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Over the last decade, visibility and sexuality have become a major theme in Spanish and Cuban cinema, literature and art. Vision Machines explores this development in the light of contemporary history and recent theoretical accounts of sight by writers including Paul Virilio, Gianni Vattimo and Teresa de Lauretis. The very visible women of Almodóvar’s cinema are Paul Julian Smith’s first subject. He shows how, in his early Dark Habits, lesbianizes the look, putting women’s pleasure at the centre of the frame, and then examines Almodóvar’s recent film, Kika, where the conflict between cinema and video is played out in the bodies of women: good, bad and ugly. Moving the focus to Cuba...
This book offers a radically new account of the rich and varied culture of contemporary Spain. It focuses on three intellectuals who chronicle contemporary life (including journalist Francisco Umbral); three filmmakers who engage with the many nationalisms of the Spanish state (Victor Erice,Bigas Luna, and Julio Medem); and three crucial topics that are expressed in many media (the replaying of history, the rise and fall of the city, and the practice of everyday life). Ranging from the ethnographic photography of Cristina Garcia Rodero to the high tech architecture of SantiagoCalatrava and from the hyperrealist painting of Antonio Lopez to the neo-flamenco dance of Joaquin Cortes, this book is also the first to draw on theorists of the intellectual field, the production of space, and the arts of bricolage (Pierre Bourdieu, Henri Lefebvre, and Michel de Certeau). Refutingthe charge that contemporary Spanish culture is trivial or superficial, this book argues that it is fully engaged in the aesthetic and historical project of modernity.
This book examines troupes, plays, festivals, performative practices, and audiences active during the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the beginning of the transition to democracy. This period, spanning 1968 to 1982, is considered the historical moment that most directly shaped contemporary Spanish politics and society. The dominant narrative of the Transition has long portrayed it as a normalized, non-confrontational, and consensual process steered by political elites. But the world of Spanish theater tells a very different story - one in which ordinary Spaniards played a vital role in the transition to democracy. The chapters of this book draw on censorship files, photographs, au...
Providing an overview of Spanish and Portuguese cinema, this title contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region, profiling work from the likes of Pedro Almodıvar and João Cesar Monteiro.
In the last decade, Spanish film auteur Pedro Almodvar has grown from critical darling of the film circuit scene to mainstream success. Frequently comic, often deadly serious, always visually glorious, his recent films range from the Oscar award-winning drama Talk to Her to the 2011 horror film The Skin I Live In. Though they are ambitious and varied, each is a distinctive innovation on the themes that have defined his work. Desire Unlimited is the classic film-by-film assessment of Almodvar's oeuvre, now updated to include his most recent work. Still the only study of its kind in English, it vigorously confirms its original argument, that beneath Almodovar's genius for comedy and visual pleasure lies a filmmaker whose work deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
"This is the most complete, in-depth, sophisticated study of Spanish cinema available in any language."—Marvin D'Lugo, author of The Films of Carlos Saura
This book deepens the understanding of the work carried out by professional women in Spanish film and television since the arrival of democracy, a period of radical changes that saw an emergence of female talent. Although most of the literature on women and media deals with female film directors, this book also addresses television, a medium where the presence of women was significant throughout this period. This book makes an important contribution to the study of the history of women in Spanish media, focusing on the work of some well-known names, while also rescuing from oblivion others now forgotten. It brings together scholars from Spain, the United States and Ireland to analyze films a...
This is the first monograph on the performance and reception of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century national drama in contemporary Spain, which attempts to remedy the traditional absence of performance-based approaches in Golden Age studies. The book contextualises the socio-historical background to the modern-day performance of the country’s three major Spanish baroque playwrights (Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina), whilst also providing detailed aesthetic analyses of individual stage and screen adaptations.
A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar “Marvin D’Lugo and Kathleen M. Vernon give us the ideal companion to Pedro Almodóvar’s films. Established and emerging writers offer a rainbow of insights for fans as well as academics.” Jerry W. Carlson, Professor of Film Studies, The City College & Graduate Center CUNY “Rarely has a contemporary film artist been treated to the kind of broad, rich discussion of their work that can be found in A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar.” Richard Peña, Professor of Film Studies, Columbia University Once the enfant terrible of Spain’s youth culture explosion, the Movida, Pedro Almodóvar’s distinctive film style and career longevity have made him one of t...
This book is formed by various chapters studying the manner in which conflicts, changes and ideologies appear in contemporary Hispanic discourses. The contributions analyze a wide variety of topics related to the manner in which ideological and epistemological changes of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries are reflected in, and shape, Spanish language, literature, and other cultural expressions in both Spain and Latin America. The 19th century was conducive to various movements of independence, while, in Europe, radical changes of different types and in all contexts of life and knowledge occurred. Language was certainly affected by these changes resulting in new terminology and discourse strat...