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Silence, sound, accents: Early film translation in the Spanish-speaking world

Adrián Fuentes-Luque

in The Translation of Films, 1900-1950

Latin America has played a major role in the history of film translation. Most of the research on film and audiovisual translation to date has focused almost exclusively on Europe, and there is ... More

Latin America has played a major role in the history of film translation. Most of the research on film and audiovisual translation to date has focused almost exclusively on Europe, and there is hardly any research on Latin American countries. Apart from the intrinsic interest in and need to expand research to other geographic, linguistic, and cultural contexts, in the case of Latin America there is also a double motive: the magnitude of the Spanish-speaking market; and the fact that, for many years, virtually all the translation into Spanish for audiovisual productions was carried out in specific Latin American countries. This chapter explores the development and implementation of audiovisual translation in the Spanish-speaking context, on both sides of the Atlantic, from intertitles to subtitles, multiple-language versions, and dubbing.Less

Introduction

Ann Davies

in Daniel Calparsoro

This chapter considers the subject of this book: the work of a contemporary Spanish film director, Daniel Calparsoro, in auteurist terms. This study of Calparsoro discusses not only Calparsoro's ... More

This chapter considers the subject of this book: the work of a contemporary Spanish film director, Daniel Calparsoro, in auteurist terms. This study of Calparsoro discusses not only Calparsoro's films but also the Spanish cinema of today and the ways in which it is studied, written about and presented. It aims to make explicit some of the ways in which certain films and production processes are implicitly deemed more desirable, more worthy of attention by academics, critics and audiences. It offers an overall presentation of Calparsoro and his total corpus of work to date in relation to trends and traditions within Spanish cinema, serving to problematise these. Thus Calparsoro is discussed against the background of specific developments in Spanish cinema since 1995, how both the film industry and critics perceived these developments, and how perceptions changed after Spanish cinema arguably fell into crisis from 2002. Calparsoro's style makes the critics uncomfortable, suggesting that, regardless of his own putative roots in an earlier Spanish cinema, his deviation from the increasing convergence of Spanish cine social and slick commercialism has irritated the critics, indicating in turn that their expectations, if not his, have changed.Less

Surcos: Neorealism, Film Noir, and the Puppet Master

Alejandro Yarza

in The Making and Unmaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema: From Raza to Pan's Labyrinth

Critically acclaimed as a milestone of Spanish cinema, Surcos (Furrows, J.A. Nieves Conde, 1951) is the film that single-handedly revolutionized Spanish cinema by introducing the spirit of Neorealism ... More

Critically acclaimed as a milestone of Spanish cinema, Surcos (Furrows, J.A. Nieves Conde, 1951) is the film that single-handedly revolutionized Spanish cinema by introducing the spirit of Neorealism and Film Noir. Through a comparative analysis of the famous boarding sequence of Citizen Kane and few examples from Roberto Rossellini’s early films, this chapter argues that the film’s apparent appropriation of Italian neorealism and also Film Noir and, particularly, its internal strife between its progressive neorealist aesthetic and its fascist message, comes into sharper focus when seen through the lens of kitsch aesthetics. Despite its neorealist and noir appearance, Surcos is in fact a kitsch film that encapsulates Spanish fascist ideology even more insidiously than the previous ones precisely by not being an overtly propagandistic film.Less

Mothers

Andrés Zamora

in Featuring Post-National Spain: Film Essays

This chapter examines the fortunes of the maternal figure as an explicit or indirect representation of the nation — the mother of the land — in post-National Spanish cinema. It shows how the maternal ... More

This chapter examines the fortunes of the maternal figure as an explicit or indirect representation of the nation — the mother of the land — in post-National Spanish cinema. It shows how the maternal emblem as image of the nation has been transformed from years of indignities during most of Spain's modern cultural history, courtesy of Spanish films that began to embark on an unprecedented defense of the mother in competition with the previous icons of victimization and malaise, and to push for the rebirth of the mother nation at the end of the millennium more generally. The chapter investigates this revival and transformation of the mother into a powerful protean figure by discussing a series of movies from the 1980s onwards. It analyzes one such film, Pedro Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), and its use of the medical trope as a model of the best measures to manufacture the national.Less

Modernity, Race, and Visibility

Eva Woods Peiró

in White Gypsies: Race and Stardom in Spanish Musicals

This book traces the development of a racialized vision, which was prominently expressed through Gypsy-face and racialized characters in early to mid-twentieth-century Spanish folkloric musical ... More

This book traces the development of a racialized vision, which was prominently expressed through Gypsy-face and racialized characters in early to mid-twentieth-century Spanish folkloric musical comedy films. The expression of race through the technological development of film articulated Spanish modernity’s most vivid concerns. Folkloric film has its origins in a range of racialized histories, story cycles, and media and performance practices. The chapter then provides a brief outline of some racial terminology and historical debates that supported much of the ideological work of Spanish film before the 1950s.Less

The Gothic House: Problematising the National Space

Ann Davies

in Contemporary Spanish Gothic

This chapter studies the use of haunted houses in contemporary Spanish films, drawing on spatial conceptions of the Gothic and in particular the argument posited by David Punter and Glennis Byron ... More

This chapter studies the use of haunted houses in contemporary Spanish films, drawing on spatial conceptions of the Gothic and in particular the argument posited by David Punter and Glennis Byron that postmodern Gothic spaces are unstably located. Following on from the discussion of haunting in the previous chapter, this chapter starts by considering the conceptualization of Spanish historical memory of the Civil War and Francoism in terms of hauntology (as hypothesized by Jo Labanyi). It also considers the problems and contradictions which nonetheless arise from it, not least the fact that, as Robert Mighall has pointed out, Gothic horror tales deliberately evoke ghosts and other monsters so that the repressed anxieties that are called forth may arise as much from the demands of genre as of history. The film NO-DO (The Haunting, Elio Quiroga, 2009) is taken as a case study to explore some of these contradictions through a comparison with the work of Jaume Balagueró, in particular the film Darkness (2002). Such contradictions serve to undermine the insistence of many scholars within Spanish studies on a default meaning of ghosts as repressed war memories.Less

Najwa Nimri: the interaction of director and star

Ann Davies

in Daniel Calparsoro

This chapter discusses the interaction of the director Calparsoro and the star Calparsoro. Calparsoro has not made his six films unaided and others participated in his work have collaborated to a ... More

This chapter discusses the interaction of the director Calparsoro and the star Calparsoro. Calparsoro has not made his six films unaided and others participated in his work have collaborated to a greater or lesser extent. This collaboration both in terms of its significance for Calparsoro's own work but also in terms of how an individual director's work leaches into and interacts with other aspects of the Spanish film scene, in this case the Spanish star system. It expands to a consideration of the presentation of women in his films, particularly the Basque trilogy, ultimately linking this debate back to the role of Nimri in Calparsoro's work. Nimri certainly has her place within this matrix. Nimri's personal life has impinged on the perception of her star persona; the latter is founded primarily on the roles she has undertaken. Calparsoro's films contributed to her viability as a star, but she also began to develop a repertoire separate from that of Calparsoro's work, starting with Abre los ojos in 1997. Reviews of Calparsoro's work refer time and again to the idea of Nimri as Calparsoro's muse.Less

Woody’s Spanish ‘Double’: Vocal Performance, Ventriloquism, and the Sound of Dubbing

Tom Whittaker

in Locating the Voice in Film: Critical Approaches and Global Practices

This chapter addresses Woody Allen’s approach to vocal performance as a means of providing a broader meditation on the ventriloquism of the dubbed voice in film by examining the relationship between ... More

This chapter addresses Woody Allen’s approach to vocal performance as a means of providing a broader meditation on the ventriloquism of the dubbed voice in film by examining the relationship between Allen and his regular Spanish dubbing actor, Joan Pera, in order to explore the wider location of the voice in Spanish dubbing. Dubbing has formed an integral part of Spanish film practices. Yet the discussion of dubbing also provides the opportunity to reflect more widely on the fundamentally split nature of all voices, whether technologized or not. In using Allen’s ‘Spanish double’, the chapter considers two areas of dubbing that have received little academic attention: the vocal performance of the dubbed voice, and its place within the soundtrack of the film. Also addressed are the challenges and contradictions that surround the dubbing of nonverbal sounds, such as the stutters and stammers for which Woody Allen is well known.Less

Romancero Marroquí and the Francoist Kitsch Politics of Time

Alejandro Yarza

in The Making and Unmaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema: From Raza to Pan's Labyrinth

This chapter examines the colonial politics of Franco’s Spain through an analysis of Romancero marroquí (Morrocan Romance, Carlos Velo 1938), a documentary about Spanish Morocco produced during the ... More

This chapter examines the colonial politics of Franco’s Spain through an analysis of Romancero marroquí (Morrocan Romance, Carlos Velo 1938), a documentary about Spanish Morocco produced during the Spanish Civil War by Franco’s provisional government. While in traditional colonial representations the colony becomes an alluring, albeit inferior, other to the colonizing Metropolis in need of progress and civilization, in its Francoist representation Spanish-Moroccan society becomes a model to be imitated, a kitsch paradise opposing—like Francoism itself—modern materialism and parliamentary democracy.Less

Memory: landscapes of the past in Guillermo del Toro's Spanish films

in Spanish Spaces: Landscape, Space and Place in Contemporary Spanish Culture

This chapter describes Guillermo del Toro's highly successful El laberinto del fauno and El espinazo del diablo. These Spanish films present landscapes of fantasy and horror generic to international ... More

This chapter describes Guillermo del Toro's highly successful El laberinto del fauno and El espinazo del diablo. These Spanish films present landscapes of fantasy and horror generic to international and particularly Hollywood cinema. They also offer an opportunity to invoke a call to care through the desire to rewrite history as if the losers of the Spanish Civil War had in fact been the winners. This chapter shows that del Toro draws the attention to the landscape as landscape, moving backwards and forwards between a narrative mode and a spectacular mode.Less

Exaggeration and nation: the politics of performance in the Spanish sophisticated comedy of the 1940s

Stuart Green

in Performance and Spanish Film

This chapter explores the acting styles of Spanish film in the 1940s. In analysing the so-called sophisticated comedies of early Francoism, it explores how discourses of nation in the post-war decade ... More

This chapter explores the acting styles of Spanish film in the 1940s. In analysing the so-called sophisticated comedies of early Francoism, it explores how discourses of nation in the post-war decade determined the study of the performance of their stars and supporting actors. It closely analyse the exaggerated performance style of both supporting actors, and romantic leads, which, as the chapter discusses, is largely influenced by the theatre. It shows how the problematic combination of these two acting styles is fundamental to understanding the commercial success of the sophisticated comedies of the post-war. As the chapter demonstrates, if the acting styles of exaggerated secondary characters and theatrical romantic leads are more prominent in Spanish films of the time, it is because of the persistence of a paradigm that transcended the theatre and was appropriated by the cinema.Less

Performance and gesture as crisis in La aldea maldita/The Cursed Village (Florián Rey, 1930)

Sarah Wright

in Performance and Spanish Film

Through a close analysis of the 1930 version of La aldea maldita, this chapter reflects on the influences ushered in by Spain’s embrace of modernity. Touted as ‘Spain’s last silent film’ as well as ... More

Through a close analysis of the 1930 version of La aldea maldita, this chapter reflects on the influences ushered in by Spain’s embrace of modernity. Touted as ‘Spain’s last silent film’ as well as its most important one, La aldea maldita presents a harsh, minimalist beauty that has long been praised by audiences and critics. The chapter shows that the acting style is influenced not just by trends of the time but also by the film’s relationship to sound: after the disastrous experience with the sonorisation of a previous film, Rey decided to film La aldea maldita as if it were silent, when in fact the first showing of the film included sound. It also addresses the performance in the version of this film, questioning the sense of anachronism that now pervades them and reflecting on attitudes to aesthetics, acting and the cinematic medium itself.Less

The Cultural Politics of Remaking Spanish Horror Films in the Twenty-first Century: Quarantine and Come Out and Play

Andy Willis

in Transnational Film Remakes

The 21st century revival in Spanish horror film production has seen both a resurgence of interest in the genre’s Iberian past and an interest in transnational film remakes for North American ... More

The 21st century revival in Spanish horror film production has seen both a resurgence of interest in the genre’s Iberian past and an interest in transnational film remakes for North American audiences. This chapter will consider the cultural politics of remaking Spanish horror through two case studies - Quarantine (2008), the US remake of [REC] (2007), and Come Out and Play (2012), the Mexican remake of Who Can Kill a Child? (1976). The chapter argues that Who Can Kill a Child? might profitably be read as an engagement with the legacy of Francoist Spain, and that [REC] could be productively understood in relation to Spain’s recent tensions surrounding immigration. Through a discussion of the potential political readings of these films, the chapter argues that the North American remakes are divested of the most urgent political aspects of their Spanish counterparts in an endeavour to create globally marketable horror films.Less

The Colour of Kisses: Eroticism and Exoticism in Spanish Film Culture of the 1920s and ’30s

Eva Woods Peiró

in Spanish Erotic Cinema

This chapter explores the erotic allure of the kiss in 1920s Spanish films, paying special attention to discussions about the cinematic kiss in the Spanish specialised press at the time. It reveals ... More

This chapter explores the erotic allure of the kiss in 1920s Spanish films, paying special attention to discussions about the cinematic kiss in the Spanish specialised press at the time. It reveals an obsessive fascination with the technological mediation of the Hollywood kiss on the one hand, and, on the other, a highly racialised discourse about Japan’s prohibition on kissing, used by the Spanish printed media to present a comparatively modern image of 1920s Spain.Less