This book focuses on expressions of the tragic in Spanish cinema. Its main premise is that elements from the classical and modern tragic tradition persist and permeate many of the cultural works created in Spain, especially the films on which the book centers this study. The inscrutability and indolence of the gods, the mutability of fortune, the recurrent narratives of fall and redemption, the unavoidable clash between ethical forces, the tension between free will and fate, the violent resolution of both internal and external conflicts, and the overwhelming feelings of guilt that haunt the tragic heroine/hero are consistent aspects that traverse Spanish cinema as a response to universal queries about human suffering and death.

Reveals how Spanish film musicals, long dismissed as unworthy of critical scrutiny, illuminate Spain's relationship to modernity

This book features extended conversations with Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel (1900-1983) and interviews with his family members, friends and colleagues--including Salvador Dali, Louis Aragon and Fernando Rey--conducted by Max Aub in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Notorious for inventing fanciful versions of his life and his creative output, Bunuel was hard put to deceive the astute Max Aub, who shared Bunuel's background in Spain, in Paris during the Spanish Civil War, and in Mexico, where they were friends and collaborators. Originally published in Spain in 1985, this translated (the first in English) and expanded edition (with several significant interviews and a detailed index not found in the original) provides a detailed picture of Bunuel's life and art. Extensive notes contextualize the conversations and acknowledge the discoveries of recent studies on Bunuel.

The Moving Form of Film: Historicizing the Medium through Other Media charts the ways in which crossing borders between film and other arts and media can provide an encompassing, inclusive, and non-teleological understanding of film history. Evolutionary narratives of cinema have traditionally adopted the Second World War as a watershed that separates 'classical' Hollywood films from 'modern' European productions, a scheme that subjects the entire world to the cinematic history of two hegemonic centres. In turn, histories of film as a technological medium have focused on the specificity of cinema as it gradually separated from the other art and medial forms - theatre, dance, fairground spectacle, painting, literature, still photography and other pre-cinematic modes. Taking an ambitious step forward with relation to these approaches, this book focuses on the fluid quality of the film form by exploring an array of exciting and often neglected artistic expressions worldwide as they compare and interconnect films across temporal, geographical, and cultural borders. By observing the ebb and flow of film's contours within the bounds of other artistic and medial expressions, the chapters aspire to establish a flexible historical platform for the moving form of film, posited, from production to consumption, as a transforming and transformative medium.

This volume offers a detailed chronological account of the history of Spanish cinema.

A Spanish gravedigger with the power to hear the dead struggles to keep his family together in this debut novel. In a small, whitewashed village, indistinguishable from any other in Andalusia, Juan Rodrigo is a gravedigger. The job was handed down to him by his father, as was the ability to hear the voices of the dead and to tell their stories to the living. Though the details and revelations of these accounts aren’t always well received, Juan is a respected member of the community who encourages people to understand and to forgive. But his own tolerance is tested when his young daughter, just on the brink of adulthood, falls in love with a Romani boy Juan doesn’t approve of. Incorporating aspects of magic realism, Peter Grandbois’ distinctive voice and style lures readers to an enchanting place where spirits and people coexist harmoniously. “Readers who revel in magic realism will embrace this poignant debut about a poor but honest Spaniard with a gift for communicating with the dead. . . . Reminiscent of the work of Luis Alberto Urrea and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this luminous first offering brims with earthy humor and heart.” —Booklist, starred review “A thoroughly engaging novel, full of beauty and charm.” —Rocky Mountain News