria. Broad audiences easily relate to the type of not-too-bright, uncultivated, and slightly naïve young man he has played repeatedly in a number of films. His emblematic roles were in Días de fútbol (Football Days, David Serrano, 2003) and the sequel of sorts El penalti más largo del mundo (The Longest Penalty in the World, Roberto Santiago, 2005). His characterizations so far have been paper-thin, if effective, and he has yet to show ambition in a starring role, but supporting parts in films like Torremolinos 73 (Pablo Berger, 2003), Crimen Ferpecto (Ferpect Crime, Álex de la Iglesia, 2004), or Días de cine (Cinema Days, David Serrano, 2007) show an actor attempting to change gears and try new registers. He owes his popularity partly to television, where he starred in the long-running sitcom Aquí no hay quien viva (No One Can Live Here). TELEVISION. In the beginning, film and television were considered natural rivals, competing for the audience’s leisure time. Television

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only became a mass phenomenon in Spain during the 1960s, and it took longer than in the rest of Europe to be a cause of concern for film producers. At that time, and until 1982, there was only one company, Televisión Española, which was under the direct authority of the government. There was also one channel, and its broadcasting schedules were very restricted. Even when an alternative channel was introduced, it took until the early 1970s before the choice was available to a majority of Spanish audiences. Spanish TV produced some dramatic programs (largely filmed plays), but provided no real alternative to cinema. In the late 1960s, television started to show films regularly. The competition this represented was counterbalanced by the fees charged in order to broadcast films. At the same time (and maybe for this reason), the number of cinemas in Spain remained high until the 1980s. But by the mid-1970s, there were obvious signs of a serious crisis in the film industry. In reality, the crisis had always been there, but in this case it was combined with more alternatives and with politically troubled times. The disappearance of censorship brought deep changes in the structure of the film industry and a number of measures to protect Spanish films. When Pilar Miró became General Director for Cinema, she introduced a series of measures that, on the one hand, would encourage more quality. On the other, she tried to transform the (by then) perceived rivalry between television and the film industry into a collaboration. But in the 1960s, it seemed as if cinema was “giving” and television was “receiving,” as funding was channeled into a different direction. Television started to produce series based on literary adaptations that gave employment to many professionals in the film industry. Also, throughout the 1980s, legislation allowed for a proliferation of television companies. As the decade progressed, it became clear that television was increasingly funding a great share of the films projected in cinemas: television companies put money into film projects to ensure broadcast rights. In recent times, the film industry has become totally reliant on television funding: very few films with a substantial budget do not seek the assistance of Tele 5, Antena 3, TV3, or media conglomerates like PRISA. Although not necessarily a bad thing, it remains to be seen how long these companies will continue to fund such an unreli-

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able, expensive business when they can produce their own popular products much more cheaply and easily. On a more positive note, the boom in television drama and sitcoms has in recent years provided many opportunities for actors and other professionals who can strengthen their training with secure work. Actors like Paz Vega, Javier Cámara, Carmen Machi, and Fernando Tejero cemented their reputations in televisión. Others have traveled the path in the opposite direction: Imanol Arias and Antonio Resines have developed solid television careers when film parts were scarce. TERCERA VÍA. Cine de la Tercera vía, or “Third-way cinema,” was a shrewd attempt, devised by producer José Luis Dibildos in the early 1970s, to make films that were commercially viable, acceptable to the regime and which, at the same time, engaged with social change brought on by increased openness. It was a difficult balancing act, particularly as censorship evolved, and its dictates were unreliable. At the time, cheap, unambitious, and politically reactionary desarrollismo comedies had the lion’s share of the industry and box office. The mid-1960s were dominated by José Luis López VázquezGracita Morales parodies and sentimental Paco Martínez Soria comedies, appreciated only by the working classes. Intellectuals and the middle classes, which tended to reject this brand of cinema, felt excluded as target audiences of Spanish cinema. As well, authorities were reluctant to allow unlimited freedom of expression to directors who wished to comment on society, fearing to open the floodgates of even greater social unrest. By using a conservative format, Tercera Vía films dealt timidly with social issues such as extramarital relations and abortion, remaining poised between crass commercial projects and the difficult and minority-bound auteur films of the, by then almost defunct, Nuevo cine español. The conclusion of these films tended to be conservative and the tone comedic, but they still engaged with reality before the Transition made them obsolete. An emblematic Tercera Via film was Españolas en París (Spanish Women in Paris, Roberto Bodegas, 1971), about a group of Spanish emigrant women living in France. Director Roberto Bodegas was the originator of the trend and remained the key Tercera Vía filmmaker.

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Further films by him include Los nuevos españoles (The New Spaniards, 1974) and Vida conyugal sana (Healthy Marital Life, 1974). Other important figures were José Luis Garci (largely a writer until the mid-1970s), Manuel Summers (whose post-Nuevo cine español films can be considered as instances of the trend), Antonio Drove, and Jesús Yagüe. The end of the Tercera Via came naturally when the political Transition ended government censorship, allowing more freedom in the representation of sexuality and politics, and also set a different agenda for the “New Spaniards.” In this sense, Garci’s Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject, 1977) and Solos en la madrugada (Alone in the Small Hours, 1978) could be considered the last films within this trend. TODO POR LA PASTA / ALL FOR THE DOUGH (1991). Todo por la pasta was the film debut of Enrique Urbizu, and it remains one of the most original and accomplished thrillers of the 1990s. Set in a vividly imagined (by art director Alex de la Iglesia) Bilbao of porn cinemas, derelict buildings, and run-down factories, it follows the classic pattern of a heist gone wrong (as featured, for instance, in John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle [1951]) and a group of characters who fight to get the money. These include the two protagonists, Azucena (María Barranco), an erotic show actress whose boyfriend was involved in the robbery, and Verónica (Kiti Manver), the tough manager of an old people’s home, as well as a plethora of characters, both from the world of crime (rentboys and hit men) and the law (including corrupt policemen who organized the robbery to use the money to pay for a political assassination). A set of vivid performances (particularly from the protagonists, but also from Antonio Resines, Caco Senante, Ramón Barea, and Pilar Bardem among others) and a Goya-nominated clockwork script (by Luis Marías) hold the interest in the convoluted events that make up the plot. Azucena and Verónica team up to share the stolen money, but issues of trust soon arise. The amoral ending, in which they end up sharing the sexual favors of a cute teenager, is a perfect conclusion for a tongue-in-cheek story. In a cinematography dominated by Civil War films and social realism, Urbizu’s film suggested a promising future for Spanish film that could now compete internationally, leaving the past behind.

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TODO SOBRE MI MADRE / ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999). Pedro Almodóvar’s stylish woman’s film was both a look back at certain themes of the mother-centered classical Hollywood melodrama and a tribute to a certain kind of strong womanhood, in particular to his own mother, who had just passed away at the time of shooting. For the writer-director, as he states in the film’s dedication, women are performers, and thus the stage diva becomes the quintessential image of femininity. Women who perform in different ways (acting, lying, faking, changing gender, even mothering) are the protagonists of a multistrand narrative in which the characters’ fates continue to reflect each other, producing a lively collage of women’s experiences. Manuela (Cecilia Roth), single mother to 15-year-old Esteban (Eloy Azorín), works as a head nurse in a Madrid hospital. During a theater outing to see Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), an actress he idolizes, Esteban is run over as he tries to get her autograph. Manuela is shattered, and decides she must find again the man who was her husband and who never knew he had a son in order to bring the past full circle. The search takes her to Barcelona, where she lived with him in the carefree 1980s. There she reencounters her old friend Agrado (Antonia San Juan), a transsexual who works as a prostitute, and becomes a surrogate mother to Sister Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a young nun from a wealthy family who has just become pregnant. She also meets Huma, who is touring A Streetcar Named Desire, the play Manuela went to see with her son the night he died, and her lover, Nina (Candela Peña) who plays Stella. One night, when Nina is too sick to go on, Manuela replaces her as Stanley’s wife, with great success. This raises suspicions. At the same time, it transpires that the man who got Sister Rosa pregnant was Esteban (Toni Cantó), Manuela’s ex-husband (who has now become Lola and works as a prostitute) and that he was HIV positive. At first, Manuela is angry, but then she accepts becoming the child’s adoptive mother. Sister Rosa dies and finally Manuela is able to confront Esteban / Lola at the funeral. The plot emphasized the idea of a network of women who are always there for one another, offering friendship, love, and mutual support. It was also a catalog of references to a number of famous women films, including John Casavettes’ Opening Night (quoted

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in the scene of the accident), Elia Kazan’s Streetcar Named Desire (Manuela identifies with Stella in the play) and, of course, Joseph Leo Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (which Manuela and her son watch together on TV), to name the most obvious. During the 1990s, critics in Spain had shown a certain hostility toward Almodóvar, strangely parallel to his rise to international stardom. All About My Mother changed this (all too briefly, as it turned out). It went on to become one of the great box-office hits of the year and won seven Goyas (out of 14 nominations), including for best film, best director, and best actress. Abroad, it won the best foreign film Academy Award, as well as the BAFTA for best film not in English, and Almodóvar won, among others, the BAFTA, the César, the David Di Donatello, and the Cannes Award as best director. TORO, GUILLERMO DEL (1964– ). Mexican-born Guillermo del Toro is, like countrymen Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, a perfect example of the international filmmaker, capable of undertaking big Hollywood productions (the Hellboy series, the Blade sequel, and now The Hobbit), but also interested in producing or directing more small-scale projects in Spain. He is also a true auteur, who continually displays a very personal imaginative universe, drenched in the fantastic tradition of fairy tales, monsters, and ghost stories, with a particular predilection for the work of H.P. Lovecraft, surrealism, and French symbolists. Born in Guadalajara, del Toro started as special effects and makeup artist, and went on to set up his own production company at age 21. He helped found the Guadalajara Film Festival in 1998. Cronos (1996), his first feature, told the uncanny story of a vampiric device, passed on through generations. The mix between a visual flair inherited from comics and conveyed through evocative and detailed art direction, and a dark sense of humor caught the attention of a few critics and many fans of the genre. Following the kidnapping of his father after the success of this film, he left his native country to settle in Los Angeles. The experience marked him and his response to evil. In Hollywood, del Toro undertook Mimic (1997) a big-budget Hollywood production starring Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, and F. Murray Abraham which, like Cronos, featured monstrous insects.

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The experience was reportedly an unhappy one, with production company Miramax altering the ending; to this day, del Toro does not regard the film’s second half as his own. But he learned from the experience that filmmakers with a vision need to achieve tight control of their project. The two installments so far of Hellboy (Hellboy, 2004 and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, 2008) are good examples of the director’s strengths. In 2008, he started work on The Hobbit, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel and produced by Peter Jackson. Del Toro’s Spanish films are among the central achievements of cinematic fantasy and horror in that cinematography. El espinazo del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, 2001) was produced by El Deseo. Federico Luppi, Eduardo Noriega, and Marisa Paredes star in this film, set in an orphanage for Republican children during the Spanish Civil War, which hides in its vaults the ghostly memory of a grisly murder. The story is set in the context of murderous historical conditions. Some of the director’s trademarks are also prominent here: the fantasy world of children and their attitude toward adults, a fascinated attention for the body (the Paredes’ character artificial leg, the face wounds that become a sign of Noriega’s monstrous nature), dark spaces, family secrets, and quintessentially evil characters drawn from fairy tales and comics. El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) is even more accomplished, and is regarded as one of the best films made in Spain. With a budget of about $19 million, a fraction of what a similar project would have cost in Hollywood, the film returns to the Civil War setting, and develops further central themes of El espinazo del Diablo: children, ancient myths, the presence of evil. El laberinto del fauno quickly went on to become the most successful Spanish film ever, doing strong business both in Spain and abroad. Del Toro’s name was also instrumental in marketing another Spanish horror film about children and ghosts, El orfanato (The Orphanage, J.A. Bayona, 2007), which he produced. It was a phenomenal box-office hit. TORRENT, ANA (1966– ). Ana Torrent will always be remembered as the watchful, lonely child at the center of Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973) and, later, in Carlos Saura’s Cría Cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1976). Both films are constructed around her searching, uncomprehending gaze, as she

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replaces a reality that does not make sense with dark imaginings (of finding Frankenstein’s monster, of killing her father and her aunt). She was also in Saura’s Elisa, vida mía (Elisa, Life of My Life, 1977) and grew up on screen as the teenage object of desire of a mature man in the Academy Award–nominated El nido (The Nest, Jaime de Armiñán, 1980). This role earned her international attention (and an award at the Montreal Film Festival), but was the last for a decade. She went to New York and trained seriously as an actress before returning to Spanish cinema. Torrent’s quiet, unemotional presence was put to effective use in Vacas (Cows, Julio Medem, 1991), in which she plays the adulterous wife who ends up leaving for America, and, especially, in Alejandro Amenábar’s Tesis (Dissertation, 1996). Her part in this film, as an undergraduate who, in the course of work for her dissertation, becomes fascinated by snuff movies, brought intriguing echoes of her early career (as if the attentive girl had grown into a voyeur) and put to good use her empty expression. From the mid-1990s, she has been a recurring supporting presence in a series of films and television series, including a strong leading role in Yoyes (Helena Taberna, 2000), based on the real life-story of a terrorist, and substantial appearances in Sagitario (Sagitarius, Vicente Molina-Foix, 2001), The Other Boleyn Girl (Justin Chadwick, 2008), and 14 Fabian Road (Jaime de Armiñán, 2008). TRUEBA, DAVID (1969– ). Fernando Trueba’s younger brother started in the film industry as scriptwriter for two Emilio Martínez Lázaro films: Amo tu cama rica (I Love Your Cosy Bed, 1992) and Los peores años de nuestra vida (The Worst Years of Our Lives, 1994), both starring his life-companion actress Ariadna Gil. His first film as director was La buena vida (The Good Life, 1996), in which he demonstrated his fascination with French culture and film. A melancholy family story inspired by François Truffaut and with important autobiographical connections, it was a risky enterprise and remains his most heartfelt film, but its underwhelming box-office success forced him to wait four years before attempting another project. In the meantime, he continued to collaborate on scripts, including Perdita Durango (1997) for Alex de la Iglesia, La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998) for Fernando Trueba, and a in Tony Gatlif’s gypsy tragedy Vengo (2000). He

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returned to direction with the comedy Obra maestra (Masterpiece, 2000), which seemed less personal than his previous film and was not very well reviewed. This was followed by the more prestigious Soldados de Salamina (Salamina Soldiers, 2003), a film adapted from one of the most successful Spanish novels of recent years, which featured an investigation into the past and reflected on the value of individual actions. His next feature was another comedy on growing up and taking responsibility, Bienvenido a casa (Welcome Home, 2006), starring Pilar López de Ayala as a mother-to-be, with up-and-coming Alejo Sauras and a good supporting cast which included Gil (in a part that moved away from her previous image), Concha Velasco, Jorge Sanz, and Juan Echanove. He also codirected a film tribute to Fernando Fernán Gómez, which featured a long conversation with the actor-director: La silla de Fernando (Fernando’s Chair, 2006). TRUEBA, FERNANDO (1955– ). Fernando Trueba is one of the key Spanish writer-directors of the post-Transition period, and has also developed a successful career as a producer. He was born in Madrid and studied Image and Communications. During the late 1970s, he directed a series of shorts, the most important being En legítima defensa, (In Self-Defense, 1978) and El león enamorado (A Lion in Love, 1979). At this time, he was also a film critic for Fotogramas and other prominent film magazines in Spain, such as Guía del Ocio; later, he would be the founder of Casablanca in 1981. In 1979, he set up with Fernando Colomo La Salamandra PC, the company that produced his first feature-length film, Ópera prima (1980). This was a hugely successful low-budget comedy in the style of Woody Allen, with a strong Madrid flavor, written in collaboration with actor Óscar Ladoire, his alter ego in the film and his preferred star in the next decade. It constituted a funny portrait of the psyche of intellectual males during the Transition and introduced one of the most characteristic actors of the period, Antonio Resines. In the following years, he tried a similar formula with Sal gorda (Get Out, Fat Girl, 1983), but was unable to achieve the same success. He alternated between film criticism and direction. Then, in 1985, he directed an adaptation of a British vaudeville by Ray Cooney, Sé infiel y no mires con quién (Be Wanton and Tread No Shame), which was a critical and box-office hit that opened new possibilities.

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Trueba found a new direction with El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, 1986). Co-scripted with Rafael Azcona, this coming-of-age story is set in the postwar era, and it manages to be both funny and sentimental; it garnered several awards. After the interesting but flawed Dream of the Mad Monkey (1989), an adaptation of a Christoper Frank novel shot in English, with Jeff Goldblum and Miranda Richardson, his films of the 1990s show him increasingly more self-assured, and more able to tackle personal projects, carefully crafted and boasting large casts. This was the case with Belle Epoque (1992), one of his great hits (again, co-written with Azcona). The Academy Award named it Best Foreign Film, which opened the door to Hollywood; in 1996, he directed in Two Much (1995), starring Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, and Daryl Hannah. The film was not a success, and he concentrated on production and television. The next milestone in his career was La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998), inspired by real events, in which a Spanish film troupe travels to Nazi Germany to shoot at UFA. As in Belle Epoque, attention to detail and the ability to make the most of a large cast are among its most enduring qualities. In the early 1990s, he was largely a television producer (for instance, of the long running series La mujer de tu vida [The Woman of Your Life, 1992–94]). He also directed the weekly show El peor programa de la semana (The Worst Program of the Week, 1993). In 2002, Trueba took over the adaptation of Juan Marsé’s novel El embrujo de Shanghai (The Shanghai Spell) from Víctor Erice, who was typically unable to follow the schedule as planned. He has not directed many features in the last 10 years, turning instead to music documentaries such as La calle 54 (54th Street, 2000) and El Milagro de Candeal (Candeal’s Miracle, 2004), on Carlinhos Brown and Brazilian popular music. El baile de la victoria (2009) was Trueba’s return to feature films after a long period. Set in Chile and based on a novel by Antonio Skármeta, it starred Ricardo Darín and Ariadna Gil. See also TRUEBA, DAVID.

– U – ÚLTIMOS DE FILIPINAS, LOS / LAST STAND IN THE PHILIPPINES (1945). Antonio Román was one of the most established

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filmmakers of the early Franco years. Otherwise unfailingly conventional, he directed one of the central films of the early postwar period, which dovetailed very well with the current ideological discourse. In the years before it became obvious that the Hitler-Mussolini alliance would lose the war, the Franco regime made efforts to project an image of heroism and the triumph of traditional ideologies, which would be paralleled all over the world. The triumphalism of the period extended to cinema, and a small number of important films gave expression to this ideology. Los últimos de Filipinas was the most popular of these. The film took as inspiration real-life events 40 years earlier, in which a Spanish battalion put up strong resistance in a church at Baler against native troops, a stand-off prolonged months after their government had renounced its claims on the Far East islands. But what distinguishes Los últimos de Filipinas beyond its ideology is the craft and precision of Román’s mise en scene, as well as a perfect assimilation of Hollywood models like John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934) and Tay Garnett’s Bataan (1943), which has been proposed as a direct source of inspiration. Román and co-scriptwriter Pedro de Juan (working from two historical accounts by Enrique Alfonso Barcones and Rafael Sánchez Campoy) find the individual investment in the group experience, delineating love stories and personal situations and ambition, as well as paying attention to the group dynamics. The presence of a song, “Yo te diré,” sung by Tala, a beautiful native woman, provides an exoticism underlined by the night lighting and the presence of an unusually strong cast that included a very young Fernando Rey, Manolo Morán, Tony Leblanc, Armando Calvo, and Nani Fernández that helps to explain why the film had such a grip on audience imagination. UNINCI. The Unión Industrial Cinematográfica (which can be translated as “Industrial Film Group”), was a production company set up in 1949 in the context of dissatisfaction with dominant trends in the commercial film industry. Early projects included El sótano (The Cellar, Jaime de Mayora, 1949) and Cuentos de la Alhambra (Tales from the Alhambra, Florián Rey, 1950). After Ricardo Muñoz Suay and others joined the Communist Party (illegal in Spain at the time), the company was systematically used to support films that could

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convey ideas from the Left and support the work of Leftist filmmakers. Muñoz Suay soon called his fellow Valencian Luis G. Berlanga and the latter’s Esa Pareja Feliz (That Happy Couple, 1953) codirector Juan Antonio Bardem to participate in a new project coalescing around star Lolita Sevilla. The directors were meant to become part of UNINCI and profit from the release. Bardem had to move on to another project after working on the script. The success of ¡Bienvenido Míster Marshall! (Welcome Mr. Marshall! 1953) helped the company for a while, but by the mid-1950s it had become clear that ideological interference from the Party was making it difficult to turn out good films: besides balancing artistic and party concerns, directors had to deal with the fact that communist influence could never be too obvious. Most of the films produced during the decade were unremarkable, with the exceptions being Fulano y Mengano (Such and Such, Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, 1959), Tal vez mañana (Maybe Tomorrow, Glauco Pellegrini, 1957), and A las cinco de la tarde (At Five O’Clock in the Afternoon, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1961). By the late 1950s, UNINCI had become something of a network of Left-wing or dissident filmmakers, including Fernando Fernán Gómez, Joaquín Jordá, Jesús Fernández Santos, Antxón Eceiza, and Carlos Saura. UNINCI’s next coup was to produce (with Pere Portabella’s Films 59) Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961), but the sanctions that followed the film’s presentation at Cannes put financial pressure on the company. Ricardo Muñoz Suay, who had been the main force within it, left in the early 1960s, and UNINCI disappeared until its brief revival under Juan Antonio Bardem in 1977. URBIZU, ENRIQUE (1962– ). Enrique Urbizu’s second film, Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, 1991), was an extraordinary noir thriller, partly The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1951), partly Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991). The director sought inspiration in the world of Chester Himes, adding an entertaining mix of action and comedy. In addition, the film offered solid performances from María Barranco, Kitti Manver, and Antonio Resines, who had never been better. It starred a club dancer (Barranco) and an old people’s home administrator (Manver) as two women who plan to steal the loot of a robbery. The film’s originality and the director’s eye for

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atmosphere and striking sequences (for instance in the scene in which a matriarch in a derelict housing project suspects her visitor is not the social worker she claims to be) seemed to announce a substantial career. Unfortunately, although there are glimpses of a solid talent in later projects like Cuernos de mujer (Women’s Horns, 1995), La caja 507 (Box 507, 2002), and La vida mancha (Life Stains, 2003), and although he often talks about tantalizing future projects, Urbizu’s promise is yet to materialize. Urbizu was born in Bilbao in the early 1960s, and therefore belongs to the talented generation of Basque filmmakers who reached maturity in the 1990s, which also includes Álex de la Iglesia, Julio Medem, Daniel Calparsoro, and Juanma Bajo Ulloa. He was brought up among three generations of women, which, he claims, accounts for the special interest he has in fascinating female characters. Since adolescence, he was a voracious reader, with interests ranging from comics to noir thrillers and adventure stories. His first film was the accomplished screwball comedy Tu novia está loca (Your Girlfriend Is Crazy, 1988). After Todo por la pasta, he seemed to enter a period of crisis and was unable to find funding for personal projects (in particular an intriguing adaptation of Jim Thomson). Cómo ser infeliz y disfrutarlo (How to Be Unhappy Enjoying It, 1994), a comedy for commercial producer Andrés Vicente Gómez, is a workmanlike adaptation of a mediocre novel starring Carmen Maura. Cachito (My Little One, 1996), adapted from one of Arturo Pérez Reverte’s lesser efforts, was a conventional comedy. In 2002, La caja 507 seemed a return to form. Some of the ingredients in his previous thriller were also here: a man fighting a mysterious, violent gang and noir mood. But the film lacked the sense of humor of his earlier effort, and his grip on the complicated story seemed to falter. La vida mancha, a well-written family melodrama about the complex relationship between two brothers, was his best film in a decade, and it featured an excellent central performance by José Coronado as a successful and mysterious older brother to a workingclass truck driver who comes back after many years abroad. URIBE, IMANOL (1950– ). Uribe belongs to the strongly auteurist generation of the early 1980s, such as Pedro Almodóvar or Fernando Trueba, filmmakers who fought for independence, set up

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their own film companies, and worked from their own scripts and ideas. His first film work was in the documentary genre. El proceso de Burgos (The Burgos Trials, 1979) was presented as an investigation of the ways in which the Franco government dealt with ETA militants. La fuga de Segovia (Escape from Segovia, 1981) had similar thematic concerns and was likewise inspired by real events (a group of ETA members broke out of a Segovia prison), but it was a feature film. At this time, he began a crucial collaboration with cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, who would later go on to light and find the exact mood for most of his successive projects. Uribe’s next feature, La muerte de Mikel (Mikel’s Death, 1984), a box-office hit, told the story of a homosexual Basque nationalist militant Mikel (Imanol Arias), who comes out only to find hostile reactions from his party comrades. Although confusing in its treatment of homosexuality, the film suggested depths of unrest and prejudice in traditional provincial society. At this point, enticed by funding schemes set up by the autonomous government, Uribe settled in the Basque country and set up his own production company. After two projects, Adiós pequeña (Farewell, Little One, 1986) and La luna negra (Black Moon, 1989), which followed the guidelines proposed by the politicians but did not achieve the expected results, he accepted El rey pasmado (The Baffled King, 1991), a big-budget costume drama set in the court of Philip IV, which was an adaptation from a historical novel by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester about the ripples generated when the King expresses the wish to see his wife naked, scandalizing conservative priests. The film was tightly plotted and attracted a glittering ensemble cast (including Fernando Fernán Gómez, Juan Diego, Eusebio Poncela, María Barranco, Javier Gurruchaga, Joaquim de Almeida, and Gabino Diego) who gave vivid performances. Its success gave him renewed confidence and the support of the industry, which he would use to fund his next and most personal project. The Basque country and ETA have been an important thematic thread in his work. Días contados (Running out of Time, 1994), his best known film, dared to humanize a terrorist (played by Carmelo Gómez) focusing dispassionately on his relationship with a heroinaddicted prostitute while he is preparing an attack in Madrid. The film did not take sides in a political conflict, but this was precisely

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the point. It went on to win numerous awards, including eight Goyas in that year. Uribe’s most recent films are all substantial projects with high production values, if not as personal as in previous years. Bwana (1996) is an adaptation from a stage play about a middle-class couple (played by Andrés Pajares and Uribe’s partner María Barranco) on a beach outing, who meet a black immigrant washed up by the waves as he attempts to enter the country illegally. Uribe made the most of the culture clash and the implicit racism in Spanish society. Plenilunio (Full Moon, 1999) and La carta esférica (The Nautical Chart, 2007) were further literary adaptations, from Antonio Muñoz Molina and Arturo Pérez Reverte, respectively. The former centered on a police investigation to capture a serial killer. In the latter, he returned to the world of 17th-century Spain with less successful results.

– V – VACAS / COWS (1992). Vacas was one of the emblematic titles of the New Basque cinema and also the feature debut of Julio Medem as director. On the one hand, to be supported by the Basque government, the film had to engage with aspects of regional culture. Medem focused on two peasant families through three generations, beginning with the Carlist Wars in the 19th century. Through the qualities and flaws of the characters, a certain image of the Basque national soul emerged, and the region’s peculiarities were traced back to past history. But Medem was no social realist along the lines of Montxo Armendáriz, the key Basque filmmaker of the previous decade. His approach was closer to Latin American magic realism, and he preferred a more prominent use of symbol and metaphor to tell his story. Although nothing fantastic really happens, Medem manages to suggest a sense of magic emanating from the forests and mountains, and seamlessly introduces a strong sense of ritual in the lives of his characters isolated, very much like those in Armendáriz’s Tasio, in mountain regions away from urban life. Formally, critics noted Medem’s bold, often exhilarating, camerawork and loose narrative structure. The film is organized into four long episodes. The first section, “The cowardly aizkolari,” is set in the late 19th-century Carlist

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Wars, which largely took place in the Basque forests, and introduces two young soldiers: Carmelo (Kandido Uranga), who will become a heroic warrior and Manuel (Carmelo Gómez), who is afraid of fighting. The latter injures himself so that he can pretend to be dead and thus escape from the battlefield, whereas Carmelo will die on it; this act creates a rivalry between their two families, breeding resentment that will emerge in the practice of a Basque sport that involves dexterity in woodcutting (an aizkolari is a practitioner of this sport). The second episode, “The Axes,” takes place in 1905, and centers on the competition, in woodcutting and in women, of the soldiers’ descendants, including an illicit relationship between Manuel’s son Ignacio and Carmelo’s daughter Catalina (Ana Torrent), which will bear illegitimate offspring. Meanwhile, their lives are quietly watched by a neutral herd of cows, whose point of view represents permanence. Two more sections, “The Hidden Hole” and “War in the Forest,” bring the story up to the Civil War period. In the former, Catalina and Ignacio escape to America. In the latter, their son Peru returns as a reporter to be a witness to the war, is caught by the rebel army, and is eventually held at the mercy of a descendant of Carmelo. The film was internationally released at the Panorama section of the 1992 Berlin Film Festival, and drew attention to Medem as a new talent to watch. The film won awards at festivals in Tokyo, Turin, and Montreal, and Medem himself won the Goya for best new director that year. Significantly, his ensuing films have been more appreciated abroad than in his own country. VAJDA, LADISLAO (1906–1965). Before settling down in Spain in 1942, Laszlo Vajda already had an impressive list of directing credits in his native Hungary, and in France and Italy, made as he sought refuge from anti-Semitic laws. Vajda’s father was the playwright and producer Laszlo Vajda, who was a scriptwriter for G.W. Pabst and worked with Michael Curtiz. After a career that took him to different countries and provided training in a variety of areas in the film industry, his son brought to Spanish cinema a precision and imagination in terms of framing that is most evident in Marcelino Pan y vino (Marcelino Bread and Wine, 1955) that can be traced to European art cinema of the 1930s. His films of the 1940s were mostly conventional comedies, in which he compensated with craft for the weaknesses

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of the material. It was only after he met scriptwriter José Santugini Parada in 1950, who would go on to become a frequent collaborator, that he reached maturity in the Spanish film industry, completing a series of very personal and highly accomplished projects in the decade that followed. Vajda shot two excellent police thrillers, Séptima página (Seventh Page, 1950) and, especially, El cebo (The Bait, 1958), an atmospheric Hispano-Swiss co-production about a serial child murderer from a script by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Another genre that suited his talent was the musical: he directed a number of them, including Ronda española (Spanish Tour, 1952), Aventuras del barbero de Sevilla (Adventures of the Barber of Seville, 1954), and his adaptation of the zarzuela Doña Francisquita (1953). Following a 1950s trend in Spanish cinema, he also directed a mountainset story of fair outlaws, reminiscent of Hollywood westerns and rooted in populist Robin Hood legends, titled Carne de horca (Fated to be Hanged, 1953). Finally, he attempted a bullfighting drama with the intriguing Tarde de toros (Bullfighting Afternoon, 1956), an ensemble piece that follows the fates of several characters during a single corrida. But Vajda’s best remembered films are the three projects he made starring child actor Pablito Calvo: Mi tío Jacinto (My Uncle Jacinto, 1956), Un ángel pasó por Brooklyn (An Angel Flew Over Brooklyn, 1957), and the legendary hit, Marcelino Pan y vino, one of the earliest Spanish film exports. Mi tío Jacinto remains an excellent illustration of Spanish neorealism that replaces sentimentalism with social criticism. The narrative follows an orphan (Calvo) who tries to help his unemployed uncle. Un ángel pasó por Brooklyn uses the similar formula of a saintly boy who engages audiences’ emotions. Marcelino remains his masterpiece, as well as one of the best crafted religious films made in Spain. It tells the story of an orphan abandoned at the gate of a monastery and brought up by the monks. He grows up enlivening their lives but painfully missing his mother. One day, he claims to have spoken to an image of Jesus Christ on the cross that was hidden away in an attic. The monks assume Marcelino is very sick, soon find him dead in the arms of Jesus. Vajda follows a literate approach that creates an effective aesthetic framework. Thanks to this, the film avoids

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some of the genre’s pitfalls: it is told as a story and never attempts to present itself as reality. Vajda became a Spanish national in 1954. In the 1960s, he completed some international productions, financed by his own company. For his last title, La dama de Beirut (The Lady from Beirut, 1965), a Sara Montiel vehicle, he returned to Spain. VEGA, PAZ (1976– ). Paz Vega gained prominence in television series (such as Más que amigos [More Than Friends], which aired in the 1997–98 season) and her film debut in a small part in Perdón, perdón (Excuse Me, Manuel Ríos San Martín, 1998), which was followed by similar roles in Zapping (Juan Manuel Chumilla) and Sobreviviré (I Will Survive, Alfonso Albacete and David Menkes), both released in 1999. She was first noticed by film critics in Mateo Gil’s Nadie conoce a nadie (No One Knows No One, 1999), as the protagonist’s girlfriend. But her career-defining role was the eponymous character in Julio Medem’s Lucía y el sexo (Lucía and Sex, 2001), as a freewheeling, sexually liberated young woman who travels to Formentera to heal her wounds at the end of a relationship. After a number of bland characterizations, Vega conveyed in this film intense, touching emotions and revealed a versatile performer who was unafraid of intimacy. The role also gave her international exposure, and it would become the cornerstone of her Hollywood career. But first came a series of parts in Spanish films that turned her into one of the most exciting new actresses of the new millennium. She shown in El otro lado de la cama (The Other Side of Bed, Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 2002), was excellent in Novo (Jean Pierre-Limosin, 2002), and her Carmen (2003) for Vicente Aranda was immensely watchable and among the most complex interpretations of the role ever undertaken, the warm heart of a flawed film. She was also very funny in a cameo in Pedro Almodóvar’s Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002) as a scientist who shrinks her lover. In 2004, she debuted in Hollywood with Spanglish, a James L. Brooks’ comedy, in which she plays a Mexican nanny. She was criticized in Spain for accepting a role that was considered racial stereotyping, but the real problem was that she seemed lost, with a weak grasp on language, and completely unrelaxed. Determined to have an international career, she persisted in roles abroad with

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10 Items or Less (Brad Silberling, 2006), The Spirit (Frank Miller, 2008), and The Human Contract (Jada Pinkett Smith, 2008), and she also continued her television work in the popular sitcom Siete vidas (Seven Lives) until 2006. However, her most substantial acting since Carmen was in Ray Loriga’s Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa, Body of Christ, 2007), where she played a sexualized version of the Catholic saint. VELASCO, CONCHA (1939– ). Concha Velasco started working in films at a very early age, playing plucky, resourceful young ladies in choral films such as Las chicas de la Cruz Roja (The Red Cross Girls, Rafael J. Salvia, 1958) and Historias de la television (Tales from Television, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1965). In the latter, she was a hit in her brief musical number “La chica ye-yé” (“The Yeah Yeah Girl”), which would contribute to her iconic aura in later years, particularly among devotees of pop music. At the time, she was known by a diminutive, “Conchita” Velasco, and her career seemed aimed to be just one more among the many peppy starlets who aspired to represent the new modern girl of the comedia desarrollista.” Velasco got her start in musical theater, in the company of stage diva Celia Gámez, and throughout the late 1960s, she exploited her musical talents in a series of films with copla star Manolo Escobar. Me debes un muerto (You Owe Me a Corpse, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1971), inspired by Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), was possibly the best in this period. Most of her films in the decade were low-quality productions, directed by Sáenz de Heredia, a director who had by that time lost his trademark touch and was unable to help develop her distinctive character. Only after a series of attention-grabbing performances for the National Theater Company in the early 1970s was Velasco taken seriously. It was also at that time that she became involved in the Union movement and expressed her affinity with Left-wing causes. In 1974, Velasco took on a strong supporting role in Tormento (Torment, 1974), Pedro Olea’s adaptation of Benito Pérez Galdós novel of the same title. This role redefined her career, gaining her good reviews and numerous awards. She still took part in comedies, but she was increasingly ambitious in her choices. Other roles in serious historical films followed. Pim Pam Pum . . . ¡Fuego! (Ready, Aim

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. . . Fire!) in 1976 (again directed by Pedro Olea) is perhaps her best in the period. Her image as a showgirl reverberated in this story of survival during the immediate postwar era. Other roles in historical dramas that marked her professional maturity include Las largas vacaciones del 36 (The Long Vacation of 1936, Jaime Camino, 1976). During the Transition, she was very vocal in her support for the socialists and was prominent in protests against cultural policy and strikes by actors unions. Alternating theater work (particularly in a series of musicals penned for her by playwright Antonio Gala) with mature film parts (La colmena [The Beehive], Mario Camus, 1982), her reputation remained solid throughout the 1980s, particularly after her committed work playing Saint Teresa in the TV series Teresa de Jesús (1984), directed by Josefina Molina. Her housewife in Más allá del jardín (1996, a role written by her friend Gala, in a film directed by Pedro Olea) was her defining mature work of the 1990s, but Velasco was now nearing 60, and there were simply not enough starring parts to keep her working steadily. In the latter part of her career, she has become specialized in character roles, often playing tough women with an ironic twist. She was relaxed with nudity in Luis G. Berlanga’s París-Timbuctú (1999), and played the dissatisfied married woman in Kilómetro Cero (Zero Point, Yolanda García Serrano and Juan Luis Iborra, 2000). She plays the hilarious harridan mother of a gay man in Chuecatown (Juan Flahn, 2007), one of her most recent parts. VERBENA DE LA PALOMA, LA / THE FAIR OF THE VIRGIN OF THE DOVE (1935). La verbena de la Paloma has been regarded not only as the best film adaptation of a zarzuela but also the jewel in the crown of popular Republican cinema and one of the best examples of the Republican version of populism. As in other musicals, the plot revolves around a young man who intends to take his girl to a ball (in this case to celebrate the Madrid Virgin of the Dove) and her attempts to make him jealous (the same motif appears, for instance, in Oklahoma!). Well-established traditions were recycled into the new medium and, in tune with the times, the product was meant for working-class audiences; there was no attempt to impose old-fashioned Catholic morality (as in such films as La aldea maldita [The Cursed Village

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1930] and Nobleza baturra [that could be translated as Aragonese Nobility or Rustic Chivalry, 1935], both directed by Florián Rey), no redemption through prayer, no divine intervention; working-class characters could be funny without becoming ridiculous caricatures, and their appeal made identification easier. There was a celebration of the small events in their lives, rather than the use of grand gestures and heightened plots, following the costumbrismo approach. Perojo’s roving camera moves with amazing agility through streets, façades, among crowds, and around cafés, displaying an energy that is the visual counterpart to the music. La verbena de la Paloma opened to unanimous praise on 23 December 1935 and went on to attract an international audience. Reviewers recognized it as the first masterpiece of Spanish cinema. It also constituted the most original and imaginative blending of music and cinematic resources in the history of the Spanish musical, practically unsurpassed in its ambition until Carlos Saura’s work in the genre over the last two decades. VERDÚ, MARIBEL (1970– ). Maribel Verdú is a perfect example of that generation of actresses who debuted on film as teenagers in the early 1980s and, given the interest in sex and sexuality of those years, soon were featured as nymphets in the films of male directors. As in other cases, she alternated these projects with more committed work, making a conscious effort to “de-glamorize” herself before critics took her seriously as an actress. Over the course of two decades, Verdú has grown up in front of the cameras, and, in the process, has uncovered a wide range of abilities. Verdú debuted as an actress on television, with brief appearances in La huella del crimen (The Trace of Crime, 1984) and Turno de oficio (Duty Shift, 1986), but she was first noticed in Fernando Trueba’s El año de las luces (The Year of Enlightenment, 1986), in which she starred for the first time with Jorge Sanz, a frequent on-screen partner in the following years (their last film together to date was Pedro Olea’s Tiempo de Tormenta [Stormy Weather] in 2006). This started a prolific early period in her career, in which she specialized in young sexy women. Her most popular roles were in La estanquera de Vallecas (The Vallecas Tobacconist, Eloy de la Iglesia, 1987), El juego más divertido (The Most Enjoyable Game,

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Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 1988), and El aire de un crimen (The Scent of a Crime, Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1989). Her maid in Amantes (Lovers, Vicente Aranda, 1991) was particularly well received by critics, and she was given the chance to display a more mature acting talent. She was very funny as Rocío in Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992), as the most sexually aggressive of the four sisters, and continued to develop in Bigas Luna’s Huevos de oro (Golden Balls, 1994) and Jaime de Armiñán’s Al otro lado del túnel (The Other Side of the Tunnel, 1994). La buena estrella (The Lucky Star, Ricardo Franco, 1997) was another personal triumph. In previous years, she had often been featured as a statically beautiful woman, but in Franco’s film she was emotionally intense as a poor woman picked up, sheltered, and educated by Antonio Resines (another of the film’s acting revelations). As the story develops, a shadow from the past will return in the attractive shape of her ex-partner, played by Jordi Mollá. Verdú ability to project her very different emotions toward both men reveals a previously unexplored richness in her acting. After La buena estrella, Verdú successfully continued to alternate her comedic gifts (for instance in El Palo [The Hold-Up] Eva Lesmes, 2001) with more heartfelt performances (as an aristocrat in Carlos Saura’s Goya en Burdeos [Goya in Bordeaux], 1999). As a working-class woman married to a faithless man, who faces death and takes off on a trip with two teenagers in Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001) she gave a subtle, perfectly detailed, and heartfelt performance that once again displayed her versatility. In this part, both strands in her career, the sexy girl and the soulful young woman, merged to convey an emotionally deep character. In recent years, she was outrageously funny in Lisístrata (Francesc Bellmunt, 2002), based on Ralf König’s graphic novel; interesting to watch in Siete mesas de billar francés (Seven Tables of French Billiard, Gracia Querejeta, 2007), the film that earned her a well-deserved Goya award); and excellent as a sober and introspective peasant woman in El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006). VERDUGO, EL / THE EXECUTIONER (1963). El verdugo has always had a privileged position in the Spanish cinema canon. Even

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with some 15 minutes of cuts from the finished 1963 version (some of these have now been reinstated), consensus regards Luis G. Berlanga’s masterpiece as a key anti-Franco film that managed to bypass the censor against all odds and express a critique of certain aspects of the regime. As the film starts, José Luis (Nino Manfredi), an undertaker, is on duty in a Madrid prison. He is there with his colleague to receive the corpse of a sentenced prisoner. As he leaves with the coffin, Amadeo, the talkative executioner (Pepe Isbert), asks them for a lift to the city. José Luis is reluctant, as he dislikes the idea of being too close to a man with such a gruesome job. José Luis visits the executioner in the latter’s airless, cluttered flat, where he meets his voluptuous daughter Carmen (Emma Penella). A relationship develops between them, and soon they are attending picnics with Amadeo. One day, as the young couple are together in bed, they are caught by Amadeo. When Carmen announces she’s pregnant, he is forced to marry her and, later, to inherit Amadeo’s job as executioner. The first section of the film shows the character gradually becoming trapped in a spider’s web, with sex, marriage, and a new flat as bait. As long as he is not called on to perform his duties, his life improves and he achieves marital happiness, but this situation does not last. In the final sequence, he returns from his first execution, swearing he will never do it again and vowing to resign, but Amadeo shakes his head and remarks that he uttered exactly the same words after his first job. Previously, in a famous shot, José Luis is accompanied to the room where the sentence is to be carried out, following the condemned man, and he seems to be more distressed and in need of help than the latter. According to Berlanga, this image is the origin of the whole film: two groups of people, one supporting the victim, the other the executioner, crossing a great white hall toward a small black door; progressively, the group supporting the victim becomes smaller as the executioner needs more and more support. “This image,” he said, “suggested to me that not only the condemned could ‘degenerate’ . . . but the executioner himself would crumble down when he has to kill. Two groups dragging two persons who are to be executioner and victim, that is the film’s key image.” VIDA SECRETA DE LAS PALABRAS, LA / THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS (2005). Difficult and intense, Isabel Coixet’s film was

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consistent with her ongoing investigation into wounded souls and suppressed emotions slowly worming their way to her characters’ surfaces. The “words” referred to in the title are experiences so unbearable that they are buried deep in the characters’ minds. It takes a long time for audiences to realize what ails Hannah (Sarah Polley), a former nurse working in a paper factory in a North Sea town, who is forced by her superiors to take a holiday. Intriguingly unable to relax into a period of leisure, she overhears a man on the phone who says someone is needed on an oil rig to take care of an accident victim who cannot be moved. Hannah volunteers. The victim is Josef (Tim Robbins), a man with regrets of his own, more talkative but equally reserved about them, who is suffering from temporary blindness. The relationship between them is difficult, especially due to Hannah’s uncommunicative nature, but it will grow into something so strong as to make Hannah open up about her past as a torture victim and then turn her back on Josef, unable to face the weight of memories. The film is visually arresting, presenting a location rarely seen on film, and lingering on it with patient, obsessive attention. Following the accident, the platform is almost deserted, and its few inhabitants (including a cook and an oceanographer) lead aimless, expectant existences. Coixet’s camera is fascinated by every small detail in the rig: the lonely flower pots, the basketball pole, a goose, a swing. The film is more effective for its refusal to work within the conventions of classical, event-driven narratives. On the one hand, the director achieves a sense of stillness that will make the impact of the final revelations even stronger. Also, characters are presented as part of a time continuum and within a capsule at the same time, and it is suggested that each of them has his own secret words buried within. The film was produced by El Deseo S.A. on a budget of $5,000,000. It opened to respectable business in Europe. Typically for a Coixet film, it was shot in English and the central characters were Englishspeaking actors, which made the film more marketable outside Spain. Critics lavished praise on Polley’s raw uncompromising performance and on Coixet’s direction. The latter won the Goya that year, as did the film itself. VILLARONGA, AGUSTÍ (1953– ). This Majorca-born filmmaker made a number of shorts between 1976 and 1980, but then carried

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out a variety of tasks like costume or production designer before directing his first feature, Tras el cristal (Behind Glass, 1987), a claustrophobic film about an ex-Nazi officer who was also a child abuser. When he becomes trapped in an artificial lung after an accident a few years later, one of his previous victims comes back to take revenge. The film evidences a personal, obsessive world and a taste for morbid atmospheres not lacking in beauty, as well as an exceptional visual sense: although weak in traditional narrative structure, the film communicates strong emotions visually. Next came El niño de la luna (The Moon Child, 1989), another visually striking film, and the television thriller El pasajero clandestino (The Clandestine Passenger, 1995). It was followed in 1997 by 99.9, an accomplished (and more commercial) horror film starring María Barranco and Gustavo Salmerón. El mar (The Sea), made in 1999, is Villaronga’s most complex film. It meant a return to some of the themes of his debut. Based on a hermetic novel by Blai Bonet, Villaronga extracted homoeroticism from his story of three friends in a sanatorium during the early post-Civil War period. Aro Tolbukhin: En la mente del asesino (Aro Tolbukhin: Inside the Murderer’s Mind, 2002), co-directed with Isaac Pierre Racine, documented the biography of a real-life arsonist, combining dramatized segments with documentary materials. VIRIDIANA (1961). While shooting Sonatas (1959) in Mexico, Juan Antonio Bardem contacted Luis Buñuel to discuss the possibility of a return to Spain to shoot a film. Bardem brought in UNINCI producer Ricardo Muñoz Suay, who also secured the support of adventurous Pere Portabella (whose company Films 59 had supported Marco Ferreri’s work). Another contribution came from Mexican producer Gustavo Alatriste, who was looking for a part to launch his wife Silvia Pinal’s international career. The result, Viridiana, owes its undisputed centrality in Spanish cinema to many counts. Canonically, it has a place of privilege on critics and reviewers “best” lists. It is to date the only Spanish film to have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It was also one of the very few Spanish features by Luis Buñuel, one of only three actually shot in Spain, and it was also one of the films Buñuel felt more comfortable shooting.

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But the reasons for Viridiana’s popularity go beyond issues of quality. In a way, its passage through censorship boards, its scandalous release, and the fact that after winning the Cannes award the film was banned in its country of origin is emblematic of the problems with Spanish cinema during the Franco period, when not even the most talented directors (particularly, one might stress, the most talented directors) were able to make films. Historically, it was also a film that tightened censorship at a time when Spanish society was beginning to open up to foreign influences. Finally, it taps very deeply into specific Spanish traditions: the religious obsession, black humor, sexual undertones, and the emphasis on poverty presented in realistic, near costumbrismo imagery. Viridiana is a nun (Silvia Pinal) who is about to take the vows, when she is called by her wealthy uncle and tutor Don Jaime (Fernando Rey) to his big country house. During the short period she stays there, he becomes infatuated with the young woman, who reminds him of his dead wife. One night he dresses her in the latter’s wedding gown, drugs her, and attempts to have sex with her. After proposing marriage and being refused he commits suicide. Feeling guilty about her uncle’s death, Viridiana renounces her vocation and decides to stay in the house and make good by creating a hostel for the poor. She brings a group of beggars to live with her and tries to teach them Christian virtues. After Don Jaime’s death, his natural son Jorge (Francisco Rabal) has also inherited the house. Although from the beginning there are signs of interest for his cousin, she resists and devotes herself almost fiercely to her charity work, trying to turn the house into a Christian community in which beggars take up work as laborers. One day, when Viridiana and Jorge leave the house, the poor take over the house, organize a party, and get drunk. When Viridiana and her cousin return, one of the beggars tries to rape Viridian, another ties her up and steals money from Jorge. Shocked, Viridiana recognizes her defeat. In Buñuel’s original script, she finally let herself be seduced by Jorge. This was something that the Spanish censors would never allow. In the film, Viridiana just knocks the door of a room where Jorge and the housekeeper are playing cards and joins them in their game, suggesting not only a sexual liaison but an even more transgressive one.

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Although the narrative can be told straightforwardly, what makes Viridiana such a complex film is Buñuel’s subtle use of imagery. A simple, everyday object like a skipping rope, first appearing as a toy, goes through a series of transformations: it becomes the rope Don Jaime uses to hang himself, later it will be used as a belt with phallic connotations by the beggars, and it will also be featured in the rape scene. One of the main accusations from the establishment was that Viridiana was “blasphemous,” but this is incidental and reduced to some of the great cliches of classic Christian imagery by Buñuel: the Holy Supper and the Angelus. What is more disturbing is a disenchanted view of Christian charity and the representation of the poor not just as meek and deserving of salvation, but as disruptive, sexually active, and unreliable. The censors pointed out some controversial aspects in the script, but Buñuel only accepted some of the emendations, and the film was sent to Cannes to the consequent outrage of the Vatican authorities. The Spanish government then fired the general director of cinematography and the film was declared nonexistent (legally, a decree was passed saying that it was never done). Fortunately prints existed in Paris, and Mexican producer Gustavo Alatriste released the film worldwide. Viridiana only opened in Spain in 1977, and it only regained Spanish nationality, after some legal fiddling, in 1982. VOLVER / TO RETURN (2006). After the hostility or indifference generated by his 2004 film La mala educación (Bad Education), Volver was, for director Pedro Almodóvar, a “return” in more than one sense. First, it was a return to brighter colors and a lighter story centered on women after two dissections of twisted male psychologies. In turn, this meant a return to popularity among critics and audiences, who had complained about the grimness of the director’s last efforts: the film made 10 million Euro at the box office (in a country where 2 million is considered respectable) and won five Goyas, as well as two prizes in Cannes (for script and ensemble cast) and numerous international awards (mostly as “best foreign film”) in Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, and Canada. It was also a return to his homeland, La Mancha (since 1995’s La flor de mi secreto [Flower of My Secret]), and the

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first time after Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988) that he worked with his former favorite actress Carmen Maura. The story focuses on Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas), two sisters from a Spanish village who move to Madrid in the wake of a tragedy: their father was killed in a fire and their mother (Maura) also disappeared under strange circumstances. But there are rumors that she is back among the living, which are confirmed when she appears in Sole’s house (which she uses as an illegal hairdressing salon). Meantime, Raimunda, a strong, resourceful woman with a teenage daughter who married an uncaring chauvinist man, has a secret to protect: returning home one day she finds her husband killed accidentally while his daughter was fending him off after he attempted to rape her. Typically for Almodóvar, these women are observed sympathetically, and there is a relish in their rituals and emotions. Before the reconciliation between Raimunda and her mother takes place and secrets are brought into the open, we have sequences of bonding, arguing, some songs, and a bit of suspense. The combination was as superbly crafted as it was shamelessly commercial: entertainment, visual flair, and emotion were more important than narrative or logical concerns, and the actresses were, as always, a joy to watch.

– W – WATLING, LEONOR (1975– ). After her roles for Pedro Almodóvar, Bigas Luna, Isabel Coixet, and Vicente Aranda, Leonor Watling became one of the most in-demand young actresses of recent times. She was the bilingual daughter of a British mother and an Andalusian father. Although dance was her first vocation, a knee injury prevented her from pursuing a career, and she went to London to train as an actress. On her return to Spain in the mid-1990s, she worked in television soaps and had her breakthrough as the protagonist of the Civil War drama La hora de los valientes (Time for the Brave, Antonio Mercero, 1998), a role for which she was nominated for a Goya. More remarkable parts followed, which played on her serene beauty and down to earth personality, including a dancer in Almodóvar’s

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Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002) and a soulful waitress in Cesc Gay’s ensemble comedy En la ciudad (In the City, 2003). Equally at home in comedy and drama, she was funny and touching in A mi madre le gustan las mujeres (My Mother Likes Women, Daniela Fejerman and Ines París, 2002), as a young woman who is shocked to discover her mother is a lesbian; and she displayed her sense of comic timing in Joaquín Oristrell’s Inconscientes (Unconscious, 2005). She also played more serious parts in Manuel Huerga’s Salvador (2006) and Ray Loriga’s Teresa, cuerpo de cristo (Teresa, Body of Christ, 2007). WOMEN, IMAGES OF. Although images of women on film have been varied, and a range of female characters has always been central to film narratives, the truth remains that films tend to have male protagonists and be about male concerns, with only a handful that can be considered true women’s pictures. Boys growing up, their rites of passage, war, adventure, male intellectual dilemmas, their pursuit of sex or success, have proved far more prominent as film motifs than more specifically female experiences. With very few exceptions, films were conceived, funded, created, and commercialized by men. Such a male-centered perspective means that, even when pioneering women in Spanish cinema, like Rosario Pi (1899–1967) or, in the Franco Period, Ana Mariscal (1923–95), became directors, differences in gender representation were not substantial: like men, they worked within the limits of available ideologies, conveyed through stereotypes and narrative. Furthermore, until recently, most political regimes saw gender as an area of intervention, providing strict sets of guidelines on the “right” kind of masculinity and femininity. In the case of Spanish cinema, Francoist ideology was very particular concerning the differences between men and women in society, and the government imposed these differences in representation through censorship, funding rewards, and other pressures. Perspective and ideological restrictions account for a more limited range of female types and a more ideological content in the representation of women than is the case with men. Two basic mythologies of women have a strong influence in popular representations of femininity, particularly in Southern European cultures: the saintly, nurturing Madonna and the whore, the fallen woman who has been led astray

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by an excess of desire. In Spanish cinema, the Madonna was the prevailing mythology for decades, as a part of a specific ideological project. Women in Francoist film were seldom allowed to stray from this passively saintly image. There were exceptions, though. On the one hand, Aurora Bautista, and folkloric singers Juanita Reina and Lola Flores, were allowed to play stronger women who led the narrative. But they were also spectacular: a feature that suited the set of traits accepted for women. Even when Lola Flores was allowed to display personality, it was within the limits of the musical genre, which somehow rendered such a strong personality harmless to male egos. In the same period (until the early 1960s), the films of Manuel Mur Oti in general were focused on unusually strong women who acted beyond convention. Mur Oti’s El batallón de las sombras (The Battalion of Shadows, 1957) is representative of his output, showing a group of strong women living in a tenement house, who are unusually capable of narrative agency and who are responsible for their men. Otherwise, women in Spanish cinema tended to be faithful wives and mothers, beautiful, passive objects who stood by their men and supported them, or more freewheeling young women who were learning to be just that. Very seldom were women’s desires or their experiences represented on film. The mother is also a particular variation of the Madonna type. Women-centered films tend to revolve around motherhood, as this is the most socially accepted aspect of femininity in Spanish culture. Although perhaps to a lesser extent than in Italy, some of the most important films in the Spanish tradition feature women in mother roles, and a large share of women characters’ actions and motivations on film involve this role: Acacia’s wanderings in La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village, Florián Rey, 1929); Aurora Bautista’s “bad mother” in Pequeñeces (Little Matters, Juan de Orduña, 1949), who is punished with the death of her son; the strong matriarch in Surcos (Burrows, José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1950); Rafaela Aparicio in Carlos Saura’s Mamá cumple cien años (Mama Turns 100, 1979); the generous and independent character played by Margarita Lozano in La mitad del cielo (Half of Heaven, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1986); Terele Pávez in Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents, Mario Camus, 1984); and, of course, Manuela’s quest in Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, Pedro Almodóvar, 1999). Al-

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modóvar in particular has made the mother-centered story something of a trademark, and strong images of motherhood, sometimes clear references to the director’s own mother, feature prominently in the narratives of Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passion, 1982), La ley del deseo (Law of Desire, 1986), Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988), Tacones lejanos (High Heels, 1991), La flor de mi secreto (Flower of My Secret, 1995), Carne trémula (Live Flesh, 1997), and Volver (2006). Commentators have also suggested that Spanish cinema is a fertile ground for the images of castrating mothers, particularly in the years of the Transition, where a ferocious woman was used to symbolize the spirit of the motherland eating her sons. Even if Federico García Lorca’s play La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) was written before the Civil War, its central character has been discussed as representing the spirit of repression and censorship in General Franco’s Spain. Furtivos (Poachers, José Luis Borau, 1975) is probably the best example of this trend in the cinema. The whore was incarnated with special emphasis in the Carmen myth, the sultry temptress who could ruin men’s lives. Although censors were very particular about banning this stereotype, early examples of such “wrong” womanhood are found in Surcos (Burrows, 1951) and Calle mayor (Main Street, 1955), but these femme fatales are somehow meeker than their Hollywood counterparts or the fallen women of European cinema. Sara Montiel, who rose to stardom in 1957 as restrictions in representation started to ease, is central to the evolution of the feminine image in Spanish cinema from the intense but essentially Catholic strong women played by Bautista and the folklóricas. Montiel’s characters were actually often saintly and, at least in the first phase of her career, never actually did anything morally objectionable. But the actress’ voluptuous looks and her flesh displayed in costumes that were as tight as allowed meant that narrative could seldom contain her sexuality, and she became an icon. Even when she conformed to typically male ideas of women as sexual objects, there was also a sense that this “object” could stand on her own and talk back, which was appealing to her female fans. Increasing permissiveness meant that the distinction between madonnas and whores became blurred and less relevant as the 1960s

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progressed. New progressive types could be found in desarrollismo comedy, but these would evolve into nudies as censorship relaxed. On the other hand, the more artistically ambitious Nuevo cine español presented a notoriously masculine perspective: if men could be more sensitive in these films, women were hardly interesting or substantial. They were just passive objects of the male gaze or sources of concern for male protagonists. By the 1970s, the wave of soft porn made for a traditional misogynist cinema with few interesting women roles. In Mariano Ozores and Pedro Lazaga films, women lacked any power for narrative agency. Very few images of women could provide strong identification points for new women. It was left to a new generation of actress, including Carmen Maura, Victoria Abril, Ana Belén, Angela Molina, and Mercedes Sampietro (a favorite of feminist director Pilar Miró) to provide a more interesting range of characterizations. Although Pedro Almodóvar’s women have been denounced by some as idealized divas, the fantasies of a gay man, their richness is undeniable. He introduced something we might call “a non-male perspective” to film, and was bitterly resented by critics (always male and always projecting heterosexuality) for that. Thanks to Almodóvar, the star personas of the young actresses, and the work of Pilar Miró and Josefina Molina, Spanish cinema had begun to shift its representations of women. A new generation of women directors since the 1990s, including Icíar Bollaín, Chus Gutiérrez, and Gracia Querejeta, has pushed female experiences and concerns center stage, and Spanish cinematic investigations into the lives of women are a central part in the range of narrative themes found in contemporary Spanish film. See also HABLE CON ELLA; LA VIDA SECRETA DE LAS PALABRAS; SOLAS; TE DOY MIS OJOS; VIRIDIANA; VOLVER.

– Z – ZAMBRANO, BENITO (1965– ). With only two features to his name, Benito Zambrano is one of the most promising new filmmakers in Spanish cinema today. He studied theater arts in Seville and trained as director by making a series of shorts since 1987. Titles include La

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última humillación (The Last Humiliation, 1987) and Melli, Un niño mal nacido (Melli, a Bad Birth, 1989). In the early 1990s, he moved to Cuba, where he completed a degree in film scripting and direction at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión de San Antonio de Baños. As an exercise, he wrote the script for a documentary Los que se quedaron (The Ones Who Stayed, 1993), which he then shot in video. El encanto de la luna llena (The Charm of the Full Moon, 1995) was his first substantial fiction short and won seven international awards. His feature film debut Solas (Alone, 1999) was acclaimed by critics, and the director was awarded a Goya for best new director. Zambrano told a simple story of a mother–daughter relationship, taking inspiration from the lives of Andalusian village women, including his own mother. After the film’s success, he undertook a television miniseries, Padre Coraje (Father Courage), starring Juan Diego, which aired in 2001 to great success. His next film, Habana Blues (2005) was a radical change of register, telling the story of two struggling Cuban musicians who must choose between a contract to work abroad for a multinational company that will force them to betray their convictions or staying in a country where they have to face hardship and lack of money to set up a band or organize concerts. It was a deeply involving and emotional story with a political soul. ZULUETA, IVÁN (1943–2009). Iván Zulueta’s tale of drugs, vampirism, and obsessive filmmaking Arrebato (Rapture, 1980) is one of the great cult Spanish films, but its director has never completed another feature-length project since 1980, and he remains a mysterious figure with a substantial fan base. At the 2008 Festival de Málaga, he assured devoted audiences that he was back into filmmaking, but commentators remained skeptical. In the last 40 years, his turnout has consisted mainly of collaboration on conventional television products. Zulueta was born in San Sebastian, a city in the Basque Country, and soon showed an interest in the visual arts. He started his career as a designer, and he persisted in his vocation during the 1970s. Among his most visible achievements in this area are a number of film posters he created in those years, including those for Furtivos (Poachers, José Luis Borau, 1975), Sonámbulos (Sleepwalkers, Manuel

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Gutiérrez Aragón, 1978), El corazón del bosque (The Heart of the Forest, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1982), Asignatura pendiente (Pending Subject, José Luis Garci, 1977), and Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passion, Pedro Almodóvar, 1980) among many others, which display a very distinctive look with bold lettering and classically inspired images. As a director, Zulueta debuted with Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three . . . Gotcha! 1970), a surreal pop musical that follows a group of music lovers intent on boycotting an international song contest (not unlike Eurovision). This was a fantasy that adopted a campy approach to popular culture, packed with references to other films and impregnated by homoeroticism and a touch of Peter Pan mythology, along the lines of the Escuela de Barcelona. It was produced by José Luis Borau’s company, El Imán, which at the time was focused on advertising. Zulueta then moved to the United States for an extended period and came into contact with underground filmmaking, particularly the work of Kenneth Anger and early Andy Warhol. In the late 1970s, he worked on several short features, one of which, Leo es pardo (Leo Is Brown, 1976), was noticed by critics at the Berlin Film Festival. He also assisted Pedro Almodóvar in his early short El sueño o La estrella (Dream or The Star, 1975). At this time, he also became fascinated by some aspects of the Madrid movida; he experimented with drugs (particularly heroin), and this would be one of the key sources of inspiration for his masterwork Arrebato. Arrebato was made on a shoestring budget, but soon found a legion of admirers who identified with its vocational marginality and its ability to engage with disturbing states of mind. In its simplest formulation, this is the story of a film director who becomes vampirized by the camera, but it had deeper resonances, tapping into the drug culture developing at the time.

Bibliography

CONTENTS General and Reference Origins and Silent Years (1896–1931) Republican Period and the Civil War (1931–1939) Early Francolism (1939–1960) The Desarrollismo Period and Late Francoism (1961–1975) Transition Period and the Socialist Change (1975–1990) Recent Spanish Cinema (from 1990) Specific Filmmakers Legislation and Economy Autonomous Regions Journals Internet Sites

334 352 354 356 366 369 374 382 418 420 428 429

The following bibliography does not aim to be comprehensive; rather it is intended as a reflection of bibliographical practices on and around Spanish cinema, with particular attention paid to the past three decades. There are some qualifications. It includes mostly books and journal articles. Academic work is privileged: there are no references to short texts in weeklies, magazines, or newspapers. A number of these (like Primer Plano and Objetivo during the Franco years or Fotogramas, which has been published continuously since 1946) are of good use for the specialist, but the sheer quantity of unsigned pieces and short features made their inclusion impractical. On the other hand, a good sample of lesser-known texts of a more anecdotal or contextual nature, such as those published by regional governments or in popular volumes, have been included. A decision has been made to restrict the entries to Spanish- or English-language writings with a few exceptions made for indispensable French or Italian contributions by Marcel Oms, Nancy Berthier, Daniela Aronica, or Jean-Claude Seguin, which have had a strong impact on specialists. Academic research on Spanish cinema has only attained critical mass in the past couple of decades and is now reaching the level of complexity and academic 325

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inquiry that has been regarded as standard for other substantial filmmaking traditions. True, huge areas remain unexplored or inadequately dealt with (e.g., co-production, stars and character performers in the pre-Franco period, cinematography styles), many voices have not yet been properly assessed, and some practices and styles might benefit from fresh approaches, but the increasing weight of film studies in academic institutions worldwide makes it safe to say that the old obstacles to such inquiries are being overcome. One issue that needs to be confronted as a preface to the entries themselves is the distinctiveness of a Spanish film bibliography, at least judging by what we have so far. Is there anything essentially different in a compilation of Spanish film bibliographical entries from that about other cultures? If there is an answer that can even be attempted in a brief preface such as this, we could do worse than look at one of the central mythologies about Spanish cinema, which until very recently shaped perceptions of national cinema among Spanish audiences, critics, and teachers: that is the suspicion, seemingly confirmed by the muted international repercussion of Spanish films until recently, that our national cinema is somehow, as a whole, “not good enough.” The point here is not whether this suspicion is right or wrong (the issue would either be exceedingly complex or meaningless), but its persistence, the way it colors attitudes toward Spanish film and the way it has, in the final analysis, determined bibliographical engagement with Spanish cinema, remains significant. Confirming or disproving an inferiority complex is not as fascinating as the reasons why it appears or the consequences it may have on individuals, and these consequences have in the past influenced assessments of Spanish film. If Spanish cinema is perceived as “not good enough” (not as entertaining as Hollywood cinema, for instance, or as artistically ambitious as French cinema, or as tasteful as British cinema, to mention just three other mythologies of taste), then surely it is not worth researching, other than as a historical artifact. In order to contextualize the present selection, I would like to consider three areas that have shaped the task of Spanish film analysis or historical inquiry; they are all linked in unexpected ways to the inferiority complex just proposed. The first is the weight of political factors in describing Spanish film and also in providing contexts for the writing about film in Spain, which can be read as compensation for the perceived lack of intrinsic value of the films. Second, it is relevant to consider the differences between Spanish and Anglo American academia in terms of structures, in terms of strategies and overall attitude toward the field, with non-Spanish critics and academics less affected by the “not good enough” mythology. And finally the fact that reaching a canon that adequately sets Spanish cinema in an international context is still very much a work in progress, again a consequence of a lack of strong faith in the relevance of homegrown traditions. Equivalents to this are found in other cinematographies: cultural studies have been resisted elsewhere, politics always plays a role

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in filmmaking and in encouraging certain kinds of film writing, and canons are subject to change everywhere. But I would argue that there is a very special configuration of these aspects that we must understand before we tackle Spanish film bibliography. Clearly, political circumstances have affected the development of film in Spain to a very substantial degree, a recurring theme in many of this dictionary’s entries. This was due to the need for public funding and also the fact that, for many years, Spain was under an authoritarian, interventionist regime that did not quite believe in the artist’s independence: film was restrictively regarded either as ideological indoctrination or entertainment that had to follow strict guidelines. Still, the weight of political criteria in drawing up a list of canon-worthy filmmakers and movements appears heavier than elsewhere. Although the Franco period (1939–75) is more and more distant (1975 is roughly the middle point between the end of the Civil War and the present, and a whole generation of adult Spaniards has no memory of Francoism), it is remarkable how the memory of the regime still clings to discussions on Spanish film and to narratives on Spanish cinema history. Censorship and political repression are central structuring principles of any 20th century story of Spanish cinema, and in recent accounts they are blamed for the lack of success of Spanish cinema abroad, sometimes forgetting that most other countries, including Great Britain and the United States, enforced censorship legislation until the late 1960s. The reception of Spanish film and state interventionism should be kept separate issues, but the weight of politics in any attempt at setting up a debate has made it impossible to look into the causes of the historical failure of Spanish cinema. The bibliography reflects the impact of politics through its very structure, by subdividing history into periods defined by political situations. After a largely archaeological section on beginnings and silent years, work on films of the 1930s is gathered around two events: the 1931 Spanish Republic and the Civil War. Surprisingly little has been written on Republican popular cinema (which was regarded as a “Golden Age” for decades afterwards), and of course writing on the Civil War is determined by political argument. Francoism remains the central period for historians, and it is to some extent logical that the largest share of historical inquiry has taken the regime as its main conceptual framework. Still, this centrality affects the rhetoric of discussion on Spanish film, and in using Francoism so prominently, a system of oppositions (including freedom / repression, left-wing / fascist) tends to stifle or marginalize alternative investigations into aesthetics or pleasure. Not that politics are irrelevant to the work of art, but even under Franco there was life, art, cinema, and emotions existing beyond such antinomies, as work by Jo Labany, Peter Evans, Andy Willis, Barry Jordan, or Steven Marsh illustrates. Journals like Archivos de la Filmoteca (Spain’s most prestigious film publication, largely

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focused on history and archaeology) has devoted several issues to politicscentered debates, such as the representation of Francisco Franco and the Civil War. During the autarky period (until the late 1950s) nationalist ideologies praised the qualities of Spanish cinema. It took leftist director Juan Antonio Bardem to pronounce the famous Conversaciones de Salamanca indictment (stating the industrial weakness, ideological bent, and artistic inanity of Spanish cinema) which experts, siding with the filmmaker against the regime, took at face value for many years thereafter: there would be no solution to Spanish cinema until independent dissident filmmakers took control. Of course this was impossible at the time (and, an aside, it has not been a reality elsewhere either), and when it became possible, the indictment had come to be felt as an inescapable reality. The largest share of bibliography on Spanish cinema written until the 1980s uncritically agrees with Bardem’s words. The General and Reference section in the bibliography includes a number of narratives on Spanish cinema, and again politics works as a structuring principle in many of them: the Salamanca conversaciones and their consequences are a highlight in most of them. John Hopewell’s Out of the Past, a primer for English-speaking readers and one of the most influential accounts of Spanish cinema, shares that politically based structure, as do many pioneering works in English, such as Peter Besas’ Behind the Spanish Lens: Spanish Cinema under Fascism and Democracy, which gestures from its very title toward political dialectics. It is as if in the first instance politics provided the best framework to look at Spanish film, to the detriment of, say, styles, stars, industrial issues, meanings, or impact on audiences. These issues are naturally less of an obstacle for the understanding of Spanish cinema when contemporary film is considered. The section on recent cinema covers work about the 1990s and the new millennium, but in fact the largest number of essays refer to post-1996 films. The situation of Spanish cinema shows early signs of change at the beginning of the decade with films such as Vacas (Cows, Julio Medem, 1991) and Todo por la pasta (All for the Dough, Enrique Urbizu, 1993), but it is only after the mid-decade point that one can see a consolidated generation of “new” filmmakers that has been closely followed in Spain and abroad. It is remarkable here that very few academics (Paul Julian Smith is one of the exceptions) have ventured to explore the intimate relations between film practices and politics in this period. Maybe there is an attempt to compensate for the excess of politics in previous decades, but entries in this section provide the mistaken impression that Spain in the 1990s entered a politics-free era. Crucially, politics has underwritten writing on Spanish cinema as an activity to an extent that has not been the case of French, Italian, or British cinema. For many years, it was impossible to write against government decisions, which

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meant that when the Franco period ended there was an overwhelming wave of critical accounts against most commercial practices in Spanish cinema. This may have clouded the possibility of a fair evaluation of the period until the late 1980s, although it took dispassionate observers, often abroad, who can more easily resist the pressure to adopt a political position (adoption of such positions being far more obvious in Spanish society than in Britain or the United States). Praising the qualities of the Escuela de Barcelona or maudits like Berlanga was used as an argument against the regime. No doubt the positive qualities were there, and dissident directors were not without interest, but their intrinsic artistic value seemed to come second to anecdotal accounts of their fight against repression and their skills at making subtle political points that came across to a select group of cognoscenti, to the detriment of Spanish cinema in general. Attitudes toward the regime also determined the way Spanish cinema was discussed abroad. One can read this into many instances of the praise for exile Luis Buñuel, imbued by narratives of self-expression in the face of a repressive regime; the international awards and the attention granted to Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis G. Berlanga, or Carlos Saura during the Dictatorship also suggested an element of compensation and criticism of Franco and his regime, and the idea of these filmmakers fighting a repressive regime is often an important part of the argument when writing about these figures until the 1980s. It is not until the demise of the regime that the first sustained accounts from British and American hispanists appear, as if commercial films coming from the Franco period deserved to be ignored academically. Politics has another consequence that will be apparent in the bibliography, and this can be traced to sources of funding for culture in Spain. The weakness of Spanish university departments to encourage writing on film and also to support film projects is counterbalanced by the seemingly bottomless resources available to political institutions, particularly regional ones. Culture budgets are devolved to the autonomous regions and an important part of cultural projects are regional by nature. Many studies about Saura, Buñuel, or Borau have been funded by the Aragon government (the region where they all originated), and the Catalan government has supported several research projects to trace the beginning of the Spanish film history of the region. Historians like Domenec Font and Joaquim Ramió have produced sustained investigations of film from a Catalan regional perspective. A section of the bibliography has been devoted to the autonomous regions, so that this strong tradition of politically motivated microanalysis from a regional perspective is properly reflected. While it is true that some accounts of filmmaking or film going in Sabadell, Tarragona, Mataró, Hospitalet, Sevilla and Cádiz may seem too anecdotal, such well-funded projects (mostly gathered in the bibliography’s last section) also

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provide valuable historical data that can strengthen cultural studies approaches. Such publications are often written by local historians, or journalists, which sometimes makes them oddly out of tune with intellectual debates on film. The second area of inquiry that makes Spanish film bibliography distinctive is the different approaches to film in Spain and in Anglo-American academia. Such differences partly have to do with the general structure of Spanish universities and the belatedness with which film became an accepted part of the curriculum as an independent discipline (even in the 1980s, it was taught in “literary theory” courses), but also with the muted reception of cultural studies approaches in Spanish universities at large. Indeed, “No cultural studies, please: we’re Spaniards” could be the motto of much film bibliography generated in Spanish academia, and even recently an essay taking a clear antipostmodern and anticultural studies stance (not focusing on Spanish cinema), such as Imanol Zumalde’s La materialidad de la forma fílmica, was widely praised by film historians working in Spain as if this were a manifesto to which they could all subscribe. This attitude has historical and, once again, political roots. For many years, film studies were concentrated in the largely practical Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC), later Escuela Official de Cine (EOC). Although film history and analysis were taught, the main objective was to train filmmakers, rather than critics or experts on film as a cultural phenomenon, to the detriment of historical or intellectual argument. Many relevant film historians worked outside academia, and even at present some of the most rigorous and prolific experts on Spanish film history, such as Julio Pérez Perucha, remain outside academic institutions. Only after the EOCs demise did film studies begin to achieve any importance as a discipline in its own right. The Universidad Complutense in Madrid, the Universidad de Valencia, and the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona started developing strong film courses, with key academic figures including Román Gubern, Santos Zunzunegui, Jenaro Talens, Vicente Sánchez Biosca, and Jesús González Requena, all of them well represented in the bibliography. With the exception of historian Gubern (and, later, Sánchez Biosca, whose work evolved into historical research in the 1990s), very few academics in the 1980s and 1990s focused on Spanish film, and when they did, the attention was devoted to the auteurist tradition. The inferiority complex described earlier meant that only a small list of filmmakers (headed by Buñuel) were deemed worthy of critical accounts. The result was that, with the exception of archeological inquiry, Spanish film remained outside the mainstream of general film studies. This contrasts sharply (and most conveniently) with the academic situation in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Britain. Film studies in American universities gathered momentum in the 1970s and its importance has only

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grown since then. Parallel to this development, Hispanism experienced an unprecedented boom in the 1990s, and many language departments in leading universities included film in their portfolio of courses. Leading British hispanists like Paul Julian Smith, Peter Evans, Jo Labany, Gwynne Edwards, and Robin Fiddian, with a background in more established areas such as the Golden Age, the 19th-century novel, Spanish theater, or Latin American narrative, turned their attention to film, giving the discipline a much required legitimacy. This group of academics has been central to the achievements of Spanish film studies in Britain, and their work has set an example for new concerns in dealing with Spanish film, whereas in the United States the same can be said of prominent figures like Marsha Kinder, Marvin D’Lugo, or Kathleen Vernon. This representative list also accounts for the variety of approaches: Smith’s detailed textual analysis and attention to media discourses coexists easily with Evans’ innovative focus on auteurism and canonical figures like Buñuel; Kinder’s psychoanalytically infused account of Spanish film history in Blood Cinema contrasts sharply with Labany’s detailed attention to stars and other areas of Francoist popular cinema. But one thing they all share is awareness and enlightened use of the tools provided by work in the area of cultural studies. Indeed, cultural studies provided a kind of bridge between two traditional strands in film studies, historical work and close analysis, and soon became very much a discipline in itself: film was studied as a cultural event, a privileged battlefield for cultural wars where gender, class, and ethnic issues were debated in complex ways; such views enabled critics and academics to be more sensitive to popular cinema without losing analytic rigor. As mentioned earlier, the wave of cultural studies was never wholly embraced by Spanish film academics. Leading writers working in Spain have been notoriously reluctant to accept the cultural studies approach to film studies. For each notable case of an academic with a culturalist perspective, like Celestino Deleyto, Josetxo Cerdán, or Fran Zurián, there are many more who, following the example of the previous generation, dismiss the culturalist bias in film studies as a whole. The result is that the strengths of international research in Spanish film studies seem to be divided along the Anglo-American versus Spanish line. In Spain, there is a strong tradition of film history and archaeology, and to date the main film-related professional association is the Asociación de Historiadores de Cine. In Britain and the United States, the most frequent approach is culturally based discourse analysis. Until recently, one of the shortcomings of Anglo-American academic research was the lack of contact with Spanish film cultures. This was a consequence of decades during which such film cultures were not discussed (an effect of the “not good enough” mythology). One key contribution that attempts to build a narrative of Spanish cinema that does not ignore the cinema

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that really mattered is Nuria Triana-Toribio’s Spanish National Cinema, which brings into consideration a third group in contemporary writing on Spanish film that naturally straddles both traditions outlined and is represented by Spanish researchers like Triana-Toribio, Isabel Santaolalla, and Antonio Lázaro Reboll, who have experienced Spanish film cultures firsthand, have been immersed in the “not good enough” frame of mind, but use the theoretical and methodological tools of cultural studies to provide new interpretations of Marisol, Francoist war dramas, or horror auteur Paul Naschy. Their work, as listed in this bibliography, complements the items mentioned above by Labany or Willis, and is important because it somehow combines a certain experience in debates surrounding the value of Spanish cinema (like this writer, we all grew up under the stigma of Spanish cinema, in spite of the fact that we could enjoy pop musicals or horror) with the need to go beyond the strict materiality of the text. For example, Spanish National Cinema almost ignores “the Transition” as a central event in film history and devotes more space and attention to Marisol than to Bardem or Buñuel. Again, the bibliography reflects this gap between Spanish and AngloAmerican academia and attempts to find a balance between the historical and the cultural traditions. It was through cultural studies concepts and methods that Almodóvar first came to be appreciated outside of Spain, at a time when his films largely elicited derision from Spanish scholars. More recent projects by filmmakers like Alejandro Amenábar or Álex de la Iglesia (drenched in popular culture and intertextual quotes) also lend themselves more easily to a postmodern cultural studies approach. And it was in the research of academics working in the United States or Great Britain, such as Labany (dealing with popular genres), Evans (who tackled the iconic qualities of Victoria Abril or Carmen Maura), or Chris Perriam (who has worked on Spanish iconic star Sara Montiel), that the popular in Spanish cinema was appreciated beyond its historical circumstances and its prickly politics. One particular area that is well covered by Anglo-American academia but virtually ignored in a Spanish academic context is gender. Analysis that takes gender as a central category is one of the distinctive aspects of the English-speaking entries. Whereas gender-inflected writing in Spain tends to be restricted to interview books on women film directors, academics such as Smith, Perriam, Santiago Fouz-Hernández, Alfredo Martínez-Expósito, Steven Marsh, Parvati Nair, Linda Williams, and Patrick Garlinger writing from British, American, or Australian academia have made strong contributions on feminism, masculinity, and queer readings of Spanish cinema. A third context is useful to make sense of a bibliography on Spanish films, and as pointed out it has to do with the establishment of a canon that reaches out beyond the specific circumstances of the Spanish film industry. In many

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ways this is related both to the political motivation behind perceptions of Spanish film and the different approaches preferred by Spanish and AngloAmerican writers. Although Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Buñuel, Luis G. Berlanga, Carlos Saura, and even Víctor Erice all gained some international prominence (and canonic status) during the 1960s and the early 1970s, to some extent their importance was political and their work was never consolidated in the European film canon, the way directors like Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrej Vajda, or Miklos Jancsó were. Buñuel does belong to the world canon, but his Spanishness is complex (only works written about his Spanish œuvre have been included). The Spanish canon is reduced and founded on limited attitudes. Given that the narrow political argument will not grant inclusion in the canon or even acceptance by critics, the innovative approaches described in the previous pages are one of the keys to reaching a fresh view of Spanish cinema, to constructing a new narrative escaping the political antinomies or complementing them with substantial cultural tools. The canon of Spanish cinema, its place in the map of world cinemas, is now being reassessed by focusing on areas that had been ignored until recently. In other words, by looking at Spanish film differently, we can alter its landscape. In this sense there is also a difference between the perception of the film canon in Spain and abroad. The Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema is part of the debates and interrogations of such canon, and a section in the bibliography that took the canon into account somehow was almost necessary. The publications covered by the section on filmmakers show that attention has been paid to the usual suspects, reflecting experts’ choices. Not surprisingly, it is Almodóvar who has generated the most bibliographical items, both in Spain and abroad, with no less than 14 single-authored books devoted to his work. Actually, Almodóvar was a test case for the assessment of Spanish cinema and made new departures possible. His films encouraged critics to look at reception, marketing, postmodernism, and gender in ways that other canonical filmmakers had not. As has been mentioned in the introduction, hostility is a key element in the domestic reception of his work, which contrasts with the interest it has generated abroad. Even after the opening of Los abrazos rotos (2009), important Spanish critics were careful to distance themselves from international reception: foreigners may like this kind of filmmaking, but they seemed to be saying, “We certainly don’t.” Domestic acceptance of Spain’s most universally acclaimed filmmaker remains canonically problematic. Bibliography on Almodóvar only compares to the interest elicited by Buñuel, particularly since the 1960s, after the latter settled in France. His place in the canon is unquestioned, but in fact it remains problematic as so few of his films can be regarded as Spanish. On the other hand, the most widely praised director within Spain, Luis García Berlanga, remains oddly underappreciated

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internationally and very little work has been done on his films or even attempting to understand his work from a foreign perspective (the exception being Steven Marsh’ work on his early films). Of the rest, Carlos Saura (easier to tackle as his art film aesthetics mean his films have a wider international appeal) and Borau attract most attention. Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and Vicente Aranda appear the key filmmakers for the Transition period, as they represent both the symbolic art cinema and the realist issue-centered traditions. In many cases, the most widely discussed artists are those engaging one way or another with the idea of Spain, surely not a condition for great cinema. This situation changes with the new generations, who are regarded under different criteria. Of the new directors, Medem, Amenábar, and Álex de la Iglesia have all been quickly assimilated by foreign academics. Only Medem in that list engages directly in his films of the 1990s with issues of national identity. Still, one of the most favored filmmakers by Spanish critics in recent years, Fernando León de Aranoa, remains largely untouched by Anglo-American academia, probably because his work reminds writers too strongly of the old social impulse in Spanish cinema. Most work carried out so far has focused on directors. In spite of the great importance of actors in Spanish popular film traditions, most of what has been written on them has been anecdotal and uninteresting. There is hope for the future in the work of Chris Perriam (on Penélope Cruz and Bardem) and Peter Evans (on Victoria Abril), who uses insights from “star studies,” but his example has not been followed. Spanish film bibliography is, just like the Spanish film canon, very much a work in progress, but the guidelines sketched out in this preface, together with the titles, will bring out the main strands of debates around Spanish national cinema.

GENERAL AND REFERENCE Aguilar, Carlos. El cine español en sus intérpretes. Madrid: Verdoux, 1992. ———, ed. Cine fantástico y de terror español 1900–1983. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror, 1999. ———. Guía del cine español. Madrid: Catedra, 2007. Aguilar, Carlos, and Jaume Genover. Las estrellas de nuestro cine. 500 biofilmografías de intérpretes españoles. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1996. Alba, Ramón, ed. Cine y libros en España. Cine español para el extranjero. Madrid: Poliforma, 1997. Alderson, David, and Linda Anderson. Territories of Desire in Queer Culture: Refiguring Contemporary Boundaries. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

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Alfeo Alvarez, Juan Carlos. “El enigma de la culpa. La homosexualidad en el cine español 1962–2000.” International Journal of Ilberian Studies 13/3, 2000: 136–47. Alonso, Barahona, and Fernando Alonso. Biografía del cine español. Barcelona: CILEH, 1992. Alvarez Junco, J. “Rural and urban popular cultures.” In Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi, 82–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Allinson, Mark. “Not matadors, not natural born killers: Violence in three films by young Spanish directors.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Liverpool) 74/4, 1997: 315–30. Allinson, Mark, and Barry Jordan. Spanish Cinema. A Student’s Guide. London: Hodder Arnold, 2005. Amago, Samuel. “Todo sobre Barcelona: Refiguring Spanish identities in recent European cinema.” Hispanic Research Journal 8/1, 2007: 11–25. Amitrano, Alessandra. El cortometraje en España. Valencia: Fundación Municipal de Cine / Mostra de Valencia, 1998. Amo, Alfonso del. “Investigación sobre la historia de la fabricación de película virgen para la cinematografía.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 32, June 1999: 44–49. Amo, Alfonso del, and María Luisa Ibáñez, eds. Catálogo General del cine de la Guerra Civil. Madrid: Filmoteca Española/Cátedra, 1997. Amo, Antonio del. La batalla del cine. Madrid: Visor, 1961. ———. Cine y crítica de cine. Madrid: Taurus, 1970. ———. Comedia cinematográfica española. Madrid: Edicusa, 1975. Aragón, M. R. Bibliografía cinematográfica española. Madrid: Dirección General de Cinematografía, 1956. Aranda, Juan Francisco. Cinema de vanguardia en España. Lisboa, Guimaraes, 1954. Armero, Alvaro. Españoles en Hollywood. Madrid, Compañía Literaria, 1995. Asenjo García, Frutos. Índice del cine español. Madrid: JC, 1998. Ávila, Alejandro. Historia del doblaje cinematográfico. Barcelona: CIMS, 1997. ———. La censura del doblaje cinematográfico en España. Barcelona: CIMS, 1997. Ballester Casado, Ana. Traducción y nacionalismo. La recepción del cine americano en España a través del doblaje (1928–1948). Granada: Comares, 2001. ———. “Embracing the other: The feminization of Spanish ‘immigration cinema.’” Studies in Hispanic Cinemas 2/1, 2005: 5–14. Ballesteros, Isolina. Cine (ins)urgente: Textos fílmicos y contextos culturales de la España posfranquista. Madrid: Fundamentos, Colección Arte, 2001.

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Bassa, Joan, and Ramón Freixas. Expediente S: Softcore, sexploitation, cine S. Barcelona: Futura ediciones, 1996. Bayón, Miguel. La cosecha de los 80: El “boom” de los nuevos realizadores españoles. Murcia: Filmoteca Regional de Murcia, 1990. Benet, Vicente J. “Estilo, industria e institución: reflexiones sobre el canon del cine español actual.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 49, February 2005: 66–82. ———. “Franco, NO-DO y las conquistas del trabajo.” Archivos de la Filmoteca, 43, February 2003: 30–51. Bentley, Bernard P.E. A Companion to Spanish Cinema. London: Tamesis Books, 2008. Bernaola, Carmelo. Evolución de la banda sonora en España. Madrid: Festival de Cine de Alcalá de Henares, 1986. Berriatúa, Wiro, ed. Cine español 2004 = Spanish Cinema 2004. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2005. Besas, Peter. Behind the Spanish Lens. Spanish Cinema under Fascism and Democracy. Denver, Colo.: Arden Press, 1985. ———. “The financial structure of Spanish Cinema.” In Refiguring Spain. Cinema/Media/Representation, edited by Marsha Kinder, 241–59. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1997. ———. “Global Report: Spain.” Variety September 24, 1990: 45–80. Bonet, Eugeni, and Manuel Palacio, eds. Práctica fílmica y vanguardia artística en España (1925––1981). Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1983. Borau, José Luis, ed. Diccionario del cine español. Madrid: Alianza / Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, 1998. Brasó, Enrique, Diego Galán, Fernando Lara, et al. Siete trabajos de base sobre el cine español. Valencia: Fernando Torres, 1975. Cabello-Castellet, George, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood, eds. CineLit: Essays on Peninsular Film and Fiction. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 1992. Cabero, Juan Antonio. Historia de la cinematografía española (1896––1948). Madrid: Gráficas Cinema, 1949. Calvo, Fernando. La evolución de la banda sonora en España. Alcalá de Henares: Festival de Cine, 1986. Camino Gutierrez, Lanza “Spanish Film Translation: Ideology, Censorship and the Supremacy of the National Language.” In The changing scene in world languages: issues and challenges, edited by Marian B. Labrum, 35–45. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1997. Camporesi, Valeria. Para grandes y chicos. El cine al alcance de todos los españoles. Madrid: Adirce, 1994. Candel, José M. Historia del dibujo animado español. Murcia: Filmoteca Regional, 1993.

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Caparrós Lera, José M. “El cine español.” Historia 16, 234, 1995: 97–109 (special issue Cien años de cine). Caparrós Lera, José M., and Ramón de España. The Spanish Cinema: An Historical Approach. Barcelona: Film-Historia, 1987. Castro, Antonio. El cine español en el banquillo. Valencia: Fernando Torres, 1974. Castro de Paz, José Luis. “La encrucijada de la historia del cine español.” Comunicar 15/29, 2007: 39–45. Castro de Paz, José Luis, and Julio Pérez Perucha, eds. Gonzalo Torrente Ballester y el cine español. Ourense: V Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Ourense, 2000. Castro de Paz, José Luis, and Jaime J. Pena Pérez, eds. Las imágenes y el inventor de palabras: Camilo José Cela en el cine español. Ourense: VI Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Ourense, 2001. ———, eds. Wenceslao Fernández Flórez y el cine español. Ourense: III Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Ourense, 1998. Catalá, José Maria, Josetxo Cerdán, and Casimiro Torreiro, eds. Imagen, memoria y fascinación. Notas sobre el documental en España. Madrid: Festival de Málaga/Ocho y medio, 2001. Company, Juan Miguel. El aprendizaje del tiempo. Valencia: Eutopías, 1995. Company, Juan Miguel, Juan de Mata Moncho, J. Vanaclocha, et al. Cine español, cine de subgéneros. Valencia: Fernando Torres, 1975. Cueto, Roberto, ed. Los desarraigados en el cine español. Gijón: Festival Internacional de Gijón, 1998. Davies, Ann. “The Spanish femme fatale and the cinematic negotiation of Spanishness.” Studies in Hispanic Cinemas 1/1, 2004: 5–16. Delgado Casado, Juan. La bibliografía cinematográfica española. Aproximación histórica. Madrid: Arco, 1993. Deveny, Thomas G. Cain on Screen. Contemporary Spanish Cinema. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1993. ———. “Child’s play: Juvenile meta-acting in Spanish cinema.” In Cine-Lit 2000: Essays on Hispanic Film and Fiction, edited by George CabelloCastellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood, 144–54. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 2000. ———. Contemporary Spanish Film from Fiction. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1999. ———. “The libidinous gaze: Screen adaptation of Crónica del rey pasmado.” Cine-Lit II: Essays on Hispanic Film and Fiction, edited by George CabelloCastellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood, 96–105. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 1995.

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Devesa, Dolores, and Alicia Potes. Seis Mujeres guionistas: contar historias, crear imágenes. Málaga: Festival de Cine Español de Málaga, 1999. Díez Puertas, Emeterio. Historia social del cine en España. Madrid: Fundamentos, 2003. D’Lugo, Marvin. Guide to the Cinema of Spain. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. ———. “Lo que se espera de España.” Academia: Revista del cine español 15, 1996: 39–44. Donapetry, María. Imagi/nacion: la feminización de la nación en el cine español y latinoamericano. Madrid: Fundamentos, 2006. ———. “Juana la Loca en tres siglos: de Tamayo y Baus a Aranda pasando por Orduña.” Hispanic Research Journal: Iberian and Latin American Studies 6/2, 2005: 147–54. Elena, Alberto. “Representaciones de la inmigración en el cine español: la producción comercial y sus márgenes.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 49, February 2005: 54–65. ———. “Spanish colonial cinema: contours and singularities.” Journal of Film Preservation 63, Oct 2001: 29–35. Ellwood, S. M. “Spanish Newsreels 1943––1975: The image of Franco regime.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Televisión 7/3, 1987: 225–39. España, Rafael de. Directory of Spanish and Portuguese Film-Makers and Films. Wiltshire: Flicks Books, 1994. ———. “Images of the Spanish Civil War in Spanish Feature Films 1939–– 1985.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Televisión 6/2, 1986: 223–36. ———. “Zensur im spanischen Kino.” Kritische Berichte 23/4, 1995: 40–48. Evans, Peter W. “Cinema, Memory, and the Unconscious.” In Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction. The Struggle for Modernity, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi, 304–10. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. ———. “Contemporary Spanish cinema.” In European Cinema, edited by Elizabeth Ezra, 250–64. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ———. From Golden Age to Silver Screen: The Comedia on Film (Papers in Spanish Theatre 5). London: Queen Mary and Westfield College, 1997. ———, ed. Spanish Cinema. The Auteurist Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Everett, Wendy, ed. European Identity in Cinema. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2005. Fanés, Félix. El cas CIFESA: Vint anys de cine espanyol (1932––1951). Valencia: Filmoteca Generalitat Valenciana, 1989.

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ORIGINS AND SILENT YEARS (1896–1931) Ades, Dawn. “Internationalism and eclecticism: Surrealism and the avant-garde in painting and film 1920–1930.” In Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction. The Struggle for Modernity, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi, 71–79. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Amor, Medardo. “El misterio de la Puerta del Sol, una recuperación finalizada.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 22, February 1996: 54–57. Asociación Española de Historiadores de Cine. El paso del mudo al sonoro en el cine español. Actas del IV Congreso de la AEHC, Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1993. Berriatúa, Luciano. “Dobles versiones en el cine mudo español.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 19, February 1995: 38–47. ———. “Frivolinas, la reconstrucción de un musical ‘mudo.’” Archivos de la Filmoteca 34, February 2000: 122–51. ———. “Notas sobre la Restauración de Frivolinas.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 32, June 1999: 100–18. Cánovas, Joaquín. “Consideraciones generales sobre la industria cinematográfica madrileña en los años veinte.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 14–25. Caparrós Lera, José María. “Spanish cinema in the 1930s.” New Orleans Review 14/1, 1987: 21–24. Cardona, Rosa. “Instalación y equipamiento de los primeros laboratorios cinematográficos españoles.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 32, June 1999: 58–65. Carranque de Ríos, Andrés. Cinematógrafo. Madrid: Viamonte, 1997 (First published 1936). Cerdán, Josetxo. “Silencios y ruidos en torno a la llegada del sonoro a España.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 27, October 1997: 74–88. Fernández Cuenca, Carlos. Promio, Jimeno y los primeros pasos del cine en España. Madrid: Filmoteca Nacional de España, 1959.

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———. Kurze Geschichte des Spanischen Films. Frankfurt: Kommunales Kino, 1978. Folgar de la Calle, J. M. “Inés de Castro. Doble versión de José Leitáo de Barros.” Cuadernos de la Academia 5, 1999: 187–211. Font, Doménec. Del azul al verde. El cine español durante el franquismo. Barcelona: Avance, 1976. Galán, Diego. “El cine español de los años cuarenta.” In Un siglo de cine español, edited by Román Gubern. Madrid: Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, 1997. García Sánchez, Jesús. “La imagen de Franco en los sellos.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 43, February 2003: 52–71. Giménez Caballero, Ernesto. Cine y política, Madrid, Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1945. Gómez, Asunción. “La representación de la mujer en el cine español de los años 40 y 50: del cine bélico al neorrealismo.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 19/5, 2002: 575–89. Gómez Sierra, Esther. “‘Palace of Seeds’ from an experience of local cinemas in post-war Madrid to a suggested approach to film audiences.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis. New York: Manchester University Press, 2004: 92–112. González, Fernando. “El clavo, de Rafael Gil, en la búsqueda de un modelo para el cine español.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 45, October 2003: 74–93. González Medina, José Luis. “E. G. Maroto’s Canelita en rama (1943): The politics of carnival, Facism and National(ist) vertebration in a postwar Spanish film.” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 3/1, 1997: 15–29. González Requena, Jesús. “Apuntes para una historia de lo rural en el cine español” in El campo en el cine español. Madrid: Banco de Crédito Agrícola/Filmoteca Española, 1988. ———. “Entre el cartón-piedra y los coros y danzas.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 7, September/ November 1990: 20–26. ———. “Vida en sombras.” Revista de occidente 53, October 1985: 76–91. ———. “Vida en sombras: The ‘recusado’ shadow in Spanish postwar cinema.” In Modes of Representation in Spanish Cinema, edited by Jenaro Talens and Santos Zunzunegui, 83–103. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Gordillo, Inmaculada. Nada, una novela, una película. Sevilla: Productora andaluza de programas, 1992. Graham, Helen. “Popular culture in the ‘Years of Hunger.’” In Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi, 237–45. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Guarner, José Luis. Treinta años de cine en España. Barcelona: Kairós, 1971.

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Gubern, Román. La censura. Función política y ordenamiento jurídico bajo el franquismo 1936–1975. Barcelona: Península, 1981. ———. Melodrama en el cine español (1930–1960). Buenos Aires: Ya Fue Producciones, 1991. ———. “Raza,” un ensueño del General Franco. Madrid: Ediciones 99, 1977. ———. “Tres retratos de Franco.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 43, February 2003: 144–55. Gubern, Román, and Doménec Font. Un cine para el cadalso. 40 años de censura cinematográfica en España. Barcelona: Euros, 1975. Heredero, Carlos F. La pesadilla roja del general Franco. El discurso anticomunista en el cine español de la dictadura. San Sebastián: Festival Internacional de Cine, 1996. ———. Las huellas del tiempo: Cine español 1951–61. Valencia: Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana and Filmoteca Española, 1993. Hernández, M., and M. Revuelta. 30 años de cine al alcance de todos los españoles. Bilbao: Zero, 1976. Higginbotham, Virginia. Spanish Film under Franco. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. ———. “Spanish Film under Franco: Do not Disturb.” In World Cinema Since 1945, edited by William Luhr, 499–513. New York: Ungar, 1987. Hopewell, John. Out of the Past. Spanish Cinema under Franco. London: British Film Institute, 1986. Hueso Montón, Ángel Luis, ed. Catálogo del cine español. Películas de ficción, 1941–1950, Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española, 1998. Jolivet, Anne-Marie. “Pablito Calvo/Marcelino. El niño y lo fílmico en las películas de Ladislao Vajda.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 38, June 2001: 28. Jordan, Barry. “Culture and opposition in Franco’s Spain: The reception of Italian Neo-realist cinema in the 1950s.” European History Quarterly 21/2, 1991: 209–38. ———. Writing and Politics in Franco’s Spain. New York: Routledge, 1990. Kinder, Marsha. “Micro and macro regionalism in Vida en sombras and beyond.” In Cine-Lit: Essays on Peninsular Film and Fiction, edited by George CabelloCastellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood, 86–95. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 1992. Labanyi, Jo. “Costume, identity and spectator pleasure in historical films of the early Franco period.” In Gender and Spanish Cinema, edited by Steven Marsh and Parvati Nair, 33–51. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 2004. ———. “Feminizing the nation: women, subordination and subversión in postCivil War Spanish cinema.” In Heroines without Héroes: Reconstructing Female and National Identities in European Cinema, 1945–51, edited by Ulrike Sieglohr, 163–82. London: Cassell, 2000.

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———. “Enemies of the Patria: Fools, cranks and tricksters in the film comedies of Jerónimo Mihura.” Journal of Iberian and Latín American Studies 5/1, 1999: 65–75. ———. Popular Spanish Film under Franco. Comedy and the Weakening of the State. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Martín Pérez, Celia. “Madness, queenship and womanhood in Orduña’s Locura de amor (1948) and Aranda’s Juana la loca (2001).” In Gender and Spanish Cinema, edited by Steven Marsh and Parvati Nair, 71–85. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 2004. Martínez Bretón, Juan Antonio. Influencia de la iglesia católica en la cinematografía española (1951–1962). Madrid: Harofarma, 1987. Medina de la Viña, Elena. Cine negro y policíaco español de los años cincuenta. Barcelona: Laertes, 2000. Minguet Batllori, Joan M. “La regeneración del cine como hecho cultural durante el primer franquismo (Manuel Augusto García Viñolas y la etapa inicial de Primer Plano).” In Tras el sueño. Actas del VI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Historiadores del Cine, 187–201. Madrid: Academia de las Artes y las tiendas Cinematográficas de España, 1998. Mira, Alberto. “Al cine por razón de Estado: estética y política en Alba de América.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Glasgow) 76/1, 1999: 123–38. ———. “Spectacular metaphors: The rhetoric of historical representation in Cifesa epics.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 60–75. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Mortimore, Roger. “The Cinema of Franco.” In Swastika-cinema of Oppression, edited by B. Philips. London: Lorrimer, 1966. Neuschefer, Hans-Jörg. Adiós a la España eterna: la dialéctica de la censura. Novela, teatro y cine bajo el franquismo. Madrid: Ministerio Asuntos Exteriores/Anthropos, 1994. Palacio, Manuel. “Francisco Franco y la televisión.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 43, February 2003: 72–95. Pavlovic, Tatjana. “¡Bienvenido, Mr Marshall! and the renewal of Spanish Cinema.” In Cine-Lit: Essays on Peninsular Film and Fiction, edited by George Cabello-Castellet, Jaume Martí-Olivella, and Guy H. Wood, 169–74. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 1992. Paz, María Antonia. “The Spanish remember: Movie attendance during the Franco dictatorship, 1943–1975.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 23/4, 2003: 357–74. Peralta, Rosa. “Tres escenógrafos del exilio Republicano en el primer Certamen Cinematográfico Hispanoamericano, Madrid 1948.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 33, October 1999: 60–74.

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Pérez Merinero, Carlos, and David Pérez Merinero. Cine español. Algunos materiales por derribo. Madrid: Edicusa, 1973. ———. Cine español: una reinterpretación. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1976. ———. (eds.) Cine y control. Madrid: Castellote, 1975. Pérez Rojas, Javier, and José Luis Alcaine. “Apropiaciones y recreaciones de la pintura de historia.” In La pintura de historia del siglo XIX en España, edited by José Luis Diez. Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1992. Perriam, Christopher. “Sara Montiel: entre dos mitos.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 54, October 2006: 196–209. ———. “El último cuplé / Last Torch Song.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 89–96. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. Pingree, Geoffrey B. “Franco and the filmmakers: critical myths, transparent realities.” Film-Historia 5/2, 1995: 183–200. Prout, Ryan. “El Diputado / Confessions of a Congressman.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 159–67. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. ———. “Marcelino pan y vino I The Miracle of Marcelino.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 71–7. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. Quintana, Ángel. “Y el Caudillo quiso hacerse hombre. La retórica épica e iconográfica en Franco, ese hombre.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 42, October 2002: 174–90. Reig Tapia, Alberto. “La autoimagen de Franco: la estética de la raza y el imperio.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 42, October 2002: 96–121. Ridruejo, Dionisio. Casi unas memorias. Barcelona: Planeta, 1976. Rigol, Antoni, and Jordi Sebastián. “España aislada: Los últimos de Filipinas (1945) de Antonio Román.” Film-historia 1/ 3, 1991: 171–84. Roberts, Stephen. “In search of a new Spanish realism: Bardem’s Calle Mayor (1956).” In Spanish Cinema: The Auteurist Tradition, edited by Peter W. Evans, 19–37. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Rolph, Wendy. “¡Bienvenido Mr Marshall! (Berlanga 1952).” Spanish Cinema. The Auteurist Tradition, edited by Peter W. Evans, 8–18. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Salvador Marañón, Alicia. De ¡Bienvenido, Mr Marshall! A Viridiana. Historia de UNINCI: una productora cinematográfica española bajo el franquismo. Madrid: Egeda, 2006. ———. “La triste España de Caudillo.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 43, February 2003: 118–43. Sanchez Barba, Francesc. Brumas del franquismo: el auge del cine negro español (1950–1965). Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2007.

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Sánchez Salas, Daniel. “Vida en sombras o la película del hechizado.” Secuencias 1, October, 1994: 9–44. Sánchez Vidal, Agustín. “La última ronda de Florián Rey.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 12, April/June 1992: 8–15. ———. “O cinema espanhol dos años cuarenta/El cine español de los años cuarenta.” In O cinema espanhol/Cine español. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1998. Sánchez-Biosca, Vicente. “El Ausente ¡Presente! El carisma cinematográfico de José Antonio Primo de Rivera, entre líder y santo.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 46, February 2004: 66–87. ———. “Fotografía y puesta en escena en el filme español de los años 1940–50.” In Directores de fotografía en el cine español, edited by Francisco Llinás, 57–92. Madrid: Filmoteca Española, 1989. ———. “Imágenes, relatos y mitos de un lugar de memoria: El Alcázar de Toledo.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 35, June 2000: 46–59. ———. “La imagen documental del Alcázar: entre la obscenidad y el mito.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 35, June 2000: 142–56. ———. “¡Qué descansada vida! La imagen de Franco, entre el ocio y la intimidad.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 42, October 2002: 140–61. Santaolalla, Isabel. “Los últimos de Filipinas I Last Stand in the Philippines.” In. 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 50–9. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. Tolentino, Roland B. “Nations, nationalisms, and Los últimos de Filipinas: An imperialist desire for colonialist nostalgia.” In Refiguring Spain. Cinema/ Media/Représentation, edited by Marsha Kinder, 133–53. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. Tranche, Rafael. “La imagen de Franco ‘Caudillo’ en la primera propaganda cinematográfica del Régimen.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 42/43, Special issue: Los Iconos de Franco. Imágenes en la memoria. Vol. I, February 2003: 162–73. Tranche, Rafael, and Vicente Sánchez Biosca. NO-DO: el tiempo y la memoria. Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española, 2000. Triana Toribio, Nuria. “Ana Mariscal: Franco’s disavowed star.” In Heroines with Heroes. Reconstructing Female and National Identities in European Cinema, 1945–51, edited by Ulrike Sieglohr, 184–95. London: Cassell, 2001. Vernon, Kathleen. “Re-viewing the Spanish Civil War: Franco’s film Raza.” Film and History 16, 2, 1986: 26–34. ———. “Theatricality, melodrama and stardom in El último cuplé.” In Gender and Spanish Cinema, edited by Steven Marsh and Parvati Nair, 183–99. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 2004.

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Woods, Eva. “From rags to riches: The ideology of stardom in folkloric musical comedy films of the late 1930s and 1940s.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 40–59. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Wright, Sarah. “Dropping the mask: Theatricality and absorption in Sáenz de Heredia’s Don Juan.” Screen 46/4, 2005: 415–31. Zumalde, Imanol. “Los sonidos de la reconciliación. Estudio comparativo de dos versiones de La aldea maldita, de Florián Rey.” In Actas del VII Congreso Nacional de la Asociación Española de Historiadores del Cine, Madrid: Cuadernos de la Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, 1999. Zunzunegui, Santos. Paisajes de la forma. Madrid: Cátedra, 1994.

THE DESARROLLISMO PERIOD AND LATE FRANCOISM (1961–1975) Alonso, Charo. “Una mirada hacia lo perdido: En el balcón Vacío.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 33 October 1999: 140–47. Alted Vigil, Alicia. “En el balcón vacío o la Confluencia entre escritura fílmica y escritura histórica.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 33, October 1999: 130–39. Berthier, Nancy. “Por qué morir en Madrid contra Mourir à Madrid: las dos memorias enfrentadas.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 51, October 2005: 126–41. Camporesi, Valeria. “Imágenes de la televisión en el cine español de los Sesenta: fragmentos de una historia de la representación.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 32, June 1999: 148–62. Company, Juan Miguel. “El exilio y el Reino. Cinco notas sobre En el balcón vacío.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 33, October 1999: 162–68. Crumbaugh, Justin. “Spain is different: Touring late-Francoist cinema with Manolo Escobar.” Hispanic Research Journal 3/3, 2002: 261–76. Deleyto, Celestino. “Women and other monsters: Frankenstein and the role of the mother in El espíritu de la colmena.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Glasgow) 76/1, 1999: 39–51. Ducay, Eduardo. “Lo que pasó con Tristana.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 47, June 2004: 48–84. Evans, Peter W. “Marisol: The Spanish Cinderella.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 129–41. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. ———. “Viridiana.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 99–107. London: Wallflower Press, 2005.

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Evans, Peter W., and Robin Fiddian. “Victor Erice’s El sur. A narrative of starcross’d lovers.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 64/2, 1987: 127–35. Faulkner, Sally. A Cinema of Contradiction. Spanish Film in the 1960s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. Fernández Colorado, Luis. “Del posibilismo como método artístico de subsistencia.” Archivos de la Filmoteca, 27, October 1997: 62–73. Gutiérez Albilla, Julián Daniel. “Between the phobic object and the dissident subject: Abjection and vampirism in Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana.” In Gender and Spanish Cinema, edited by Steven Marsh and Parvati Nair, 13–31. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 2004. Heredero, Carlos F. “La historia como representación y el espejo apócrifo. (A propósito de Andalucía, un siglo de fascinación de Basilio Martín Patino).” Archivos de la Filmoteca 30, October 1998: 156–69. Heredero, Carlos F., and José Enrique Monterde. Los nuevos cines en España. Ilusiones y desencantos de los años sesenta. Valencia: Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 2003. Higginbotham, Virginia. The Spirit of the Beehive /El espíritu de la colmena. Trowbridge: Flicks Books, Cineteck, 1998. Jordan, Barry. “Genre cinema in Spain in the 1970s: The case of comedy.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 20/1, 1995: 127–41. ———. “Late-Francoist popular comedy and the ‘reactionary’ film text.” Studies in Hispanic Cinemas 2/2, 2005: 83–104. ———. “Revisiting the comedia sexy ibérica: No desearás al vecino del quinto (Ramón Fernández, 1971).” International Journal of Iberian Studies 15/3, 2003: 167–86. Kenworthy, Patricia. “A political Pascual Duarte.” In Cine-Lit: Essays on Peninsular Film and Fiction, edited by George Cabello-Castellet, Jaume MartíOlivella, and Guy H. Wood, 55–9. Portland & Corvallis, Ore.: Portland and Oregon State Universities and Reed College, 1992. Kinder, Marsha. “Children of Franco in the New Spanish Cinema.” Quarterly Review for Film Studies 8/2, 1983: 57–76. Labanyi, Jo. “Fetichism and the problem of sexual difference in Buñuel’s Tristana (1970).” In Spanish Cinema. The Auteurist Tradition, edited by Peter W. Evans, 76–92. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Lázaro Reboll, Antonio. “Exploitation in the cinema of Klimovsky and Franco.” In Cultura Popular: Studies in Spanish and Latin American Popular Culture, edited by Shelley Godsland and Anne M. White, 83–96. Bern: Peter Lang, 2002. ———. “La noche de Walpurgis /Shadow ofthe Werewolf.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 129–36. London: Wallflower Press, 2005.

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———. “Screening ‘Chicho’: The horror ventures of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador.” Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 152–69. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Liogier, Hélène. “El escándalo de Mourir á Madrid: una ‘película ofensiva para España’” Archivos de la Filmoteca 51, October 2005: 110–25. Maqua, Javier, Carlos Pérez Merinero, and David Pérez Merinero. Cine español. Ida y vuelta. Valencia: Fernando Torres, 1976. Martínez Bretón, Juan A. La denominada “Escuela de Barcelona.” Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1984. McDermott, Annella. “Viridiana.” In European Cinema: An Introduction, edited by Jill Forbes and Sarah Street, 108–19. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000. Molina Foix, Vicente. New Cinema in Spain. London: British Film Institute, 1977. Monterde, José Enrique, and Esteve Riambau. “Volver para perseverar (entrevista con Pere Portabella).” Archivos de la Filmoteca 7, September/November 1990: 27–33. Monterde, José Enrique, Esteve Riambau, and Casimiro Torreiro. Los “Nuevos Cines” europeos, 1955–1970. Barcelona: Lema, 1987. Naharro-Calderón, José María. “En el balcón vacío de la Memoria y la memoria de En el balcón vacío.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 33, October 1999: 150–62. Restivo, Angelo. “The economic miracle and its discontents. Bandit films in Spain and Italy.” Film Quarterly 49/2, 1995: 30–40. Riambau, Esteve. La producció cinematográfica a Catalunya, 1962–1969. Barcelona: Ed Universitat Autónoma, 1995. Riambau, Esteve, and Casimiro Torreiro. La escuela de Barcleona. El cine de la Gauche Divine. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1999. ———. Temps era temps. El cinema de Ia Escola de Barcelona i el seu entorn, Barcelona: Departament Cultura, Generalitat Catalunya, 1993. Richardson, Nathan A. “Cinema of contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 42/1, 2008: 187–89. Riley, Edward C. “The story of Ana in El espíritu de la colmena.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 61/4, 1984: 491–7. Rodero, José Ángel. Aquel “Nuevo Cine Español” de los 60. Valladolid: Seminci, 1981. Ros, Xon de. “Innocence lost: Sound and silence in El espíritu de la colmena.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Glagow) 76/1, 1999: 27–37. Rotellar, Manuel. Aragoneses en el cine español. Zaragoza: Ayuntamiento Zaragoza, 1971. Salvador, Alicia. “El ‘caso’ Viridiana.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 47, June 2004: 10–47.

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Santos Fontenla, César. Cine español en la encrucijada. Madrid: Ciencia Nueva, 1966. Torreiro, Casimiro. “Aimez-vous la représentation? Notes on the cinema of Pere Portabella and on Informe General.” Modes of Representation in Spanish Cinema, edited by Jenaro Talens and Santos Zunzunegui, 303–18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Torres, Augusto M. Cine español, años sesenta. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1973. Torres, Augusto M., Diego Galán and Antonio Lloréns. Cine maldito español de los años sesenta. Valencia: Fundación Municipal de Cine/Fernando Torres, 1984. Tubau, Iván. Crítica cinematográfica española. Bazin contra Aristarco: la gran controversia de los años 60. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1983. ———. Hollywood en Argüelles: cine americano y crítica española. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1984. Valle Fernández, Ramón del. Anuario español de cine (1963–1968). Madrid: S.N.E., 1969. ———. Aspectos económicos del cine español (1953–1965). Madrid: Servicio Sindical de Estadística, 1966. Valles Copeiro del Villar, Antonio. Historia de la política de fomento del cine español. Valencia: Filmoteca Generalitat Valenciana, 1992. Villegas López, Manuel. El nuevo cine español. Madrid: Ed. JC, 1991. Viota, Paulino. El cine militante en España durante el franquismo. México: UNAM, 1982. Zunzunegui, Santos. Historias de España. De qué hablamos cuando hablamos del cine español. Valencia: Filmoteca Generalitat Valenciana, 2002.

TRANSITION PERIOD AND THE SOCIALIST CHANGE (1975–1990) Amell, Samuel, and Salvador García Castañeda. La cultura española en el post-franquismo. Diez años de cine, cultura y literatura (1975–1985). Madrid: Playor, 1992. Ansola González, Txomin. “El decreto Miró: una propuesta ambiciosa pero fallida para impulsar el cine español de los 80.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 47, June 2004: 102–21. Arroyo, José. “La ley del deseo: A gay seduction.” In Popular European Cinema, edited by Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau, 31–46. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Bentley, Bernard. “The credit sequence of La mitad del cielo (1986).” Forum for Modern Language Studies 31/3, 1995: 259–73.

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Aguirresarobe, Javier Angulo, Jesús, Carlos F. Heredero, and José Luis Rebordinos. En el umbral de la oscuridad: Javier Aguirresarobe. San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca, 1995.

Almendros, Néstor Almendros, Néstor. Cinemanía. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992. ———. Días de una cámara. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1982.

Almodóvar, Pedro Acevedo Muñoz, Ernesto R. “The body and Spain: Pedro Almodóvar’s All about My Mother.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 21/1, 2004: 25–38. ———. Pedro Almodóvar. London: BFI, World Directors, 2007. Albaladejo, Miguel et al. Los fantasmas del deseo: A propósito de Pedro Almodóvar. Madrid: Aula 7, 1988.

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Uribe, Imanol Aguirresarobe, Javier. Luces y sombras del cine de Imanol Uribe. Valladolid: Seminci, 2004. Angulo, Jesús, Carlos F. Heredero, and José Luis Rebordinos. Entre el documental y la ficción. El cine de Imanol Uribe. San Sebastián/Vitoria: Filmoteca Vasca / Fundación Vital Kutxa, 1994. Davies, Alan. “Male sexuality and Basque separatism in two films by Imanol Uribe.” Hispanic Research Journal 4/2, 2003: 121–32. D’Lugo, Marvin. “Re-imagining the community: Imanol Uribe’s La muerte de Mikel (1983) and the cinema of transition.” In Spanish Cinema. The Auteurist Tradition, edited by Peter W. Evans, 194–209. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Evans, Jo. “Imanol Uribe’s La muerte de Mikel: Policing the gaze/mind the gap.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 76/1, 1999: 101–109. Gutiérrez, Begoña, and José María Porquet. Imanol Uribe. Huesca: Festival de Cine, 1994. Sánchez-Conejero, Cristina. “El hombre vasco global: El hombre solo (1994) de Bernardo Atxaga y La muerte de Mikel (1984) de Imanol Uribe. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 81/3, 2004: 325–41. Santaolalla, Isabel. “Behold the man! Masculinity and ethnicity in Bwana (1996) and En la puta calle (1998).” In European Cinema: Inside Out. Images of the Self and the Other in Postcolonial European Cinema, edited by Guido Rings and Rikki Morgan, 129–38. Heidelberg: Universitátsverlag, 2003.

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Vajda, Ladislao Góme Mesa, Luis. Ladislao Vajda, recuerdo y presencia. San Sebastian: Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián, 1965. Llinás, Francisco. Ladislao Vajda. El húngaro errante. Valladolid: 42 Semana Internacional de Cine, 1997. Prout, Ryan. “Marcelino pan y vino I The Miracle of Marcelino.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 71–7. London: Wallflower Press, 2005.

Zambrano, Benito Dapena, Gerard. “Solas: Andalusian mothers in a global context.” Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 21/2, 2002: 26–37. Leonard, Candyce. “Solas and the unbearable condition of loneliness in the late 1990s.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 222–36. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.

Zulueta, Ivan Borau, José Luis. “El Iván del Imán o Iváñez a secas.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 114–16. Heredero, Carlos F. “Iván Zulueta: La fragmentación de la periferia.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 88–95. ———. Iván Zulueta. La vanguardia frente al espejo. Alcalá de Henares: Festival Internacional de Cine, 1989. Iglesia, Eloy de la. “Entre el arrebato y el éxtasis.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 108–14. Monterde, José Enrique. “De Arrebato y algunas cosas más.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 102–106. Sánchez-Biosca, Vicente. “Arrebato / Rapture.” In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal, edited by Alberto Mira, 169–77. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. ———. “Fragmentos de un delirio.” Archivos de la Filmoteca 6, June–August 1990: 96–101.

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LEGISLATION AND ECONOMY Alcover, Norberto. Hallazgos, falacias y mitificaciones del cine de los 70. Bilbao: Mensajero, 1975. Álvarez, José María, ed. La industria cinematográfica en España (1980–1991). Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura / Fundesco, 1993. Álvarez, José María, and Joris L. Ivens. El futuro del audiovisual en España. Las transformaciones ante el nuevo mercado europeo. Madrid: Fundesco, 1992. Álvarez, José María, and J. López Villanueva. “El cine español: viejas contradicciones en tiempos modernos.” Situación no. 3, 1994: 113–37. Añover, Rosa. La política administrativa en el cine español y su vertiente censora. Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1992. Ávila, Alejandro. La censura del doblaje cinematográfico en España. Barcelona: CIMS, 1997. ———. La historia del doblaje cinematográfico. Barcelona: CIMS, Comunicación Global, 1997. Benito, J. L. de. La cinematografía en la economía nacional. Madrid: Instituto de Cine Iberoamericano, 1932. Bustamante, Enrique, and Ramón Zallo, eds. Las industrias culturales en España: grupos multimedia y transnacionales. Madrid: Akal, 1988. Centro Español de Estudios Cinematográficos. La censura de cine en España. Madrid: ABC del Cine, 1963. Cuevas, Antonio. Economía cinematográfica. La producción y el comercio de películas, Madrid: 1976. ———. Los cinematógrafos españoles. Madrid: Delegación Nacional de Sindicatos, 1953. ———, et al. Las relaciones entre el cinema y la televisión en España y otros países de Europa. Madrid: EGEDA—Consejería de Educación y Cultura de la Comunidad de Madrid, 1994. Estivill Pérez, J. “La industria española del cine y el impacto de la obligatoriedad del doblaje en 1941.” Hispania 202, 1999: 677–91. Fernández Blanco, Vicente. El cine y su público en España. Un análisis económico. Madrid: Fundación Autor, 1998. Fernández Blanco, Vicente, and Jose F. Banos Pino. “Cinema demand in Spain: A cointegration analysis.” Journal of Cultural Economics 21/1, 1997: 57–75 Fernández Blanco, Vicente, and Juan Prieto-Rodríguez. “Building stronger national movie industries: The case of Spain.” Journal of Arts Management, Law & Society 33/2, 2003: 142–60.

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Freixes Sauri, J. La cinematografía en España (Guía de la industria y el comercio cinematográfico en España e industrias relacionadas con el mismo). Barcelona: Arte y Cinematografía, 1924. Fumó, A. (“Anfurso”). El problema de la producción nacional cinematográfica. Barcelona: Bistagne, 1939. Galán, Diego. Venturas y desventuras de La prima Angélica. Valencia: Fernando Torres, 1974. González Ballesteros, Teodoro. Aspectos jurídicos de la censura cinematográfica en España con especial referencia al periodo 1936–1977. Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1981. Instituto de la Opinión Pública. Estudio sobre la situación del cine en España. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1968. Jones, D. “Evolución de los estudios sobre la industria cinematográfica española.” Situación 3, 1994: 179–85. José í Solsona, Carles. Cinema europeu i cinema amerícá a Espanya. Barcelona: Institut del Cinema Cátala, 1989. Lázaro, Fernando. “La coproducción: fórmula económica de la industria cinematográfica.” Documentos Cinematográficos 5, 1960: 21–40. López García, Victoriano. La industria cinematográfica española. Madrid: Asociación Nacional de Ingenieros Industriales, 1945. López García, Victoriano, Miguel Angel Martín Proharam, and Antonio Cuevas. La industria de producción de películas en España, Madrid: Espectáculo, 1955. Marín, P. La obra cinematográfica y sus problemas jurídicos. Madrid: Instituto-Editorial Reus, 1949. Martínez Bretón, J. A. La influencia de la Iglesia católica en la cinematografía española (1951–1962). Madrid: Harofarma, 1987. Ministerio de Cultura. Datos informativos. Años 1965–1976. Madrid: Dirección General de Cinematografía, 1978. ———. El cine y el Estado, Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1982. ———. La producción cinematográfica en España, 1990. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura / ICAA, 1991. ———. Textos legales: cinematografía y medios audiovisuales. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1991. Ministerio de Información y Turismo. Estudio del mercado cinematográfico español (1964–1967). Control de taquilla. Madrid: Dirección General de Cultura Popular y Espectáculos, 1968. ———. Informe sobre el Fondo de Protección a la Cinematografía. Madrid: Boletín Informativo del Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1966.

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———. Normas para el desarrollo de la cinematografía nacional (Estudio de la Orden del 19 de agosto de 1964 y disposiciones complementarias). Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1965. Neuschafer, Hans-Jörg. Adiós a la España eterna: la dialéctica de la censura. Novela, teatro y cine bajo el franquismo. Madrid/Barcelona: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores/Anthropos, 1994. Pozo Arenas, Santiago. La industria del cine en España. Legislación y aspectos económicos (1896–1970). Barcelona: EU, Universitat de Barcelona, 1984. Puerto, Carlos. La censura como problema. Madrid: Cedel, 1975. Rodero, José Ángel. Aquel “Nuevo Cine Español” de los 60. Valladolid: Seminci, 1981. Salazar López, José María. Diccionario legislativo de cinematografía y teatro. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1966. Sánchez Tabernero, Alfonso, and Zunzunegui, Santos, eds. “La industria cinematográfica.” Situación 3, 1994 (special issue). Suárez de la Dehesa, J. A. Geografía económica del cine hispano. Madrid: Ministerio de Información y Turismo, 1971. Torres, Augusto M., Diego Galán, and Antonio Llorens. Cine maldito español de los años sesenta. Valencia: Quaderns de la Mostra, 2, Fundación Municipal de Cine/Fernando Torres, 1984. Valle Fernández, Ramón del. Anuario español de cine (1963–1968). Madrid: Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo, 1969. ———. Anuario español de cinematografía. Madrid: Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo, 1963. ———. Aspectos económicos del cine español (1953–1965). Madrid: Servicio Sindical de Estadística, 1966. ———. Cines en España. Madrid: Servicio Nacional de Estadística, 1965. Valles Copeiro del Villar, Antonio. Historia de la política de fomento del cine español. Valencia: Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 1992. Vizcaíno Casas, Fernando. Derecho cinematográfico español. Madrid: García Enciso, 1952. ———. La nueva legislación cinematográfica. Madrid: Santillana, 1962. ———. Legislación cinematográfica y teatral. Madrid: Publicaciones EIA, 1954. ———. Suma de la legislación del espectáculo. Madrid: Santillana, 1962.

AUTONOMOUS REGIONS Aguiló, Catalina. Josep Truyol Fotógraf i cineasta, 1868–1949. Palma de Mallorca: Miquel Font, 1987.

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Pérez Perucha, Julio, ed. Madrid y el cine. Madrid: Ayuntamiento / Filmoteca Española, 1984. Pérez Rubio, Pablo, and Javier Hernández Ruiz. Aragón detrás de la cámara. Zaragoza: Heraldo de Aragón, 1990. Platero, Carlos. El cine en Canarias. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Edirca, 1981. Porter-Moix, Miquel. Adrià Gual i el Cinema Primitiu de Catalunya, 1897– 1916. Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1985. ———. Historia del cinema a Catalunya (1895–1990). Barcelona: Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 1992. Porter-Moix, Miquel, and María Teresa Ros Vilella. Historia del cinema cátala (1896–1968). Barcelona: Táber, 1969. ———, et al. Breu historia del cinema primitiu a Catalunya. Barcelona: Robrenyo, 1977. Riambau, Esteve. Paisatge abans de la batalla. El cinema a Catalunya, 1896– 1939. Barcelona: Llibres de L’Índex, 1994. Rodríguez, Pilar. “Dark memories, tragic lives: Representations of the Basque nation in three contemporary films.” Anuario de Cine y Literatura en Español 2 1997: 129–44. Romaguera Ramió, Joaquim, ed. Catáleg de films disponibles parláis o retolats en cátala 1982–1987, 2 vols. Barcelona: Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 1983–1989. ———. Converses de cinema a Catalunya. Història i conclusions. Barcelona: Caixa de Barcelona, 1981. ———. “Del I Encuentro de l’AHCEE al V Congreso de l’AECH: l’evolució del estudis cinematografíes ‘autonómics i/o “nacionals” i el major interés pel ‘local’ (Bibliografía).” Treballs de Comunicació 6, 1995: 71–88. ———. Jornades sobre el Patrimoni Cinematografíe de Catalunya. Barcelona: Societat Catalana de Comunicació, 1996. ———. “Presencia cinematográfica catalana a les Amériques.” L’Avene 168, 1993: 38–43. ———. Quan el cinema comença a parlar en cátala (1927–1934). Barcelona: Fundació Institut del Cinema Cátala, 1992. Romaguera Ramió, Joaquim, and Pedro Aldeazábal, eds. “Hora actual del cine de las Autonomías del Estado español.” Cinematógrafo 2, 1990. Rotellar, Manuel. Aragón en el cine 4. Zaragoza: Ayuntamiento, 1973. ———. Aragoneses en el cine 3. Zaragoza: Ayuntamiento, 1972. ———. Aragoneses en el cine español. Zaragoza: Ayuntamiento, 1971. ———. Cine aragonés. Zaragoza: Cine-Club Saracosta, 1970. Ruiz Rojo, José Antonio. 90 años de cine en Guadalajara (1897–1987). Guadalajara: Cine-Club Alcarreño, 1987.

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Sada Angueda, Javier Maria. Cinematógrafos donostiarras. San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca, 1991. Saiz Viadero, José Ramón. El cine de los realizadores cántabros. Santander: Consejería de Cultura del Gobierno de Cantabria, 1983. Sala Cortés, E. Notes per a una historia del cinema a Granollers. Granollers: Centre d’Estudis / Associació Cultural, 1960. Sánchez Millán, Alberto. Cine amateur e independiente en Aragón. Zaragoza: Gandaya / Cine-Club Zaragoza, 1987. Sánchez Noriega, José. Luis. Cine en Cantabria. Las películas de Mario Camus y los rodajes en Comillas. Santander: Tantín, 1994. Sánchez Salas, Bernardo. 100 años luz. El tiempo cinematográfico en La Rioja. Logroño: Cultural Rioja / Ibercaja, 1995. ———. 1896–1955: del cinematógrafo al cinemascope. Primera vuelta de manivela para una historia del cine en La Rioja. Logroño: Consejería de Cultura del Gobierno de La Rioja, 1990. Seoane, Luis. O cine e a fotografía. La Coruña: Xunta de Galicia / CGAI, 1994. Toril, Nuria, and Oscar Garcés. El cinema a l’Hospitalet: de l’espectacle de fira a la multisala. Hospitalet de Llobregat: Centre d’Estudis de l’Hospitalet, 1996. Torrella, Josep. Introdúcelo i desenvolupament del cinema a Sabadell: 1897– 1936. Sabadell: Fundació Bosch i Cardellach, 1980. ———. Rodatges de postguerra a Barcelona. Un recorregut pels estudis de cinema. Barcelona: Fundació Institut del Cinema Català, 1991. Torrella, Josep., and A. Beorlegui. Sabadell, un segle de cinema. Sabadell: Fundació Amics de les Arts i de les Lletres de Sabadell, 1996. Usain, José María. El cine y los vascos. San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca / Sociedad de Estudios Vascos, 1986. ———. Hacia un cine vasco. San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca, 1985. Usain, José María, and Juan Fabián Delgado, eds. Cine en Andalucía: un informe. Sevilla: Argantoño / Eds. Andaluzas, 1980. Usain, José María, Juan Fabián Delgado, and Juan Sebastián Bollaín. El cine en Andalucía: identidad y mestizaje. Córdoba: Filmoteca de Andalucía, 1993. Usain, José María, and Miguel Olid. El cortometraje andaluz en la democracia (1976–1992). Sevilla: Promotora Andaluza de Programas, 1993. Utrera, Rafael. Imágenes cinematográficas de Sevilla. Sevilla: Padilla, 1997. Vera Nicolás, Pascual. Empresa y exhibición cinematográfica en Murcia (1895–1939). Murcia: Real Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, 1991. Zunzunegui, Santos. El cine en el País Vasco: la aventura de una cinematografía periférica. Murcia: Filmoteca Regional, 1986.

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JOURNALS Academia: Revista del cine español Alpha: Revista de Artes, Letras y Filosofía Archivos de la Filmoteca Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Glasgow) Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Liverpool) Bulletin of Spanish Studies Cahiers du cinéma Camera Obscura Canadian Journal of Film Studies (Revue canadienne d’études cinematographiques) Cineaste Cinema Journal CinémAction Cinemanía Comunicar Contracampo Cuadernos de la Academia Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos Dirigido por . . . / Dirigido Donaire Film and History Film Comment Film Criticism Film Quarterly Film-Historia Forum for Modern Language Studies Fotogramas Hispania Hispanic Research Journal: Iberian and Latin American Studies Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Televisión International Journal of Iberian Studies Journal of Contemporary European Studies Journal of Film Preservation Journal of Gender Studies Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Journal of Popular Film and Television Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies Kinoeye Literature/Film Quarterly

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MLN New Cinemas Nickelodeon Nosferatu Nuestro cine Objetivo Orientaciones. Revista de homosexualidades Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities Primer Plano Quarterly Review of Film Studies Quarterly Review of Film and Video Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos Revista de Estudios de Comunicación Revista de Estudios Hispánicos Romance Languages Annual Romance Studies Screen Secuencias Sight and Sound Studies in European Cinema Studies in Hispanic Cinemas Tesserae: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies Textual Practice Variety Vértigo Vida Hispánica

INTERNET SITES The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) remains a good starting point for readers in search of basic data in English. More focused on Spanish film (and in the Spanish language) is the database of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, with useful statistics and relevant data on budgets and box-office receipts for recent films (www.mcu.es/cine/index.html), as well as information on DVD and video releases, festivals, and awards. The site also includes links to government-funded institutions, such as the Filmoteca Española, as well as the government’s annual reports on film from 2001. The other major Spanish sites for Spanish film studies research are the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (www.academiadecine.com) and the Asociación Española de Historiadores de Cine (www.aehc.uji.es). The former contains links

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to Academia-related sites, such as the Goyas. The latter has a good collection of essays by relevant Spanish film historian members of the Association. Another resource for teachers of Spanish film is CineHistoria (www.CineHistoria .com), which also includes resources and texts. Besides the Filmoteca Nacional de España (linked from the Ministry of Culture site), regional cinematheques also provide information with their library holdings, programming, and publications. Three excellent sites are the Filmoteca Valenciana (www.ivac-lafilmo teca.es), Filmoteca de la Generalitat Catalana (follow links from www.gencat .cat to “Arts visuals” and then to “cinema i video”), and the Filmoteca del País Vasco (www.filmotecavasca.com). Official sites for Film Festivals are also a good resource for researchers. The Sitges film festival (www.cinemasitges .com) and the San Sebastian Film Festival (www.sansebastianfestival.com) have good, regularly updated pages. A good starting point for independent resources for both Spanish and Latin American cinema can be found on Multimania (www.multimania.com/ cinecita/webring.htm). Relevant sites include Cine Ibérico. El cine español en la red (www.cineiberico.es), with statistics and updates on releases; Ciberia (http://w3.fiu.edu/ciberia/), the Spanish section of the Alternative Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/blog/category/spanish-cinema/), and El Ojo que piensa (http://www.elojoquepiensa.udg.mx/ingles/). In terms of specific filmmakers sites, most have their own webpages and fansites, which can be easily found. Distribution companies also prepare careful sites for releases (the one for El laberinto del fauno in was particularly fine: www.panslabyrinth.com). Almodóvar has some fansites devoted to him (see for instance http://lastrada.free.fr/Almodovar/index.htm and http://www .almodovarlandia.com/almodovarlandia/navigation/almodovarlandiamain.htm, a german site which is a treasure trove for all things Almodóvar). There is an official page for Almodóvar in Clubcultura (www.clubcultura.com), the host site for many filmmmakers’ pages (http://www.clubcultura.com/club cine/clubcineastas/almodovar/eng/homeeng.htm), and he also has his own more personal website with a blog (www.pedroalmodovar.es). Other filmmakers well represented in Club Cultura are Alejandro Amenábar, Bigas Luna, Isabel Coixet, Gutiérrez Aragón, Carlos Saura, Gonzalo Suárez, and Fernando Trueba. Club Cultura also has links to interesting blogs on film by Spanish writers. Álex de la Iglesia has an excellent site translated into English, which includes a blog, a self-interview, updates, and even his short Mirindas asesinas (www.alexdelaiglesia.com), as do Julio Medem (www.juliomedem.org) and Ventura Pons (www.venturapons.com).

About the Author

Alberto Mira, Ph.D., is Reader in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University (UK), where he teaches courses on Spanish cinema, classical Hollywood narration, and stars and audiences. He helped set up the film studies undergraduate program in 2004, and also contributes to the postgraduate MA in popular cinema. Between 1997 and 1999, he was Queen Sofía Research Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford. He has published extensively on Francoist cinema, gender in Spanish cinema, Iván Zulueta, and Pedro Almodóvar. He was editor of 24 Frames: The Cinema of Spain and Portugal (Wallflower Press, 2005). As one of the leading specialists in Spanish gay history and culture, he organized a conference on Spanish gay cultural history at the Escorial in Summer 2005. He is the author of the dictionary Para entendernos (Libros de la Tempestad, 1999) and the cultural history De Sodoma a Chueca. Historia cultural de la homosexualidad en España (Egales, 2004), as well as a monograph on gay and lesbian cinema: Miradas Insumisas. Gays y lesbianas en el cine (Egales, 2008). Other publications include articles on Lorca, Latin American literature, and monographs on Spanish theater, as well as critical editions and Spanish translations of plays by Oscar Wilde and Edward Albee. He is the author of two novels, Londres para corazones despistados (2004) and Como la tentación (2005). He also teaches postgraduate courses on translation theory at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.

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