Contemporary Spanish Film from Fiction


Book Description

Deveny (Spanish, Western Maryland College, Westminster) examines cinematic versions of post-Civil War narratives that debuted during between 1965 and 1995. He begins with an overview of the critical problems of screen adaptations and offers a global analysis of film adaptations of works by 57 authors, including Camilo Jose Cela, Migual Delibes, and Luis Martin Santos and recent best-selling authors such as Antonio Munoz Molina and Juan Madrid. He emphasizes how the end of dictatorship allowed filmmakers to reinterpret Spanish history and literature.




The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Films


Book Description

Under the Franco regime (1939-1976), films produced in Spain were of poor quality, promoted the regime’s agenda, or were heavily censored. After the dictator’s death, the Spanish film industry transitioned into a new era, one in which artists were able to more freely express themselves and tackle subjects that had been previously stifled. Today, films produced in Spain are among the most highly regarded in world cinema. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Films features nearly 300 entries on the written by a host of international scholars and film critics. Beginning with movies released after Franco’s death, this volume documents four decades of films, directors, actresses and actors of Spanish cinema. Offering a comprehensive survey of films, the entries address such topics as art, culture, society and politics. Each includes comprehensive production details and provides brief suggestions for further reading. Through its examination of the films of the post-Franco period, this volume offers readers valuable insights into Spanish history, politics, and culture. An indispensable guide to one of the great world cinemas, The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Films will be of interest to students, academics, and the general public alike.




The Dystopian Imagination in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film


Book Description

This study examines contemporary Spanish dystopian literature and films (in)directly related to the 2008 financial crisis from an urban cultural studies perspective. It explores culturally-charged landscapes that effectively convey the zeitgeist and reveal deep-rooted anxieties about issues such as globalization, consumerism, immigration, speculation, precarity, and political resistance (particularly by Indignados [Indignant Ones] from the 15-M Movement). The book loosely traces the trajectory of the crisis, with the first part looking at texts that underscore some of the behaviors that indirectly contributed to the crisis, and the remaining chapters focusing on works that directly examine the crisis and its aftermath. This close reading of texts and films by Ray Loriga, Elia Barceló, Ion de Sosa, José Ardillo, David Llorente, Eduardo Vaquerizo, and Ricardo Menéndez Salmón offers insights into the creative ways that these authors and directors use spatial constructions to capture the dystopian imagination.




Religion and Spanish Film


Book Description

How Spanish directors have handled religious themes, with their highly-charged political implications, from the historical avant-garde to 2010




Affect and Belonging in Contemporary Spanish Fiction and Film


Book Description

This book brings together recent Spanish fictions and films that point to individualism as the root problem driving diverse circumstances of social, economic, and psychological suffering in the present and recent past. The works privilege sensation, movement, and emotion—rather than identity—as the core elements of existential experience. However, the works also problematize notions of intersubjectivity, confronting ideals of affective immersion and cultural nomadism with the concrete contexts that shape particular lives and social formations. This confrontation underlies a series of ‘crossroads’, or productive engagements, that guide the book’s five main chapters: locally rooted identity and global cultural circuits; historical contexts and universal modes of being; personal authenticity and consumer culture; migration and cultural identity; Spain's historical underdevelopment and impending future crises. All of these issues make affective connection and attachment the greatest existential challenge facing individuals and collectives in the contemporary world, both in Spain and elsewhere.




Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema


Book Description

In Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema, Thomas Deveny takes the unique approach of looking at film and immigration with a global perspective, examining emigration and immigration films from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Central America, and the Hispanic Caribbean. Deveny approaches each movie with a close textual analysis, keeping in mind the sociological theories regarding migration, as well as incorporating criticism on the film. Films such as Flowers from Another World, Return to Hansala, El Camino, 14 Kilometers, María Full of Grace, and others are studied throughout.




Postnational Perspectives on Contemporary Hispanic Literature


Book Description

"Offers an array of disciplinary views on how theories of globalization and an emerging postnational critical imagination have impacted traditional ways of thinking about literature."--Samuel Amago, author of Spanish Cinema in the Global Context: Film on Film Moving beyond the traditional study of Hispanic literature on a nation-by-nation basis, this volume explores how globalization is currently affecting Spanish and Latin American fiction, poetry, and literary theory. Taking a postnational approach, contributors examine works by José Martí, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Junot Díaz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Cecilia Vicuña, Jorge Luis Borges, and other writers. They discuss how expanding worldviews have impacted the way these authors write and how they are read today. Whether analyzing the increasingly popular character of the voluntary exile, the theme of masculinity in This Is How You Lose Her, or the multilingual nature of the Spanish language itself, they show how contemporary Hispanic writers and critics are engaging in cross-cultural literary conversations. Drawing from a range of fields including postcolonial, Latino, gender, exile, and transatlantic studies, these essays help characterize a new "world" literature that reflects changing understandings of memory, belonging, and identity.




The Contemporary Spanish Novel


Book Description

Although there are several annotated bibliographies of contemporary Spanish novelists, this book covers critical works published on the post civil war Spanish novel as a literary form. The volume cites books and articles, and each citation is accompanied by a descriptive and evaluative annotation. The work contains a section of entries on books and another on articles. Entries within each section are arranged alphabetically. Included are entries primarily for studies published in English or Spanish, though some in Catalan, French, Galician, and Italian are also cited. In the last decades, there has been an explosion of critical works on the post civil war Spanish novel. This proliferation of material causes serious problems for scholars conducting research on the subject. While there are bibliographies of particular novelists, this book deals with general studies of trends, topics, and comparative approaches. The volume primarily cites works published in English or Spanish, but it also includes some in Catalan, French, Galician, and Italian. The volume is divided into two sections—books and articles. Within each section, entries are arranged alphabetically. Each citation is accompanied by a descriptive and evaluative annotation. The annotations provide information about the topic, content, and methodology of the works cited and express an opinion of the works' value. The length of the annotations varies according to the importance of the topic. Author and title indexes add to the utility of the work.




Migrants in Contemporary Spanish Film


Book Description

7.6 Conclusion -- 8 General Conclusion -- References -- Index




Contemporary Spanish Cinema


Book Description

Contemporary Spanish Cinema offers an essential analysis of the main trends and issues in Spanish film since the death of Franco in 1975. While taking account of cinema during the Franco dictatorship, the book focuses principally on developments in the last two decades. Acknowledging the sheer breadth and diversity of Spanish film production since the ending of the regime and the transition to democracy, this study includes chapters on Spanish film’s obsessive concern with the past on popular genre film (including the comedy and the thriller), on representations of gender and sexuality and the work of women film professionals, both behind and in front of the camera, as well as on film produced in Spain’s autonomous communities, particularly in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This book offers a unique and up-to-date focus on a wide range of materials, including work on such established directors as Carlos Saura, Víctor Erice, Pedro Almodóvar, Pilar Miró, Bigas Lina and Josefina Molina as well as exciting new talents such as Julio Medem, Juanma Bajo Ulloa, Alex de la Iglesia, Icíar Bollan, Isabel Coixet and Marta Balletbò-Coll.