Transnational dreamscapes: Cinema and visual motifs in the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition (original) (raw)
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The Role of Moving Images in the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition
The role cinema played in the Barcelona 1929 World Fair is still one of the least researched aspects of this international exposition, the second one held in the city after the 1888 edition. Mostly remembered today for its architectural landmarks, specially the astounding Mies van der Rohe pavilion, the exposition exemplifies three analytical dimensions that we find deeply tied to the current historical juncture in Europe, and therefore worth exploring at Film Forum, because each one of those issues has strong critical ties with film history, exhibition and creation. The first one is the centuries-old clash between Catalan and Spanish identities, since the original plans for the exposition (which date back to the early 1910s) had to be radically altered when dictator Primo de Rivera seized power in the 1923 coup d’état, delaying the fair’s planned date to match the Sevilla Iberoamerican Exhibition and also banning multiple signifiers of Catalan culture. The second has to do with the shifts in industrial and economic practices of the time, since the original plans to devote the exposition to the theme of Electricity were altered in the mid 20s, finally consecrating it to the liaisons between Industry, Sports and Art. Thirdly, cinema-wise, those same years mark a change of primacy in the Spanish film industry, going from a production context largely based in Barcelona (which was Spain’s early and silent film capital) to one based in Madrid, with an exciting avant-garde scene linked to the cultural journal La Gaceta Literaria, with emerging talents like Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí or Florián Rey. We know that a 10.000 m² Projections Palace was built for the occasion, and later demolished to host the current Palau de Congressos, but beyond visual and written records of its existence, what was the role cinema played in it? In which ways, from promotional screenings to newsreel coverage and artistic exhibition, did film shape the impact of Barcelona’s Exposition? The aim of this paper is to dig deep into the historical sources available at Filmoteca de Catalunya, the National Archive of Catalonia and the Barcelona Museum of History, in order to gain a clearer picture of how cinema was exhibited and to what extent it contributed to the volatile atmosphere of the time (the 1929 Great Crash took place during the exposition, and the Spanish Second Republic was proclaimed not long after). Thus we hope that the combination of quantitative methodologies applied to remaining film programs with critical interpretations of the historical context will shed light on the role of cinema and moving images around those years, specially in comparison with the exhibit of Spanish film in the 1937 Paris Exposition, juxtaposing cinema with other arts. Finally, and more importantly for us today, is the fact that perhaps by analyzing the political and cultural junctures of the past, through its images, we might be able to better understand (and cope with) the complex present of Catalonia, Spain and Europe.
En: François de la Bretèque (ed). “les Cinemas Peripheriques dans la Periode des Premiers Temps/Peripheral Early Cinema” . Perpignan, 17-22 Junio de 2008. Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan , 2010. Pp. 347-358., 2010
Las formas fílmicas y las prácticas cinematográficas del llamado “cine primitivo” están marcadas —desde su origen como un ámbito académico (Congreso de Brigthon, 1978)— por su estudio y análisis como parte del proceso de institucionalización de un nuevo campo cultural. Ahora bien, dos décadas después de aquella histórica fecha no hemos sido capaces de unir en un solo relato las dos grandes tramas que conforman la transformación de los cines primitivos en el sistema institucional del cine. Nos falta así un modelo que unifique la doble perspectiva que se aplica generalmente a la invención y definición de los media: el análisis historiográfico del «surgimiento tecnológico de la novedad y el estudio sociológico de la «construcción social del medio». Este problema epistemológico es explorado en este trabajo a través del análisis de un caso excéntrico: la percepción cultural del cinema en Madrid, entre 1903 y 1913, a partir de la disparidad, en la prensa de la época, entre el artefacto y la maravilla del «cinematógrafo» y el local y el espectáculo del «ciné».
Exhibition Cinema: A Crossroads between the Cinema and the Museum in Contemporary Spanish Filmmaking
Hispanic Research Journal, 2014
Some of the most interesting films in Spanish cinema in recent years have had their origins at the intersection between the spaces of the movie theatre and the museum — two territories that are being transformed. As a cultural institution, the museum is not only a place for audiovisual exhibition but also for film production, a relational space with the potential to participate actively in the development of new cinematic styles. In the twenty-first century, the cinema has kept its central role in image creation, although it may now be fulfilling that role by spreading out to other screens. At the same time, the range of its forms is opening up more and more, largely due to the evolution of the technology, and to the debate over new forms of viewer consumption. This dual mutation explains some of the shifts occurring in the work of some of Spain’s most original filmmakers who have taken an interest in this creative intersection: Pere Portabella, Víctor Erice, José Luís Guerin, Albert Serra, and Isaki Lacuesta. Algunos de los filmes más interesantes del cine español reciente han tenido su origen en el cruce entre el espacio del cine y el espacio del museo, dos territorios que están transformando su naturaleza. Como institución cultural, el museo no es sólo un lugar para la exhibición audiovisual sino también para la producción fílmica, un espacio relacional que se plantea intervenir activamente en la activación de nuevas caligrafías cinematográficas. En el siglo XXI, el cine mantiene intacta su centralidad en el universo de creación de imágenes, aunque quizás lo hace disolviéndose en las otras pantallas. Al mismo tiempo, sus formas se manifiestan cada vez más abiertas, debido en gran parte a la evolución de la tecnología y al debate sobre las nuevas formas de consumo. Esta doble mutación explica algunos de los movimientos producidos en la obra de algunos de los cineastas españoles más singulares que se han interesado por este cruce creativo: Pere Portabella, Víctor Erice, José Luís Guerin, Albert Serra e Isaki Lacuesta.
The Cultura de la Pantalla network: writing new cinema histories across Latin America and Europe
2018
The Cultura de la Pantalla network consists of an international group of film, media and communication researchers in (Latin) America (Mexico, Colombia, US) and Europe (Belgium, Spain) collaborating in a series of multi-method longitudinal studies on urban cinema cultures in the Spanish language world. The network is writing ‘new cinema histories’ with a focus on exhibition, programming and audience experiences. First we briefly look back at the development of the network and its roots in The Enlightened City project. Then the conceptual framework that inspires it, new cinema history, is defined and the basic three part model is explained, with its central research questions and methods. In a last part, preliminary results from one of the case studies are complemented with reflections on the overall goal of the network, i.e. to present local, national, regional and cross-continental comparative studies on historical cinema cultures.
Universal exhibitions and the cinema: history and culture
2011
Resumo O artigo tem por objetivo examinar a presença do cinema nas exposições universais entre 1893 (World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago) e 1939 (New York World's Fair). Integrante de uma cultura visual construída por esses espaços dedicados a celebrar o capitalismo, o cinema tem sua trajetória identificada a das diferentes feiras mundiais pela sua capacidade de entreter e, ao mesmo tempo, educar.
Women and the Shift from Theatre to Cinema in Spain: The Case of Helena Cortesina (1903-84)
Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Vol. 45, Issue 1, 2018
The purpose of this article is to identify the main causes behind women achieving, on the one hand, important positions as theatre managers in Spain but, on the other, being relegated a marginal status in the shift to cinema. We use the career of the artist Helena Cortesina to illustrate the only known example of a woman becoming a silent cinema entrepreneur in Spain. An actress, producer, and director of Flor de España o la leyenda de un torero (Spanish flower or the bullfighter's story, 1921) Cortesina transitioned from the variety dances stage to silent film and became a theatrical manager. Her professional career exemplifies the inter-artistic relations between cinema and the scenic arts at the beginning of the twentieth century and the professional bridge between them. This article contributes to feminist film historiography. Following Monica Dall'Asta, it presents a 'his-tory that invites us to work using creative hypotheses and even imagination'. The article revisits Spanish Film History, reinterpreting the hegemonic production of knowledge that has been historically told from a (supposedly) un-gendered perspective. Our article seeks to disrupt this patriarchal narrative of firsts (including geniuses, technical discoveries, and masterpieces) that relegate women's experiences to the margins of History.
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2014
In the story of the fight for democratic freedom and the drive to bring Europe and the world closer to Francoist Spain, Nuevo Fotogramas deserves a central position. Fuelled by the spirit of May 1968, the long-running Barcelona-based magazine Fotogramas became Nuevo Fotogramas (NF) in 1968 and set out to define the pro-democracy struggle differently from the Madrid-based film cultures. It also set out to engage with European cultural production as if censorship and being closed off from European modernity were simply temporary situations. NF helps us to write the transition differently, by debunking the myth of its having been a process led solely by the filmmakers and critics who engaged in direct confrontation. Explaining the different approach that NF had to documenting and taking part in the cultural industries of the transition helps us to locate resistance in the “trivial” and “female” world of consumption rather than exclusively in the production sector, more associated with visible and well-documented acts of opposition. Three aspects of the magazine contribute to this reconfiguration of inherited ideas about the transition, particularly the ethos of the publication, the writers who collaborated in it, and what seems to be more “marginalia”: its letter section, “El consultorio de Mr. Belvedere,” and its advertisements.