New Argentine Film: Other Worlds (New Concepts in Latino American Cultures)

319 Pages·2011·4.17 MB·English

by  Gonzalo Aguilar

New Concepts in Latino American Cultures
A Series Edited by Licia Fiol-Matta & José Quiroga
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by Enrico Mario Santí
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by Rafael Rojas
Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing
by Damián Baca
Confronting History and Modernity in Mexican Narrative
by Elisabeth Guerrero
Cuban Women Writers: Imagining a Matria
by Madeline Cámara Betancourt
Other Worlds: New Argentine Film
by Gonzalo Aguilar
Cuba in the Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s
edited by Ariana Hernandez-Reguant
Carnal Inscriptions: Spanish American Narratives of Corporeal Difference and
Disability
by Susan Antebi
Telling Ruins in Latin America
edited by Michael J. Lazzara and Vicky Unruh
Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement
edited by Vanessa Pérez Rosario
New Argentine Film: Other Worlds (updated paperback edition of Other Worlds)
by Gonzalo Aguilar
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The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World
edited by Ruth Behar and Lucía M. Suárez
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by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Poblete
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New Argentine Film
Other Worlds
Gonzalo Aguilar
Translated by Sarah Ann Wells
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NEW ARGENTINE FILM
Copyright © Gonzalo Aguilar, 2008.
All rights reserved.
First published in hardcover in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–0–230–10901–8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First PALGRAVE MACMILLAN paperback edition: March 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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To Jorge Ruffinelli, cinephile and friend
To my father, Tuchi, who took me to see
that Buster Keaton picture
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 On the Existence of the New Argentine Cinema 7
The One Thousand and One Ways to Make a Film 8
Changes in Artistic Production 14
Aesthetic Paths 15
2 Film, the Narration of a World 33
Nomadism and Sedentarism 33
Dispersion and Fixity (between La ciénaga and
Pizza, birra, faso) 35
Intensities of Faces and Bodies (Rapado and Todo juntos) 48
The Return of the Documentary 57
The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Renouncement
and Liberty in a Lisandro Alonso Movie 60
Commodities and Experience 65
Cinema of Remains: Lisandro Alonso’s Los muertos 67
Silvia Prieto, or Love at Thirty 74
Sound, Track Separate 83
La niña santa and the Closure of Performance 85
Los guantes mágicos: Noises on the Surface 92
The Use of Genre: Trips and Detours 100
Comedy: Speed and Chance (Tan de repente and Sábado) 101
Pablo Trapero’s El bonaerense: The Genre of Corporatism 109
3 A World without Narration (Political Investigation) 117
Politics beyond the Political 117
Goodbye to “the People” 125
Nostalgia for Work 136
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viii Contents
Words That Wound: Discrimination in Bolivia 146
Los rubios: Mourning, Frivolity, and Melancholy 155
The Testimony of a Dissolution: On Anahí Berneri’s
A Year without Love 170
Appendix 1: The World of Cinema in Argentina 183
Appendix 2: The Policy of Actors 209
Appendix 3: Argentine Films That Premiered between
1997 and Mid-2005 215
Epilogue to the 2011 Edition 227
Notes 253
Bibliography 293
Index 301
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Acknowledgments
In 1999, I put together a study group on film, literature, and theory
in which Jimena Rodríguez, Pablo Garavaglia, Lucía Tennina, Julieta
Lerman, Joana D’Alessio, Bárbara Rivkin, Julieta Bliffeld, and
Germán Conde participated. Together we discussed various ideas
that culminated in this book. Jimena Rodríguez, in addition to pro-
viding materials and ideas, wrote a paper on Lucrecia Martel’s film
that helped me rethink my central hypothesis. Pablo Garavaglia spent
many afternoons at the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires consulting
materials and journals.
In 2004, Nicolás Casullo generously invited me to teach a seminar
in the Master’s Program in Communication and Culture in the Social
Science department of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. This class
was fundamental for me in organizing many of the hypotheses and
proposals of this book. I would like to thank the students who shared
this seminar with me.
In early 2005, Elvira Arnoux had the kindness to invite me to
share the conclusions of my investigation at the Master’s Program
in Discourse Analysis that she directs at the Universidad de Buenos
Aires. There, students discussed my viewpoints and contributed new
perspectives.
The following people have lent me a hand with materials,
bibliography, or suggestions: Denise Estremero, Lucas Margarit,
Ana Amado, Juan Balerdi, Alejo Moguillansky, Gabriel Lichtmann,
Gregorio Goyo Anchou, Diego Lerman, Juan Villegas, Rodrigo
Laera, Santiago García, Ana Amado, Martín Kohan, Yaki Setton,
Cachi from the video store La fábrica de los sueños, Mariano from
Estilo, Mariano from Black 2, the guys at La Mirage, Andrés
Insaurralde from the library at the Museo del Cine, and Emilio
Bernini. Mariano Siskind translated texts and sent them to me from
far away. Paulina Seivach, whose statistics and studies I have used
here, responded politely to my emails.
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