Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas,
Contemporary Spanish Cinema.
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
216pp
ISBN 0 7190 4412 X £35.00 stg. (cloth)
ISBN 0 7190 4413 8 £9.99 stg. (paper)
(Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press)
Uploaded 12 November 1999

Due to the steady stream of quirky, marketable films by Pedro Almodovar, contemporary Spanish cinema seems inextricably linked with this solitary figure. Occasionally, films like Fernando Trueba’s Belle epoque (1992) and Jose Juan Bigas Luna’s Jamon jamon (1992) will break into arthouse circles, however, the majority of recent Spanish films are rarely distributed. Eurocentrics have tended to privilege films from France or Italy, within academia as well as in the commercial sphere. The reasons for this are undoubtedly complex, however, part of it could be explained by a kind of national stereotyping. Directors like Almodovar and Bigas Luna follow in the esperpento tradition, privileging the grotesque, bad taste and an excess of crudity, encouraging a view of Spanish culture as a “laughable distortion, a crude deformation of European civilisation.” (75) Another recent Spanish release, Alex de la Iglesia’s Perdita Durango (1997) offers an excess of Basque fury that resonates through its hyper-violence. This further contributes to the (mis)conception that films from Spain are singularly marked by excess. Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas, in their detailed study of Spanish films of the 80s and 90s, reveal the diversity of this national cinema, and the multiplicity of identities and desires reflected in the films. For this reason, Contemporary Spanish Cinema is an important book, shedding light on a thriving national industry.

The book is divided into four main areas. The first is “Reconstructing the past: historical cinema in post-Franco Spain”, which outlines shifts in the film industry during the post-Franco transition period (1976-82). Jordan and Morgan-Tamosunas explain the need for Spanish filmmakers to recuperate the historical past and rediscover cultural identities suppressed or distorted during the dictatorship. With a good balance between thematic and industrial analysis, they summarise the rapid changes through the newly “politicised” cinema in the 1970s, to centrist or polivante work in the early 1980s, to the personal-as-political in the late 1980s and 1990s. Jordan and Morgan-Tamosunas discuss the particular Spanish obsession with the past in this era, which resulted in the production of a number of literary adaptations, period dramas and the recycling of retrospective genres like cancion Espanola musicals. These films divide into those that glorify Spain’s “Golden Age”, and those which address issues of mythology and the complexity of imag(in)ing history. Drawing largely from Fredric Jameson’s work, the writers address the cultural and temporal specificity of Spanish postmodernity, as well as its similarity to other national industries.

The second chapter, “Cultural reinscription: popular genre film in post-Franco Spain”, gives a detailed description of commercial genres since the 1970s, as well as glossing some of the theoretical issues surrounding genre studies. Fluctuations in popular imagination, the changing role of women in Spanish society, and international influences are covered. The discovery of a range of subgenres within those such as comedy is fascinating in this chapter, as Jordan and Morgan-Tamosunas trace a trajectory from traditional Spanish theatrical and literary preoccupations to their contemporary manifestations. As with any study of genre, though, there are overlaps and problems surrounding classification. As the writers come from Hispanic Studies rather than from a film background, some of this chapter is too concentrated on thematics or “window on the world” readings rather than on any significant visual interpretation.

“Gender and sexuality in post-Franco cinema” provides an inroad into the changing role of women, the New Spanish Man versus the Iberian macho, and representations of homosexuality and lesbianism. Again, these issues are addressed, to some degree, in terms of cultural specificity, however I was not comfortable with the underlying notion that somehow the Spanish are “progressing” to “our” level of social enlightenment. With some Mulvey-esque interpretation of the woman-as-spectacle era through to post-feminism, there is a strange sense that the Franco dictatorship directly equates with classic Hollywood. I also thought that the description of women’s “taking charge” in post-feminist films from the 90s relates as much to trends in the international market, and the saleable product as to a real representation of the majority of Spanish people.

The final chapter, “Recuperating nationalist identities: film in the autonomous regions” focuses mainly on Catalan and Basque industries in relation to the homogenising effect of Francoist Castilian cinema. This chapter raises some important cultural issues, as it shows a kind of anachronistic push towards nationalisms in Spain that sit uneasily with the growing international trend towards cultural fluidity and globalisation. While the notion of pitting these nationalisms against a supposedly non-nationalist Spanishness is highly problematic, it becomes clear that under Franco, the fact that the diversity of regional voices were silenced demanded a strong counter-response. Jordan and Morgan-Tamosunas also deal with language issues and the extent to which original language dictates the cultural specificity of a film. The fact that film directors from both regions appear throughout the book under various subcategories can seem rather repetitive, however, it does demonstrate the multiplicity of ways in which to approach these directors without falling into traditional auteurism.

The introduction and conclusion contain valuable industry information, including a discussion of the move towards deregulation under the right-wing Partido Popular government. Through this analysis, emerges a (re)imagination of Spanish identities and an ideological mapping that provides a solid basis for any study of film or Hispanic culture. It is also accessible enough to reach the wider public. While there is no significant departure from other recent publications (Hopewell, Besas, Kinder, et al.), Contemporary Spanish Cinema fills an important temporal gap, and covers a vast range of issues in an insightful and refreshingly optimistic way.

Thank you to Stewart King of Monash University for his helpful comments.

Sophy Williams