Latin American Cinema by
This book charts a comparative history of Latin America's national cinemas through ten chapters that cover every major cinematic period in the region: silent cinema, studio cinema, neorealism and art cinema, the New Latin American Cinema, and contemporary cinema. Schroeder Rodríguez weaves close readings of approximately fifty paradigmatic films into a lucid narrative history that is rigorous in its scholarship and framed by a compelling theorization of the multiple discourses of modernity. The result is an essential guide that promises to transform our understanding of the region's cultural history in the last hundred years by highlighting how key players such as the church and the state have affected cinema's unique ability to help shape public discourse and construct modern identities in a region marked by ongoing struggles for social justice and liberation.
Latin American Cinema by
From El Megano and Black God, White Devil to City of God and Babel, Latin American films have a rich history. In this concise but comprehensive account, Stephen M. Hart traces Latin American cinema from its origins in 1896 to the present day, along the way providing original views of major films and mini-biographies of major film directors. Describing the broad contours of Latin American film and its connections to major historical developments, Hart guides readers through the story of how Hollywood dominance succumbed to the emergence of the Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano and how this movement has led to the "New" New Latin American Cinema of the twenty-first century. He offers a fresh analysis of the effects of major changes in film technology, revealing how paradigm shifts such as the move to digital preceded new cinematographic techniques and visions. He also looks closely at the films themselves, examining how filmmakers express their messages. Finally, he considers the decision by a group of directors to film in English, which enhanced the visibility of Latin American cinema around the world. Featuring 120 illustrations, this clear, cogent guide to the history of this region's cinema will appeal to fans of Central Station and Like Water for Chocolate alike.
Themes in Latin American Cinema by
Analyzing 19 contemporary films from across Latin America, this book identifies and explores seven crucial themes in Latin American film: the indigenous image, sexuality, childhood, female protagonists, crime and corruption, fratricidal wars, and writers as characters. Designed as a guide for teachers of Hispanic culture or Latin American film and literature, the book provides a sweeping look at the logistical circumstances of filmmaking in the region along with the criteria involved in interpreting a Latin American film. It also includes interviews with and brief biographies of influential filmmakers, along with film synopses, production details and credits, transcripts of selected scenes, and suggestions for further discussion and analysis.
Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands by
In this interdisciplinary volume, contributors analyze the expression of Latina/o cultural identity through performance. With music, theater, dance, visual arts, body art, spoken word, performance activism, fashion, and street theater as points of entry, contributors discuss cultural practices and the fashoning of identity in Latino/a communities throughout the US. Examining the areas of crossover between Latin and American cultures gives new meaning to the notion of "borderlands." This volume features senior scholars and up-and-coming academics from cultural, visual, and performance studies, folklore, and ethnomusicology.
Insult to Injury by
The stark reality of all life, from the biology of the food chain incorporating all living beings to the social stratification and hierarchies of human cultures, revolves around violence - physical or psychological. That unavoidable, black-and-white, worldview of survival of the fittest with little if any gray to mitigate it is colored only by the red lifeblood of the victims of the bigger, the stronger, the smarter, the wilier, who literally and/or figuratively "eat" their victims - overcoming, overwhelming, controlling, oppressing them. The premise behind Insult to Injury: Violence in Spanish, Hispanic American and Latino Art and Literature focuses on the representation of the visual and literary artistic products of a group of seemingly alike yet divergent societies, with linguistic and cultural ties that reflect those societies' means of control. These representations socialize viewers and/or readers in personal or public situations, establishing ubiquitous hierarchies. French social anthropologist/literary critic/theorist René Girard maintains in Violence & the Sacred that "the oldest means of social control is . . . violence." While the incorporated violence itself is not the overweening theme of this work, the representation or threat of violence functions in reality in terms that imply its consequences to the viewer or reader. These consequences are discussed in terms of control-directed violence based on gender roles and politics, socio-cultural power, and environmental issues or eco-violence. The underlying message is that of the necessity to behave according to imposed norms, stated or implied, or suffer those consequences - a convincing leitmotif in works by Spanish, Hispanic American and Latino visual artists and writers in the Spanish language over the ages.
