Catalan Cinema: The Barcelona Film School and the New Avant-Garde

by Anton Pujol (Editor), Jaume Mart -Olivella (Editor)

Overview

Catalan Cinema (In)Visible Traditions offers a theoretical reading of the most relevant cinematic productions to have emerged from Catalonia in the last twenty years. The essays in this collection examine cinema in relation to the Escola de Barcelona (The Barcelona School), a group of cinema directors that drew inspiration from British pop-art, Free Cinema, and the Nouvelle Vague to create works that defied and challenged the Franco dictatorship.

Highlighting the aesthetic, social, and political elements of Catalan cinematography, contributors to this volume explore what young directors have in common with works created by more notable directors such as Joaquim Jordà, Jacinto Esteva, Jordi Grau, and Pere Portabella. Catalan Cinema focuses on the importance of modern production and its connection with the avant-garde and underground cinema from the Barcelona School. Establishing a cinematic genealogy, the volume ultimately questions if Catalan cinema's own push for self-expression may be interpreted as a connection to Catalonia's current drive for independence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487544508
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	04/12/2024
Series:	Toronto Iberic
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anton Pujol is an associate professor of Spanish at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Jaume Martí-Olivella is an associate professor of Hispanic film and cultural studies at the University of New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations

Introduction
Anton Pujol and Jaume Martí-Olivella

Part One: The Mavericks and the Barcelona School

1. Future Seeds: Some Considerations on the Cinema around Barcelona 92
Angel Quintana

Part Two: The Jordà Legacy

2. The Hunter and the Monkeys: Jacinto Esteva, Joaquim Jordà, and the Legacy of the Barcelona School
Esteve Riambau

3. Jordà's Last Trilogy: Situationist Turn and Subject Transformation
Ignasi Gozalo-Salellas

4. The Militant Cinema of Joaquim Jordà
Steven Marsh

Part Three: The Portabella Nexus

5. Economies of Sound: Labouring Europe in Pere Portabella and Carles Santos
Sara Nadal-Melsió

6. Pere Portabella's Radical Theatricality: A Political Gaze Over Two Transitions
Jaume Martí-Olivella

7. Traversing the Real with the Reel: Pere Portabella's Vampir.Cuadecuc and Albert Serra's Història de la meva mort Infrapolitical Spectrality
Teresa M. Vilarós

Part Four: The New (Post) Avant-Garde

8. Beyond Melancholy: The Post-Avant-Garde Cinema of José Luis Guerín
Josep Maria Català

9. On the Threshold of the Diegetic World: Optical and Haptic Visuality in Elisa K
Eva Bru

10. Watching Novels and Reading Films: Deleuzian Affects in Catalan Cinema
Anton Pujol

Part Five: Minimalism and Beyond

11. Formal Disruption, Minutiae, and Absence in the Films of Jaime Rosales
Agustín Rico-Albero

12. Identitykit: Where Do We Meet Isaki Lacuesta
Josetxo Cerdán and Miguel Fernández Labayen

Contributors

Index

Edition Statement (e.g. "2nd Edition"):

What People are Saying About This

Cristina Moreiras-Menor

“This is an extraordinary and careful collection of essays on two essential moments in the history of Catalan cinema (the 1960s—1970s and the present), which focuses on what these two periods have in common and what sets them apart. The book establishes a bridge between the political and aesthetic experimental cinematic images that the most significant directors of these two periods have produced. The editors have provided their readership with fascinating and challenging theoretical and analytical perspectives on the best of Catalan cinema, and the book as a whole provides an excellent genealogy that will assist scholars and experts in delving deeper into the complexities of the Catalan film tradition. This is a remarkable co-edited work.”

Maria M. Delgado

“This volume on the emergence of the influential Barcelona School and its impact on the broader filmmaking culture in Catalonia offers a unique insight into the work of filmmakers whose impact has not always been recognised. A series of insightful essays recentres figures such as Pere Portabella and Joaquim Jordà, and provides bold treatments of the crop of Catalan filmmakers who have gone on to pick up their mantle: José Luis Guerín, Albert Serra, Isaki Lacuesta, and Jaime Rosales. If you want to understand where the women filmmakers who are currently shaking world cinema, including Carla Simón, Carla Subirana, and Neus Ballús, are coming from, this volume is a great place to start. An important contribution to Catalan cinema studies with an influence that goes beyond this vibrant national film culture to wider areas of avant-garde filmmaking.”