taking place in film studies with some of the most urgent questions that have preoccupied twentieth-century Spain. It addresses new questions in film studies, like ‘prestige film' and ‘middlebrow cinema', and places these in the context of a country defined by social mobility, including the 1920s industrial boom, the 1940s post-Civil War depression, and the mass movement into the middle classes from the 1960s onwards. Close textual analysis of some 42 films from 1910-2010 provides an especially useful avenue into the study of this cinema for the student.- Uniquely offers extensive close readings of 42 films, which are especially useful to students and teachers of Spanish cinema.- Analyses Spanish silent cinema and films of the Franco era as well as contemporary examples.- Interrogates film's relations with other media, including literature, pictorial art and television.- Explores both ‘auteur' and ‘popular' cinemas.- Establishes ‘prestige' and the ‘middlebrow' as crucial new terms in Spanish cinema studies.- Considers the transnationality of Spanish cinema throughout its century of existence.- Contemporary directors covered in this book include Almodóvar, Bollaín, Díaz Yanes and more.

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