Latin American Cinemas Local Views And Transnational Connections

During the past twenty years, Latin American cinema has experienced an enormous upsurge, prompting film critics and scholars to hail the onset of a new era. What this signals, more than thriving financial or production infrastructures, is a renovated cinematic vision connected more closely to everyday experience and social and cultural concerns. The films analyzed in this new collection reflect and examine contemporary lives in their diversity and singularity, through their focus on identity politics, sexuality, the body, the family, and/or community. Drawing especially on Jean-Luc Nancyʹs notion of inoperative community and Enrique Dussel's critique of modernity, the essays here weave together a progression that stresses the breakdown of the nation-state in Latin America and the search for new communal settings. The nation-state's breakdown is linked to modernity's homogenizing project and its concomitant hierarchies that, in seeking to impose order and progress, have alienated those who do not conform to conventional norms. In response, Nancy offers the concept of inoperative community, which questions current forms of operative' communities that do not allow for individuation, and implies instead the recognition of plurality and singularity and replacement of hierarchies by horizontal and transversal connections. -- Back cover.

Through a textual analysis of six filmmakers (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles and Juan José Campanella), this book brings a new perspective to the films of Latin America's transnational auteurs.

Cinema and Inter-American Relations studies the key role that commercial narrative films have played in the articulation of the political and cultural relationship between the United States and Latin America since the onset of the Good Neighbor policy (1933). Pérez Melgosa analyzes the evolution of inter-American narratives in films from across the continent, highlights the social effects of the technologies used to produce these works, and explores the connections of cinema to successive shifts in hemispheric policy. As a result, Cinema and Inter-American Relations reveals the existence of a continued cinematic conversation between Anglo and Latin America about a cluster of shared allegories representing the continent and its cultures. Pérez Melgosa contends that cinema has become a virtual contact zone of the Americas, mediating in a variety of hemispheric political debates about the articulation of Anglo, Latin American, and Latino identities. Cinema and Inter-American Relations brings sustained attention to ongoing calls for a transnational focus on the disciplines of film studies, American studies, and Latin American studies and engages with current theories of the transmission of affect to delineate a new cartography of how to understand the Americas in relation to cinema.

Includes chapters based on presentations made at a symposium entitled "Transnational Film Financing in the Hispanic World," held at the University of Leeds in 2009.

Drawing especially on Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of 'inoperative community' and Enrique Dussel's critique of 'modernity, ' these eleven essays weave together a progression that stresses the breakdown of the nation-state in Latin America and the search for new communal settings.

The Question of Class in Contemporary Latin American Cinema responds to the renewed interest in class within and outside academia by examining the aesthetics and politics of class in a representative selection of films from the contemporary cinemas of Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. It explores the relationship of cinematic practices to conflicting socio-political transformations taking place in these five countries such as the intensification of neoliberalism, the Turn-to-the-Left, and the growth of the middle classes in the period from 2003 to 2015. Utilizing a critical comparative method , it sheds a critical light on the presumed depoliticization (or new, aestheticized politicization) of contemporary Latin American cinema. The combined textual and industrial analyses of films from strikingly different cinemas and directors through the lenses of class allows for a contextualization of this trend and the observation of its limitations. Furthermore, this book distinguishes cinematic figurations that correspond to new conceptualizations of class introduced in social studies from figurations of class that have yet to be conceptualized.

This updated and expanded edition gives critical analyses of 23 Latin American films from the last 20 years, including the addition of four films from Bolivia. Explored throughout the text are seven crucial themes: the indigenous image, sexuality, childhood, female protagonists, crime and corruption, fratricidal wars, and writers as characters. Designed for general and scholarly interest, as well 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 includes interviews with and brief biographies of influential filmmakers, along with film synopses, production details and credits, transcripts of selected scenes, and suggestions for discussion and analysis.

The Historical Dictionary of South American Cinema covers the long history of cinema in Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the nine Spanish-speaking countries. These films include Los tres berretines, Prisioneros de la tierra, La balandra Isabel llegó esta tarde, La hora de los hornos, El chacal de Nahueltoro, La teta asustada, Abrir puertas y ventanas, El secreto de sus ojos, and NO. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on directors, producers, performers, films, film studios and genres. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the South American Cinema.