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The Children of Bunuel: Spanish Cinema Takes Off
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13222 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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10 / 1987 |
3,454 Words |
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Carlos Perellon
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There is a rare quality about the cinema that dictatorships have always particularly feared, namely, the amazing ability of film to show life as it is, using its own blend of images and words. Modern-day dictators have generally taken into account both the potential danger and the great usefulness of the screen. They have attempted to eliminate those films they consider harmful to their interests, while encouraging and endorsing those that support their authority.
For this reason, dissident film directors have often been among the first to flee totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. At the same time, filmmakers willing to collaborate with the propaganda machinery of the totalitarian state have been indulged and flattered by dictators, who have never failed to realize the advantages that films offer them for proclaiming their theories and magnifying their power.
The situation of Spanish filmmaking during the political regime of Francisco Franco, which lasted from the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936) until the Generalissimo's death in 1975, is a clear-cut example of the relationship that exists between power and art. The Franco dictatorship virtually killed any chance for creativity outside the official Spanish filmmaking industry. Producers who wanted to make movies in Spain had to submit to harsh censorship, wielded by the most entrenched elements of Spanish society, who were constantly on guard to eradicate the slightest hint of immorality or criticism of the political system. At times, in their zeal to protect the Spanish public from any perceived obscenity, these censors often stumbled into ridiculous situations. One prize example occurred in the dubbing of a foreign film, when they decided to change married lovers into brother and sister, and, in the effort to conceal their adulterous relationship, made them incestuous lovers instead.
New Golden Age
Thus, in early 1976, as Spain moved toward democracy, the possibility of creativity unhampered by government interference kindled hopes for a cultural explosion among the country's creative people. Newspapers began to speak of a new Spanish Golden Age (Siglo de Oro) and sought to discover the latter-day Cervantes, Quevedos and Gongoras who would raise arts in Spain to an international level.
But even though there were Spanish artists in the film industry exercising their creative talents with considerable force, the expected cultural transformation did not occur. At first, creative freedom in the film industry resulted in a veritable boom of pornographic films attempting to exploit the sexual repression endured by Spaniards during the Franco regime. Suddenly Spanish movies seemed to be nothing but sex films filled with women of impressive physical endowments, while the most important directors were complaining to their friends in the cafes of Madrid and Barcelona that they did not have any money to realize their cinematic dreams.
Not until film producer Pilar Miro took charge of the Instituto de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute) in early 1983, and the Spanish Film Protection Act - popularly known as the Miro Act - was adopted the following year, did Spanish artists begin to receive subsidies from both the government and Spanish television for their projects, according to a plan modeled closely on those used
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