Mexican National Cinema

by Noble; Andrea

• ISBN13: 9780415230100
• ISBN10: 0415230101
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-12-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Mexican National Cinemaoffers an account of the development of Mexican cinema from the intense cultural nationalism of the Mexican Revolution, through the "Golden Age" of the 1940s and theNuevo Cineof the 1960s, to the renaissance in Mexican cinema in the 1990s. The book moves from broad historical and theoretical context, particularly theories of nation, emergent discourses of "mexicanidad" and the establishment and development of the Mexican industry, towards readings of key film texts and genres. Individual chapters discuss the relationship between Hollywood cinema and Mexican cinema, the stars of the "Golden Age," the role of foreign auteurs in the founding of Mexican cinema, tensions in the industry in the 1960s, and the national and international reception of contemporary films and film-makers. The author then examines the portrayal of Mexican nationhood through critical analysis of film genres including Revolutionary films, machismo and "mexicanidad," the prostitute, and the workof female auteurs.

Author Biography

Andrea Noble is reader in Latin American Visual Studies at the University of Durham

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction	1	(2)
On Mexican film studies	3	(5)
On Mexican cultural history	8	(5)
On the Mexican cinema's industrial contexts	13	(9)
A note on nation, cinema and medium specificity	22	(3)
Remaking Mexican cinema	25	(23)
The happy ending	25	(2)
The geo-politics of Mexican cinema	27	(3)
The early years	30	(2)
La mujer del puerto (1933): stories of incest and cultural modernity	32	(8)
La mujer del puerto: the 1991 remake	40	(6)
The ultimate `dismodern' irony	46	(2)
The Mexican revolution as moving memory	48	(22)
Watching the revolution	48	(3)
From faction to fiction: film and memory	51	(3)
Reviewing the revolution	54	(4)
Revising the revolution: from document to documentary	58	(6)
Memory and the mobile gaze	64	(4)
From shooting to applauding	68	(2)
The formation of a national cinema audience	70	(25)
In the beginning	70	(2)
All the people started to come	72	(7)
All the people went, or remembered going to see . . . Maria Candelaria	79	(6)
Looking outside Maria Candclaria	85	(6)
Notes on the cinema audience after the Golden Age	91	(4)
Melodrama, masculinity and the politics of space	95	(28)
The ubiquity of melodrama	95	(2)
Melodrama and Mexican cinema	97	(4)
Una familia de tantas	101	(5)
The politics of Mexican masculinity in crisis	106	(4)
Society, cinema and the 1970s	110	(2)
El castillo de la purcza	112	(3)
El Callejon de los Milagros	115	(6)
Closing comments	121	(2)
Seeing the Other through film	123	(24)
Departures	123	(4)
Eisenstein's itinerary	127	(2)
Eisenstein's influence	129	(5)
After Eisenstein	134	(5)
End of detour: Y tu mama tambien	139	(8)
The politics and erotics of border culture	147	(25)
Looking across the border	147	(3)
Espaldas mojadas	150	(8)
El Jardin del Eden	158	(3)
The circular border	161	(4)
The specular border	165	(7)
Afterword	172	(4)
Notes	176	(12)
Appendix: Filmography	188	(12)
References	200
Index