Films that Flouted Franco

A festival of critically acclaimed films by some of Spain's best directors began its run at the Carpenter Center last week.

The festival, "Images in the Shadows: A History of Spanish Cinema," documents the progression of Spanish film from the late 1920's through the years of Francisco Franco's dictatorship up to the modern era.

According to Roberta E. Murphy, assistant to the curator at the Harvard Film Archive, the festival will prompt students to see Spanish film in a new light.

"These films have created a whole new wave or style of filmmaking. It's a really fascinating to watch the history that evolves through the series," Murphy says.

The show began touring the United States in March at the Art Institute of Chicago, and has visited University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, and the Cleveland Art Museum. The festival was co-ordinated by Richard Pena '76, director of the New York Film Festival, who was formerly acting curator of the Harvard Film Archive.

The works of other prominent Spanish filmmakers such as Carlos Saura, Luis Bunuel, and Luis Berlanga will be shown. Bunuel's Viridiana (1961), one of only three films that the famous director was allowed to make in Spain, and which was banned in Spain at the time of its release, is "one of the landmarks of Spanish film," says Antonio Monegal, a graduate student in the Spanish department and former instructor of Spanish F, "Contemporary Spanish Film."

Berlanga himself is tentatively scheduled to appear on Nov. 3 at the screening of his Welcome, Mr. Marshall (1952). Murphy says that if Berlanga is unable to commit to the date, the archive may ask director Manuel Gutierrez Aragon, who has three films in the festival, to speak instead.

Directors like Berlanga, Saura, and Aragon were able to produce monumental works despite the constraints of censorship during the Franco era.

"Berlanga is among the most important Spanish filmakers. He is a person who straddles both historic eras. He is a person who is able to slip through the censors well," says Charles Pressberg, course head for Spanish F. "Saura is a major Spanish director. He uses imagery in a way unique to Spanish film," he adds.

Monegal agrees, saying, "The festival provides an example of a whole language at how to say things in hidden ways to avoid censorship. [The Franco censors] gave occasion [for Spanish filmmakers] to find expressive means rarely used in free countries."

Films from the Franco era try to demonstrate in subtle ways the hypocrisy of the time. They cover broad themes like the sham morality of the bourgeoisie and the public's general insensitivity to social problems. These themes isolate Spain from other Western European countries, Pressberg says.

"Because Spain is so different from the rest of Western Europe it has discouraged scholars from studying it. As a result a major European film history has been ignored," he says. "For historic reasons this festival gives students a chance to walk through the atmosphere that was prevalent in Spain."

ACCORDING to Murphy, opening night for the Spanish film showcase was a success. Roman Gubern, a Spanish critic, introduced the first film, Juan Antonia Bardem's Death of a Cyclist, to an almost sold-out theater. This 1955 Spanish classic, like the others in the festival, displayed subtitles.

"He [Bardem] is very important to the history of Spanish film," says Pressberg. "But after a few good starts he's become very commercial. One would hope that in the near future he would come out with a serious film."

In the past, Spanish F students watched films from the Spanish video library. Now that the festival is being shown, however, the students in the class are required to see 13 of the films featured in the series. In addition they are given a choice of four other films in the show and from those four they must choose two which they want to see.

Students from the Spanish F class were impressed with Death of a Cyclist's political undertones as well its dramatic impact.

"It gives a keen insight into the political criticism of the Franco era," Jonathan E. Lopez '91 said.

Antonia R. Estrada '89 said, "I thought it was like a Hitchcock film--a little melodramatic but generally interesting."

The festival runs until November 20. One hopes it will give film fans the opportunity to discover that despite the repression of the Franco years, creativity still flourished on Spanish screens.