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

这个项目旨在改变西班牙电影史研究的方向。它质疑“艺术”或“流行”电影等标签的过度使用，并提出“中产阶级”是一种接近西班牙电影的新方式。首先，它论证了西班牙“中产阶级电影”的存在，并指出中产阶级电影对西班牙电影史的发展起了核心作用。这个新的焦点阐明了从20世纪60年代到现在西班牙电影的一些趋势之间的联系。因此，20世纪70年代所谓的“第三条道路”电影，20世纪80年代国家资助的文学改编电影（统称为“Miró”电影），20世纪90年代的“遗产”电影，或20世纪90年代和21世纪的“流行导演”（如佩德罗Almodóvar），都将被重新考虑为西班牙中产阶级电影的例子。其次，这个项目提出了“中产阶级”作为西班牙电影的一种新的方法论方法，它分析而不是谴责这种电影处于“艺术”或“流行”替代品之间的方式。皮埃尔·布迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）发展了一种与法国背景相关的中产阶级理论，他将为这种方法提供理论模型。第三，本项目关注的是20世纪60年代以来西班牙中产阶级的崛起，并提出一种新的“中产阶级”电影的发展，以满足这些新的主流观众的口味。这项研究将导致“西班牙电影的新历史”的出版，它将包含一个介绍和六个章节。在引言中，我将论证在分析西班牙电影时考察历史背景的重要性。然而，我没有把重点放在政治事件上，比如1975年佛朗哥之死，而是强调了社会经济背景的重要性。因此，我研究的历史背景将强调西班牙与其他西方国家的相似之处，而不是不同之处（中产阶级的重要性，而不是对专制独裁的关注，尽管要注意的是，西班牙的工业化发生得比其他地方晚得多）。在这篇引言中，我还将拒绝“中产阶级”一词的负面含义，并利用法国社会学家布迪厄的理论，勾勒出一个分析框架。第一章聚焦于20世纪60年代，我将讨论在不同的西班牙电影中对这一新兴阶级的处理，并追溯这一时期“中产阶级”电影的出现，例如《家族之家》（Palacios 1962），它关注的是一个典型的马德里中产阶级家庭。第二章，涵盖20世纪70年代，将讨论“第三条道路”电影，并将认为这应该被视为该时期文化表达的核心，而不是政治导演电影和粗糙的商业电影的边缘替代方案，吸引了更多的批评关注。当考虑到20世纪80年代，在第三章中，我将发展我之前发表的关于民主西班牙社会主义政府的国家补贴电影的工作，被称为“Miró”电影。先前的西班牙电影历史表明，自20世纪90年代以来，导演和制片人已经背弃了“Miró”的遗产。通过讨论“传统”电影和重新考虑“流行导演”的近期作品，例如Almodóvar（例如在La flor de mi secreto[1995]中），我将得出结论，通过我认为是“中产阶级”的电影来满足“主流”观众的关注，作为贯穿西班牙电影史这一时期的一条不变的线索。

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.