The Politics of Age and Disability in Contemporary Spanish Film: Plus Ultra Pluralism

207 Pages·2012·2.49 MB·English

by  Matthew J. Marr

The Politics of Age and Disability in
Contemporary Spanish Film
Routledge Advances in Film Studies
1 Nation and Identity in the New 9 Neoliberalism and Global Cinema
German Cinema Capital, Culture, and Marxist
Homeless at Home Critique
Inga Scharf Edited by Jyotsna Kapur and
Keith B. Wagner
2. Lesbianism, Cinema, Space
The Sexual Life of Apartments 10 Korea’s Occupied Cinemas,
Lee Wallace 1893–1948
The Untold History of the Film
3 Post-War Italian Cinema Industry
American Intervention, Vatican Brian Yecies with Ae-Gyung Shim
Interests
Daniela Treveri Gennari 11 Transnational Asian Identities in
Pan-Pacifi c Cinemas
4 Latsploitation, Exploitation The Reel Asian Exchange
Cinemas, and Latin America Edited by Philippa Gates & Lisa
Edited by Victoria Ruétalo Funnell
and Dolores Tierney
12 Narratives of Gendered Dissent
5 Cinematic Emotion in Horror in South Asian Cinemas
Films and Thrillers Alka Kurian
The Aesthetic Paradox of
Pleasurable Fear 13 Hollywood Melodrama and the
Julian Hanich New Deal
Public Daydreams
6 Cinema, Memory, Modernity Anna Siomopoulos
The Representation of Memory
from the Art Film to Transnational 14 Theorizing Film Acting
Cinema Edited by Aaron Taylor
Russell J.A. Kilbourn
15 Stardom and the Aesthetics of
7 Distributing Silent Film Serials Neorealism
Local Practices, Changing Forms, Ingrid Bergman in Rossellini’s
Cultural Transformation Italy
Rudmer Canjels Ora Gelley
8 The Politics of Loss and Trauma 16 Postwar Renoir
in Contemporary Israeli Cinema Film and the Memory of Violence
Raz Yosef Colin Davis
17 Cinema and Inter-American
Relations
Tracking Transnational Affect
Adrián Pérez Melgosa
18 European Civil War Films
Memory, Confl ict, and Nostalgia
Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou
19 The Aesthetics of Antifascism
Radical Projection
Jennifer L. Barker
20 The Politics of Age and
Disability in Contemporary
Spanish Film
Plus Ultra Pluralism
Matthew J. Marr

The Politics of Age and
Disability in Contemporary
Spanish Film
Plus Ultra Pluralism
Matthew J. Marr
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
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© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Matthew J. Marr to be identified as author of this work
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marr, Matthew J.
The politics of age and disability in contemporary Spanish film : plus
ultra pluralism / Matthew J. Marr.
p. cm. — (Routledge advances in film studies ; 20)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-80836-1 (hardback)
1. Motion pictures—Spain—20th century—History and
criticism. 2. Motion pictures—Spain—21st century—History and
criticism. 3. People with disabilities in motion pictures. 4. Aging in
motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1993.5.S7M2938
2012791.430946—dc23
2012015135
ISBN13: 978-0-415-80836-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-09851-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Framing Cultural Pluralism Anew in
Contemporary Spanish Cinema Studies 1
PART I
Adolescence and Alterity
1 The “Angry Girl” in Mensaka, Páginas de una historia
(“Mensaka, Pages from a Story”) (Salvador García Ruiz, 1998) 15
2 A Lad Indeed: Boyhood Friendship and the Politics of
Masculinity in El Bola (“Pellet”) (Achero Mañas, 2000) 33
PART II
Senescence and Subjectivity
3 The Black Comedy of Aging in Justino, un asesino de la tercera
edad (“Justino, a Senior Citizen Killer”) (“La Cuadrilla” or
Santiago Aguilar & Luis Guridi, 1994) 55
4 Senescent Seduction in Elsa y Fred (“Elsa and Fred”)
(Marcos Carnevale, 2004) 75
viii Contents
PART III
Discourses of Disability
5 The Unseen Inside: Mental Illness as Disability in Mar adentro
(“The Sea Inside”) (Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) 97
6 A Pluralistic Vision: On Blindness and the Break with Auteurist
“Autocracy” in Los abrazos rotos (“Broken Embraces”)
(Pedro Almodóvar, 2009) 121
Afterword 144
Notes 149
Works Cited 171
Index 181
Figures
1.1 Laurita or Lolita? 20
1.2 With malice toward all. 29
1.3 Laura as “angry girl.” 30
2.1 A course toward violence in the home. 43
2.2 José leaves an impression. 45
2.3 Pablo’s silent disclosure. 49
2.4 Alfredo reveals aff ective solidarity. 49
3.1 Preparing for the axe to fall. 58
3.2 Close-up of a career laid to rest. 60
3.3 Who done it? 72
3.4 The third age is a charm. 73
4.1 Stealing time. 89
4.2 Sweet living at the Trevi Fountain. 91
4.3 Feeling “raro bien” (“a good strange”). 92
5.1 Prefi guring trauma. 106
5.2 Distress signs at the precipice. 107
5.3 Mercurial moods. 112
6.1 A diet of diegetic (story)telling. 129
6.2 Mateo Blanco’s embrace of digital fi lm. 135
6.3 Unseen in theaters—“Restaurant without a View”. 142