Popular Spanish Film Under Franco : Comedy and the Weakening of the State

This book constitutes the first in-depth cultural analysis of a period generally held to be the golden age of film production in Spain. Its focus on the work of five directors between 1942 and 1964 seeks to dispel the myth that movie making of early Francoism consisted exclusively of propaganda exercises. Using Gramscian hegemony theory, the volume offers an original perspective on the comic possibilities of subverting State populism and maps a filmmaking tradition that persists, in the figure of Pedro Almodóvar, to the present day. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 1 Comedy and the Weakening of the State......Page 24 2 Tactics and Thresholds in Edgar Neville’s Life on a Thread (1945)......Page 52 3 Metropolitan Masquerades: The Destabilization of Madrid in the Neville Trilogy......Page 74 4 Populism, the National-Popular and the Politics of Luis García Berlanga: Welcome Mister Marshall! (1952)......Page 108 5 Humor and Hegemony: Berlanga, the State and the Family in Plácido (1961) and The Executioner (1963)......Page 133 6 ‘Making Do’ or the Cultural Logic of the Ersatz Economy in the Spanish Films of Marco Ferreri......Page 156 7 The Pueblo Travestied in Fernando Fernán Gómez’s The Strange Journey (1964)......Page 178 Conclusion: Gila’s Telephone......Page 200 Notes......Page 210 Bibliography......Page 219 Filmography......Page 227 C......Page 229 F......Page 230 L......Page 231 P......Page 232 Z......Page 233 "Thirty years after the death of Francisco, Spain has yet to come to terms with its dictatorial past and the ghosts of its Civil War. This pioneering book explores comic cinema of the earliest and most repressive period of the Francoist regime and maps its evolution through to the mid-1960s. Largely ignored by critics who have misread cinematic production of the period as propaganda, the films discussed in this book suggest that the cultural agenda of the regime was weakened by the very popular practices it sought to foster. Popular Spanish Film Under Franco adopts an original and innovative theoretical approach to the competing ideologies at work within Francoist culture (with regard to those in favour of the regime as well as its critics), while seeking to avoid simplistic Manichean cliches, and offers a sustained critique of today's cultural arbiters from both within Spain and abroad."--BOOK JACKET Thirty years after the death of Francisco Franco, Spain has yet to come to terms with its dictatorial past and the ghosts of its civil war. This pioneering volume explores comic cinema of the earliest and most repressive period of the Francoist regime and maps its evolution through to the mid-1960s. Largely ignored by critics who have misread cinematic production of the period as propaganda, the films discussed in this book suggest that the cultural agenda of the regime was weakened by the very same popular practices it sought to foster. Popular Spanish Film Under Franco adopts an original and innovative theoretical approach to the competing ideologies at work within Francoist culture (with regard to those in favour of the regime as well as its critics), while seeking to avoid simplistic Manichean clicȟs, and offers a sustained critique of today's cultural arbiters from both within Spain and abroad Popular Spanish Film Under Franco is the first book of its kind to analyze cinematic comedy during the initial two decades of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. Focusing on the intersection between popular culture and political populism, it breaks new theoretical ground in re-evaluating the policies of the regime and the tactics employed by those who sought to undermine it. Its cultural studies approach - combining Gramsci, de Certeau and Bakhtin - interrogates the ambiguous nature of subversion and challenges common assumptions concerning post-war Spanish film.

This book constitutes the first in-depth cultural analysis of a period generally held to be the golden age of film production in Spain. Its focus on the work of five directors between 1942 and 1964 seeks to dispel the myth that movie making of early Francoism consisted exclusively of propaganda exercises. Using Gramscian hegemony theory, the volume offers an original perspective on the comic possibilities of subverting State populism and maps a filmmaking tradition that persists, in the figure of Pedro Almodóvar, to the present day.

This text provides an in-depth cultural analysis of a period generally held to be the golden age of film production in Spain. Its focus on the work of five directors between 1942 and 1964 seeks to dispel the myth that movie making of early Francoism consisted exclusively of propaganda exercises