Immigrant Cosmopolitanism: The Political Culture of Argentine Early Sound Cinema of the 1930s (original) (raw)
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Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, 2015
In Argentina, the late 1960s and early 1970s were characterized by political tensions that negatively affected the national community. Despite the pass ing of two laws between 1966 and 1968 to protect national cinema through loans and exhibition quotas, Argentine filmmaking lacked quality films and was limited by censorship. In 1970, a biopic of the nineteenth-century Ar gentine liberator, Jose de San Martin, El santo de la espada, directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, became a major box-office success. Film scholars, however, have seen it as propaganda, given that it received both official ap proval and funding during the military government of General Onganfa. Based on Andrew Higson's definition of national cinemas, my reading pro poses that El santo de la espada competed exceptionally well with Holly wood blockbusters in the Argentine domestic market. Relying on reports published in the general press and trade journals and on insights from star dom studies and theory in relation to historical films, I trace the production and reception of this popular film as well as the reasons why El santo de la espada has not been properly included in Argentine film history. B eginning in 1969, deteriorating economic conditions and political un rest weakened the Argentine Revolution established by General Juan Carlos Onganfa in 1966. In May 1969, during el Cordobazo, politicized youth and unionized workers vigorously protested against the government. The economy was also impacted by political developments and vice versa: Onganfa's reluctance to accept changes in his regime slowly eroded his po sition as an overseer of the different-and sometimes opposing-sectors. At the same time, new social actors, such as leftist urban guerrillas, along with the traditional players-trade unions and political parties-were ac tive on the national stage, demanding nationalist and anti-imperialist pol icies as well as proclaiming their solidarity with Third World movements (Goebel, "A Movement from Right to Left" 357). Within this setting, Ar gentine film production was stuck in a quagmire. Despite the passing of two film laws-Law 16,
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Argentine Cinema and National Identity (1966-1976), 2018
Argentine Cinema and National Identity covers the development of Argentine cinema since the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, a period that has been understudied. Marked by tumultuous political events, these decades witnessed debates about Argentina’s modernity and tradition that affected film production and consumption. Two film genres, the historical film and the gauchesque— a genre based on outlaw gauchos was crucial for nation-building in the nineteenth century—generated great local interest and high expectations among film producers and distributors. The notion of national identity guides the analysis of certain emblematic films that were well-received by domestic audiences and engaged with the issue of Argentine identity. This manuscript investigates the way Argentine cinema positioned itself when facing the competition of glossy American films by representing the past and the heroic founding figures so as to bridge the stark divisions between the Argentine left and right in the la...
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2017
This essay explores the resonances between two moments in Spanish alternative film-culture history: the 1930s and the 1970s. We analyze how an anachronistic network of referents and practices regarding the democratization of film production and the political potential of nonprofessional film technologies was articulated across epochs. We locate these practices in an expanded genealogy of political nontheatrical film culture, from which the Spanish context has been largely excluded. To conceptualize these transhistorical echoes, we draw on some contributions elaborated by Jacques Rancière around the idea of anachronism and the missed encounters between radical theory and practice. As our case study, we examine how the project of an alternative film culture envisioned in the 1930s by radical film critic Juan Piqueras irrupted into two radical film formations that emerged in Spain in the 1970s: a new generation of radical critics known as the “Nuevo Frente Crítico” and a series of manifestations of militant cinema taking place in Catalonia.
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Cinema deserves a great deal of attention from those who study the creation of the nation and its identity in the 20th century, since it has been the most powerful tool for cultural dissemination and homogenization during that century. In this particular case, the films produced between 1939 and 1975 -Francoist regime- were controlled by a dictatorial and authoritarian regime through censorship, repression and funding. Nonetheless, we have not studied films stemmed from power, that is, the propaganda, but the national images that were screened. After watching more than four hundred and fifty films, we have concluded that in the feature films under study, there is an unquestionable nationalist discourse, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the film. This discourse is focused on six main subjects: the origins and splendour of Spain, the defensive wars, the expansionist Spain, the Catholic Spain, the romantic-folkloric Spain and the modern Spain. We will develop these different images, studying which ones were directly promoted by the regime with the purpose of being legitimated and which of them were made up of a way of understanding Spain that had already permeated society. We will also see to what extent the discourse is affected by the changes occurred during the regime, if new national images have been created and what is to be done with the previous ones. This conference took place in Cañada Blanch Center (London School of Economics and Politics) in 2017