Fascism, Cinema, and Literature. Silence, Pioneers, Remixes

This week we are going to explore silent cinema and its pioneers, as well as the relations between fascism, cinema, and literature.

By Thursday at midnight, or by Friday at 11am at the very latest, please post a blog entry in which you reflect upon the various points, issues, and topics we have brought up in our class and screening discussions.

What connections link literature and cinema with fascism in Spain during the first three decades of the 20th century?   What are some themes that you see emerging in the literary and cinematic representation of fascism in this era of pioneers (in film) and remixes (in literature)?  How do Florián Rey, Benito Perojo, and Luis Buñuel (in film), and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Salvador Rueda, José María Pemán, and Emilio Prados represent these early stages of fascism?

You do NOT have to engage ALL these questions, but you can choose one or more of them as the starting point to formulate and write your reflections about this week.

Rey’s La aldea maldita (The Damned Village)

https://vimeo.com/35870759

Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

https://vimeo.com/12688293

Perojo’s La bodega (The Tavern)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC3q-d5BMD0

14 Replies to “Fascism, Cinema, and Literature. Silence, Pioneers, Remixes”

  1. Perhaps what interested me the most this week was the juxtaposition (stylistically and thematically) between the two films we viewed on Wednesday– Un Chien Andalou and La Aldea Maldita. Florian Rey does an excellent job depicting the complexities of honor in an agrarian Spanish setting, the devastation of the fallen mother figure, and the heaviness of melodramatic acting in silent film. Juan and Acacia are both deeply flawed characters (one more flawed than the other depending on your politics, which I think may be the point) and they face fault and redemption throughout their turbulent, starving life together. On the other hand, Luis Bunuel captures a surrealist masterpiece of which the point is entirely the antithesis of plot or character development. The film is focused not on the intensity of narrative, but of each shot. The violent, sexual, and disturbing images don’t serve as a moral commentary but rather as a stream-of-consciousness experimentation, and a departure from safe, traditional, narrative-driven cinema.

    1. Terrific post, Ms. Tate! The juxtaposition of these two films is very important in order for us to understand these 100 years of Spanish cinema and how that cultural production relates to that other critical production of literature. You understood well the complexities of honor, it seems, and those are going to help a great deal when we sink our critical teeth in the philosophy, fiction, and poetry of the twentieth century in Spain.

  2. The idea of a silent film was something that I wasn’t used to. Although I am a media major, the two films that we watched were so different than the American ones that I have seen in the past. The introduction to Spanish silent film was different in that of the themes that were present. In Rey’s La Aldea Maldita, the theme of the women’s honor was heavily the center of the movie. This correlates well with the cinematic representation of fascism in this era and was shown through the film. Juan was using his authority and power to control Acacia’s life and decisions. Unlike Rey’s movie, Bunuel in Un Chien Andalou had several nonsensical images thrown together. This definitely invoked surrealism throughout the video and didn’t necessarily have a storyline that was as clear as La aldea maldita. In class today, we learned about the gaze and how this would’ve been an example of a movie that reached an audience with the capacity to try to understand the context behind this movie. I’m interested in seeing what other movies would capture a similar gaze.

  3. Before this class, I never sat down to watch silent films—but I already had presumptions about them. I did not believe they could grab my attention, with the lack of dialogue and color. After watching and analyzing both La Aldea Maldita by Florián Rey, I realized this was not the case at all. In fact, there is an unexpected power of silent, black and white films. The striking contrast between white and black in the scenes produced a powerful effect. Mirroring this, Emilio Prados, in his poem “I Locked the World Out” used references of light to bring his work to life. Not only this, but even with a lack of dialogue in Rey’s film, the power of character and plot development was also more tangible than I would have imagined. Acacia’s pain and suffering as the film progressed was palpable. While there was intense contrast simply between colors, or lack thereof—most notably shown in the bar scene in Segovia—there was also strong contrast within the proxemics. When Acacia was first introduced to the audience, she was by the hearth of her old home, closely and lovingly taking care of her baby boy. This hearth, and her caring touch, painted the picture of a fulfilled motherly figure in terms of the time period. By the end of the film, Acacia was driven to the point of insanity from all the isolation, guilt, and shame she has been experiencing. The last scene shows her attempting to care for a nonexistent baby in a crib. Her son, the one she was caring for by the hearth in the start of the film, rather, is more grown up and standing far from her. The contrast of these two scenes, showing the complete fall of this mother, provided a poignant, and worrisome, message as it brings to life a universal theme of dishonor.

  4. It is interesting to analyze the extent to which the film maker makes his presence noticeable within the piece and if the advent of fascism changes this degree of presence(as either a reason of amplification or a restrictive hindrance.)

    In the works we have touched upon, both the Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou and the Emilio Prados poem present a form of purposeful escapism of the social context which may even hold a stronger message than The Damned Village’s direct treatment of the socio-political background. In Emilio Prado this can be seen by the images of being locked out of the world, lost in a dream, being a blind man faced with a mirror. It is clearly that of the individual escaping their inevitable and impending direct contextual situation. The Buñuel film shows the same escapism through the absurd surrealist disparate shots. The attempt to flee unity is a circular objective, refufilling itself in the attempt to flee once more and so on ad infinitum. The fleeing may be analyzed as a politically charged cycle. The Damned Village treats the forecoming fascism through the social dramas and symbols that treat the topic directly.

  5. Florian Rey’s La aldea maldita depicts the heartbreaking story of a woman torn between her old-fashioned, restrictive life with her husband and child, and the calling temptation of fast-paced city life, the yearn for which is ultimately too difficult for her to turn down. In “100 Years of Spanish Cinema,” Pavlović discusses the film’s exploration of the clash between tradition and modernity, which, to me, is the most striking image that the film presents. Acacia, in her decision to follow the lure of a modern world, is inherently dishonoring her husband, son, and father-in-law. In other words, despite her quest for freedom, she is trapped from being truly free by the constraints of what her family still considers to be socially acceptable. Juan, in turn, is experiencing the consequences of Acacia’s rebellion in the sense that his whole family is looked on dishonorably for her actions, and it is not just Acacia herself who is punished for her actions. It is through these intertwined moral and social conflicts that Juan and Acacia press the audience to consider what it means to truly be free.The struggle between Juan’s pressure to keep with old social norms and Acacia’s decision to move into new modern ones is a microcosm of what Spain as a country was going through at the time: a struggle to find its own identity in a modernizing world while holding onto outdated social constructs. We posed the question of whether the film supports liberalism or fascism, and I think the answer is that what it presents is a representation of the struggle of transition and the difficulty that comes with the effort of trying to move forward while still holding onto the past.

    The film was also quite striking in a visual sense, and its use of light, contrast, and sound took the place of the absent narrative voice that we have come to know in films today. As a viewer, it was incredible to see how much emotion and feeling could be portrayed solely by expression and choice of camera techniques, such as use of clarity and heavy facial close-ups. These techniques were visible in moments such as the distinctive visual clarity when the camera focuses on Acacia’s “devil” friend, and Acacia’s melodramatic facial expressions when her son finally gives her a kiss. Her face, eyes, and mouth are so expressive that the sum of visual effect and music actually conveys, in my opinion, greater emotion than if the film were to have had sound at all. There is no dialogue or human sound to distract the audience, and as a result all we are left with are the intense emotions, by means of expression and body language, that pour from the characters scene after scene.

  6. After watching “La Aldea Maldita” there was this reverberating question in my head, over what Acacia’s intentions were of leaving her family behind. It seems to me that there are contrasting perspectives of whether she did it for selfish reasons or in order to help her family. In a way, it seems as if she wants to be that hardworking, and independent woman; who’s free from her husband’s control. She’s enticed by her friend and the novelties of Segovia. Pavlovic explains how this film creates this clash between modern and traditional which could be explained through Acacia’s intention to be independent. She doesn’t attempt to free her husband, see her son, or go back to her family until she is caught by her husband red-handed. The look on her face is ashamed and even struck down. However, if she was doing it in order to sustain her family then it wouldn’t be as shameful in my opinion. I think that she knows she did something wrong. However, the real issue that overwhelms Juan is how she disgraced his honor. Pavlovic talks about the importance and kind of social norm of honor. So, in order to get back at her, Juan wants to disgrace Acacia. He makes her seem worthless, powerless, and repressed. She is truly the definition of a fallen mother deemed so unworthy that she can’t even touch her own son. The silent film helps emphasize the emotional distress of Acacia, the unspoken words aren’t needed as through her facial expressions and movements we can now how distressed she is feeling so in a way she herself is speechless.

  7. Rey’s “La Aldea Maldita” uses silent film to force the viewer to focus on not what the characters are saying, but the characters themselves. Rey meticulously zooms in on faces, and particularly eyes during specific scenes throughout the film, which was typically a Russian film tactic, but is critical in this film. This method of filming puts emphasis on emotion rather than dialogue so that the viewer can fully experience these feelings and undergo the same emotional arch as the characters. Rey masterfully includes not one but many forms of the Gaze to develop a stronger relationship between the characters but also between the characters and the audience. For example, Magdalena was usually pictured in profile because her eyes looked sinister, as she represented the devil tempting Acacia to leave her child. Magdalena also reveals Acacia to Juan at the brothel, but does so artfully as the camera is focused on her body language and particularly her eyes. This extra-diegetic gaze places the viewer in the scene because her eyes are so powerful. This motif of eyes is paralleled in Prados’s piece “I locked out the World”, where he mentions being naked like a blind man, and having light shone through his eyes. The term naked paired with blindness evokes a sense of vulnerability that the author and reader both resonate with. In the film, when Juan sees Acacia at the brothel, the camera focuses on his eyes glaring at her, and the anger he feels is encroached onto the viewer as well. The intra-diegetic gaze used in this scene only accentuates his expressions and makes the film even more impactful.

  8. During the 20th century, cinema and literature reflected the turmoil Spain was enduring at the time. At this time, cinema was shown through silent film was is a new genre for me. Watching a story being told without actual voices and without color was very different than current cinema. While on the other hand, I think literature is a combination of silent and dialogue, in which any character thoughts or actions are silent and conversations are dialogue.

    A common theme is downfall and redemption. For instance, in La aldea maldita, Acacia is considered the “fallen” mother but at the end, it shows her husband as the only one who can save her from her own misery. Even though he was one of the main people responsible for her shaming, by forcing her to return home and making her act like a stranger to her own son, he seems to be the only one who can pull her out of her psychotic break. This lines up with a common theme in movies of that time of Catholicism. Redemption and forgiveness go hand in hand with religion. The theme of redemption also appears in “The Monster” by Vicente Blasco Ibanez which shows the parallelism between cinema and literature.

    Another parallel between both arts is light. In a silent film, the lighting plays a bigger role than expected. The emphasis on where the light is focused and where it isn’t helps the audience realize what is important about the scene and where they should focus. In the poem “I Locked the World Out” by Emilio Prados, the topic of light is also covered. In the poem, it makes the light seem like its surrounding the narrator as if it has a presence like God, relating back to the theme of Catholicism.

    All in all, cinema and literature fully represented the tumultuous times in 20th century Spain.

  9. In class we focused on the characters Acacia and Juan and how they represent the gender roles during the early period of fascism in Spain, but we never mentioned the role of children in the early stages. In my opinion children would be the model citizen under a fascist regime because they are impressionable, usually follow instruction without question, and do not have a fully developed moral compass. Acacia and Juan’s son represents these traits because the son does not say a single word throughout the film and he always does what his father and grandfather tell him to do. The one time in the film where he goes against his father’s instruction he ends up falling down a flight of stairs, which demonstrates to children that there are consequences for not following the rules.

    La Aldea Maldita also shows that children need to be watched closely because they are really impressionable. For example, when Acacia walks up to the two children sitting under a wall and starts to stroke the little boy’s face I’m surprised he does not react. Instead the mother has to forcefully yank her children away because she does not want them to interact with this dishonored mother figure. The same concept is seen when Juan decides to hold his son when he sleeps the first night Acacia is in their home. I believe that one reason Juan does this was to punish Acacia and make sure she does not interact with her son during the night, but another reason could be that he wants to protect his son from the influences of his tainted mother. The fact that Juan is able to control his son without physical abuse and the way the mother of the other two children react towards Acacia demonstrates that children have higher status than a person without honor.

  10. While watching the film I could not help but notice the parallel’s between the clash of old and new tradition which coincided with the collapse of the Spanish empire and the new fascist regime that is soon going to take power. The old tradition is best represented by the father of the women protagonist and her the husband while the modern temptation to move on from old tradition is represented by the “fallen” mother’s best friend. While the “fallen” mother initially gives in to the temptation of a life away from the patriarchal traditional town, she is eventually caught by her husband and is forced to live a life of exile and extreme modesty to attest for her wrongdoing. The ease in which the women is captured and forced to live this life and the fact that the entire town (including women) choose to excommunicate her from the town shows that while the big cities were modernizing across Spain, the agrarian societies (that consisted of most people) were easily susceptible to being controlled by tradition and religion alike which would later become the nationalist preachings of Franco.

  11. COMMENT BY SOPHIE SIEGEL
    La Aldea Maldita is a silent film that is emblematic of the political climate in Spain in the years before the rise of fascism. With the shift from the monarchical rule of Alfonso XIII to the fascist leadership under Franco in the partisan sphere, comes a shift in political and social ideologies. During this period, there is a short-lived democratic republican administration, that embodies more egalitarian idealisms.

    There are many visual images in La Aldea Maldita that represent the cultural and societal shift from strict Catholicism to modernism. The image of the fallen mother is the most symbolic of the societal ideological shift, from one of a conservative nature to one with more modern principles. Acacia’s abandonment of her family is representative of the liberation of many previously repressed rights. The new regime promises basic human rights, and Spain saw a beginning push towards gender equality. Citizens are temporarily granted freedom of speech, the right to divorce, and females are allowed suffrage in 1933.

    As does Mauricio in The Monster, who leaves for war to fight for his own liberties and those of others, the fallen mother, Acacia, leaves her village to pursue her individual sovereignties, but in doing so, she leaves her family behind. She prioritizes her own happiness over that of her family’s, as she is unhappy living the life of a prisoner’s wife. She is eventually recaptured by her husband Juan, who forces her to return with him because of the politics of honor that remain ingrained in society. Even with the new freedoms granted, her husband and many people in the village are still tied to their faith and prior belief-system. Acacia’s plight is parallel to the plight of many Spanish citizens as the rise of fascism begins to take form. They enjoyed and relished in the freedoms awarded to them, only to have them taken away.

  12. COMMENT BY ERICA KLECKNER
    Having La aldea maldita as my first silent film experience, I found the themes of honor, betrayal, and collision between traditional and modern as clearly emphasized as any film with sound that I have seen. As the title of this chapter clearly states, “Silent Cinema and its Pioneers”, La aldea maldita pioneered the idea of modern values corrupting a traditional family. The Castilla family is ripped apart by the temptations of the modern world. Acacia is seduced by her  more modern friend to travel away from the rundown village and improve her situation by finding work. However, in doing so, she betrays her family and is forced to deal with the consequences. While Rey portrays Acacia’s story as shameful and dishonorable, he also seems to allow pity and sorrow for Acacia. This is where his genius takes place. He causes the audience to reflect on both sides of the situation, the traditional versus the upcoming and modern. This is exactly what Rey was hoping for his audience to do with the current Spanish situation, at a transitioning point in their history. Spain was moving into the 20th century, with new morals, theories, and values being tested and put into place that contradicted the old traditions. Rey wanted to push his audience, and I am sure all of Spain, to hold up the mirror to themselves and reflect on the transitional period they were going through, using the scenes like the exodus of the carts from the village and strategically playing dark and light against each other.

  13. COMMENT BY MICHAEL CARRAGHER
    La Aldea Maldita was made at an interesting time in Spain.  The Monarchy was teetering and more progressive discourse was emerging.  It came out in 1930 just a year before the beginning of The Second Republic, which only lasted 5 years.  In the film are both progressive and traditional ideas.  Religion plays a big role as well as the themes of forgiveness and poverty.  To understand the film fully, one must understand the time period and what major values were in place.  A man’s honor is determined largely by the submission of his wife.  When Juan’s wife ditches him for the city, he is left shamed and broken.  However, they meet again three years later (the time sequence became hard to follow) and then it is Juan’s turn to shame his wife.  He makes her wear old women’s clothing and word spreads about Acacia’s betrayal and abandonment.

    These events set up what, for me, was the main idea of forgiveness.  How much does one have to do for their lover to not forgive them?  Acacia comes pretty close, but Rey eventually lets Juan forgive her at the end.  This is not until after the entire village turns on Acacia and she is continuously displayed as a sad, “fallen” mother.  Rey’s argument is tricky because as we discussed in class, I believe he is simply holding up a mirror and forcing us to consider what we would do in Juan’s situation.  There is hardly a profound moment to show us what Rey might do.  Therefore, he leaves it to the viewer to decide.  In the end, the family is back together.  However, had this film been set any time after 1936, the ending may not have been so satisfying.

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