This week we sought to understand the corresponding ways in which nostalgia, autarky, and historical memory were deployed during the first decade of Francos’ fascist regime, and how these were represented by virtue of a national-transnational experiment on cinematic pastiche.
The 50s showed an increasing interest on various dimensions of national / transnational referentiality (cultural, political, and especially, economic) reflected in film, which had a substantial impact on the filmic production of that decade. To better understand this complex network of historical and filmic references, we discussed Steven Marsh’s study on populism, politics of film, and Luis García Berlanga’s classic ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! / Welcome, Mr. Marshall! (1953), and how they effected the turn of the national-popular in Spain. On Wednesday we focused more precisely on autarky (economic independence) and paper-maché cinema.
In your post this week, please focus on the question of how populism, politics, nostalgia, and autarky relate to the development and repression of historical memory, and how that negotiation appears represented in turn as cinematic pastiche in Berlanga’s masterpiece Welcome, Mr. Marshall!
I’m so glad we were able to have Dr. Marsh visit our class this week and share his work with us. It was great to hear about his interpretation of “Welcome, Mr. Marshall!” especially after reading his article. Marsh described Berlanga as “a filmmaker of the popular but without popularity,” emphasizing the way Berlanga draws upon traditions and cultural practices like the crowd, radio, news broadcast, and music to fabricate the image of “Spanishness.” In “Welcome, Mr. Marshall!” the United States and Andalusia are imagined and constructed as Marsh argues in his article saying, “Andalusia is mimicked by the Castilians and an imaginary United States is conjured among the population.” This fabrication of the “Spanishness” reminds me of our discussion last week about how we remember history, that our memory of war is shaped through music and stories that may not be entirely accurate. As we discussed last week, the inaccuracies of our stories and memories are not always a bad thing, but in the case of fascism, reconstructing history can be very dangerous. Pavlovic argues that the Franco regime attempted to legitimize Francoism and “establish national unity through an imaginary common patrimony and past,” making it so that the “political manipulation and repression of Francoism was defended under the guise of historical ‘truth.'” We are experiencing a similar crisis of “untruths” and “fake news” in the United States right now. I wonder if my classmates also noted the connection between the current political state of the U.S. and Pavlovic’s description of the ways fascists attempt to rewrite Spanish history.
The idea of autarky, that a nation is completely independent and not reliant on others, is definitely a tantalizing prospect for any aspiring fascist. It serves as both a way to (ideally) make your country beholden to no one, giving the fascist even more autonomy and authority, but it also enables the fascist to project an image of power and masculinity, elevating yourself and your country. The playing into the independent nature of your fascist country very much supports a populist and nationalistic energy. This goal of autarky can lead to a repression of historical memory, specifically the notion of allies and periods of dependence on others tend to become taboo subjects. This is because mentioning dependence would go against the image of power the fascist in question is trying to fabricate. This repression of historical memory occurs very much in the impoverished nobleman character, striving for autarky and rejecting American aid, at the same time willfully ignoring his own penury. The repression of historical memory is obviously abundant in the lengthy dream sequences, particularly in the character who dreams of America, demonstrating that while in waking life other countries aren’t considered as much, that may only be because those thoughts have been willingly repressed and shunned.
Unfortunately, I was not well on Wednesday, and I could not attend class for that discussion. But the conversation we were lucky enough to have with Dr. Marsh about ¡Bienvenido Mr. Marshall! was fascinating, and has spurred much reflecting for me. In the film, there are many depictions of the same prototypes we have seen and read about in earlier films and folk stories. The appropriation of these tropes (the female performer who is scandalous for showing her body, the tavern or town square as central sites for the story, Manolo making his speech to the people of the village in the same tone that Franco would make speeches etc.) allows the director of the film to create moments of referentiality and identification for Spanish viewers. It is easy for me to imagine how these symbols could have been used in films of the Franco era to create stories that promote nationalism and strong ties to Catholicism and the head of state.
In addition to my thoughts on the film, I have been continuing to think about our discussion from last week of national monuments as cites of identity and formalization of history and past. The monuments to Franco, similarly to monuments in any country, become physical symbols of the creation of a past that may never have existed or only existed for a small portion of a population. Pavlovic’s claim that the Franco regime actively attempted to legitimize themselves through a creation of a false history that fortifies the masses seems more plausible the more I read into the large monument to Franco(The valley of the fallen) that still stands in Spain. Although Franco’s remains were exhumed in 2011, the monument itself still stands and will still be tainted by his memory and what his regime wanted the monument to be about.
Bienvenido Mr. Marshal (Berlanga, 1953) is a classic in the canon of Spanish cinema, produced during the third decade of Franco’s rule of Spain, while the country continued to suffer from the ripples of the Civil War and World War Two. Berlanga’s film sees a fictional Castilian town whipped into to frenzy at the news of visiting American diplomats, in the hopes of receiving support from the Marshal plan, or simply “Mr. Marshal”, the personified idea of American aid in the minds of the villagers. The many efforts undertaken by the Spanish townspeople and their subsequent dreams of the Americans are ultimately shattered by the film’s conclusion, in which an American motorcade passes through the town without consideration. The actions of the town’s population and the subsequent prolongation of their hardship is antithetical of an autarky. Autarkies are financially independent states, such was the vision Franco had for Spain in the wake of World War Two. Franco’s lofty aspirations for his country were untenable in practice; with their pursuit resulting in a long and arduous period of recovery in Spain. Similarly, Berlanga employs the cinematic pastiche to communicate said history, with the characters of his film left in worse circumstances than those they began in. Through his depiction of loss and disillusionment, Berlanga makes a critique of populist politics. Populism is the driving force behind the effort to transform the town into a shinning example of Spanish culture, one made possible by appeals to the town’s entire populations, encouraged to sacrifice for the greater good and love of country. These efforts are effective in rallying the townspeople to unite behind a common, popular effort, yet their end result in disastrous and humiliating. Produce after some time into the Francoist experiment, Berlanga illustrates the many flaws in the regime’s effort to make progress under national unity, via his his allegory Villar del Río, a town victim to the grandiose but ultimately lackluster products of autarky and populist fascism.