A New History of Spanish Cinema: Middlebrow Films and Mainstream Audiences

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This project aims to change the direction of studies of Spanish film history. It questions the over-use of labels such as 'art' or 'popular' cinema and proposes the 'middlebrow' as a new way of approaching Spanish film. First, it argues for the existence of Spanish 'middlebrow cinema', and suggests that middlebrow films have been central to the development of Spanish film history. This new focus illuminates the connections between a number of tendencies in Spanish cinema from the 1960s to the present. Thus, the so-called 'Third Way' cinema of the 1970s, state-subsidized literary adaptations known collectively as 'Miró' films in the 1980s, 'heritage' cinema of the 1990s, or 'popular auteurs', like Pedro Almodóvar, of the 1990s and 2000s, will all be reconsidered as examples of Spanish middlebrow cinema. Second, this project proposes the 'middlebrow' as a new methodological approach to Spanish film, which analyses, rather than condemns, the way such cinema lies in-between 'art' or 'popular' alternatives. Pierre Bourdieu, who has developed a theory of the middlebrow in connection with the French context, will offer a theoretical model for this approach. Third, this project focuses on the rise of Spain's middle classes from the 1960s onwards, and suggests that a new 'middlebrow' cinema developed to satisfy the tastes of these new mainstream audiences. The research will lead to the publication of 'A New History of Spanish Cinema', which will contain an introduction and six chapters. In the Introduction, I will argue for the importance of examining historical contexts in any analysis of Spanish cinema. However, instead of focusing on political events, like the death of Franco in 1975, I argue for the importance of socio-economic contexts. As such, the historical background I examine will highlight Spain's similarities with, rather than differences from, other Western nations (the importance of the middle class, rather than a focus on repressive dictatorship, although it will be noted that industrialization occurred far later in Spain than elsewhere). In this introduction I will also reject the negative connotations of the term 'middlebrow', and sketch a framework for its analysis using the theories of French sociologist Bourdieu. In chapter one, which focuses on the 1960s, I will address the treatment of this new ascendant class in diverse Spanish films, and trace the emergence of 'middlebrow' film in the period, for example with La gran familia (Palacios 1962), which focuses on a quintessential middle-class Madrid family. Chapter two, covering the 1970s, will address 'Third Way' cinema, and will argue that this should be considered as central to cultural expression in the period, rather than a marginal alternative to the political auteur films and crude commercial cinema which attract greater critical attention. When considering the 1980s, in chapter three, I will develop my previously published work on the state-subsidized cinema of democratic Spain's socialist government, known as the 'Miró' films. Previous histories of Spanish cinema argue that directors and producers from the 1990s onwards have turned their backs on the 'Miró' legacy. By addressing 'heritage' cinema and reconsidering the recent work of 'popular auteurs', such as Almodóvar (for instance in La flor de mi secreto [1995]), I will conclude that a concern to satisfy 'mainstream' audiences, through films which I argue are 'middlebrow', runs as a constant thread through this period of Spanish film history.