Eliseo Subiela in Life and Cinema: The Persistence of Vision

by Nancy J. Membrez

Overview

Audiences never have a lukewarm opinion of a Subiela film. They either love it passionately or hate it profoundly. That Eliseo Subiela (Buenos Aires, 1944-2016), an original and sensitive thinker, survived, and indeed throve in economically challenged Argentina while garnering more accolades abroad than in his own country, is a tribute to his grit, intelligence, imagination and persistence of vision.

With an astounding list of prizes and honors, he was a world-class auteur. Even when he was making a TV commercial, his surreal style and poetic sensibility were unmistakable.

This book represents the culmination of 20 years of research and personal correspondence with Eliseo Subiela. Through ten scholarly studies and five interviews, it sheds light on his life, esthetics, obsessions, struggles with madness, and, of course, his films.

It addresses his earlier career in advertising, lifelong artistic influences, screenwriting techniques, critical reactions to his films, and what Subiela's example has to offer aspiring filmmakers, especially those in Latin America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476643007
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	02/25/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	263
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Nancy J. Membrez is a professor of Spanish literature, culture, and Spanish and Latin American cinemas, as well as film production, at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She wrote the English subtitles for four Subiela films and produced three featurettes for the Kino Lorber DVD/Blu-ray of Man Facing Southeast. Her own film Portrait in Sepia Tone won Best Picture and Best Soundtrack at the International Filmmakers’ Film Festival in Kent, England, in 2008. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Nancy J. Membrez is a professor of Spanish literature, culture, and Spanish and Latin American cinemas, as well as film production, at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She wrote the English subtitles for four Subiela films and produced three featurettes for the Kino Lorber DVD/Blu-ray of Man Facing Southeast. Her own film Portrait in Sepia Tone won Best Picture and Best Soundtrack at the International Filmmakers' Film Festival in Kent, England, in 2008. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword: The Art of Eliseo Subiela: Chronotopes of Desire by Ksenija Bilbija
Introduction
Part One—The Persistence of Vision
1. Synthesis of a Life
2. The Persistence of Vision: Subiela’s Advertising Career
3. Fifty Years of Madness: From A Long Silence (1963) to Man Facing Southeast (1987) to Vanishing Landscapes (2013)
4. Subiela, Godard and a Host of Others: A Notebook
5. The Second Self Motif in the Films of Eliseo Subiela
6. Subiela and the Critics
7. Tilting at Windmills in Latin American Cinema
Part Two—Subiela, the Literary and the Personal
8. Subiela and Cortázar: A Shared Antenna
9. A Bent Antenna: The Conundrum of ­K-PAX
10. Collaborating with Eliseo Subiela, My Friend and Mentor
Part Three—Interviews
11. An Interview with Marcela Sáenz, Film Editor (2012)
12. An Interview with Ricardo De Angelis, Director of Photography and Colorist (2012)
13. An Interview with Eliseo Subiela (2000)
14. An Interview with Eliseo Subiela (2015)
15. The Last Interview: Eliseo Subiela Talks About Man Facing Southeast (2016)
Appendix 1: Subiela’s Filmography
Appendix 2: Subiela’s Film Prizes and Honors, in Chronological Order
Appendix 3: An Open Letter to President Raúl Alfonsín (1987) by Eliseo Subiela
Appendix 4: Dogma 95 is Cinema Sabotage (1999) by Eliseo Subiela
Appendix 5: Luis Buñuel’s Final Scene (2010) by Eliseo Subiela
Chapter Notes
A Bibliography of Subiela’s Interviews, Writings and Films
Index