Popular Spanish Film Under Franco: Comedy and the Weakening of the State

by S. Marsh

Overview

Popular Spanish Film Under Franco is the first book of its kind to analyze cinematic comedy during the initial two decades of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. Focusing on the intersection between popular culture and political populism, it breaks new theoretical ground in re-evaluating the policies of the regime and the tactics employed by those who sought to undermine it. Its cultural studies approach - combining Gramsci, de Certeau and Bakhtin - interrogates the ambiguous nature of subversion and challenges common assumptions concerning post-war Spanish film.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781403941176
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	12/15/2005
Edition description:	2006
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

STEVEN MARSH teaches Film and Spanish Cultural Studies at the University of South Carolina, USA. Previously he lived in Madrid for 16 years. He is joint editor of Gender and Spanish Cinema (2004), an author on the international collaborative project An Oral History of Cinema-going in 1940s and 1950s Spain, and is currently writing a book on the cultural politics of everyday life in the city of Madrid since 1975. He is co-editor of the journal Studies in Hispanic Cinemas.

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Comedy and the Weakening of the State Tactics and Thresholds in Edgar Neville's Life on a Thread (1945) Metropolitan Masquerades: The Destabilization of Madrid in the Neville Trilogy Populism, the National-Popular and the Politics of Luis García Berlanga: Welcome Mister Marshall! (1952) Humor and Hegemony: Berlanga, the State and the Family in Plácido (1961) and The Executioner (1963) 'Making Do' or the Logic of the Ersatz Economy in the Spanish Films of Marco Ferreri The Pueblo Travestied in Fernando Fernán Gómez's The Strange Journey (1964) Conclusion: Gila's Telephone Notes Bibliography Filmography Index

Editorial Reviews

'Steven Marsh offers a thoughtful analysis of Spanish comedy during Francoism that makes us better understand the role of resistance played by popular culture...This is a stimulating book that paves the way for further research on comedy in the ideological arena.' - David Rodr?guez-Solás, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

From the Publisher