Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film
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The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Rachel Beaney Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Master of Philosophy Cardiff University, September 2018 The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film ii The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Summary This thesis reassesses the actions of the child protagonists in El laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro 2006) and El espinazo del diablo /The Devil’s Backbone (del Toro 2001). I argue that the child protagonists of these films have often been regarded as the mute victims or witnesses to the violence of the Spanish Civil War and Franco regime. Thus, they have frequently been interpreted as ciphers for victimhood in the field of Visual Hispanic Studies. In this study, I set out to make the case for instances of agency, for the child protagonist’s capacity for social participation and for his/her ability to shape or change events within the filmic narrative. Much of the scholarship around child- centred Spanish cinema tends to present childhood as intertwined with victimhood. My analysis moves away from this trend and instead seeks to recognise instances of agency through multimodal analysis of mise-en-scène, dialogue, lighting and characterisation. iii The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Acknowledgements I was able to complete this MPhil Thesis thanks to the Ursula Henriques Scholarship. I thank my supervisors, Dr Ryan Prout and Professor Fabio Vighi for their help in developing this thesis and for their encouragement and guidance. Without their understanding, enthusiasm, patience, and grammatical knowledge, this work might not have been possible. Thank you to Dr Kate Griffiths for her advice during annual reviews. I am grateful to the staff in the Spanish department at Cardiff University School of Modern Languages for all that they have taught me. A special thanks to Luisa Tramontini and the interlibrary loans team at the Arts and Social Studies Library. I would like to thank my family, friends, and colleagues at Cardiff University for their support. v The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 3: Theoretical Approach .............................................................................................. 47 Chapter 4: El espinazo del diablo (del Toro 2001) ................................ ................................ 68 Chapter 5: El laberinto del fauno (del Toro 2006) ................................ ................................ 110 Chapter 6: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 146 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 171 vi The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film List of Figures Figure 1 Still from the short film Ten Minutes Older (Frank 1978) .................................................. 1 Figure 2 A still from La gran familia (1962) ...................................................................................... 5 Figure 3 Ana (Torrent) stares down at her dead father in Cría cuervos (Saura 1976) ..................... 9 Figure 4 Ana goes to the cinema in El espíritu de la colmena (Erice 1973) ................................ .... 23 Figure 5 Un monstruo viene a verme (Bayona, 2016) ................................ ................................ .... 43 Figure 6 A still from the explosion of the orphanage in El espinazo del diablo ............................. 71 Figure 7 A still from the behind the scenes commentary of El espinazo del diablo ....................... 75 Figure 8 Santi the ghost .................................................................................................................. 79 Figure 9 Close-up shot of Santi ....................................................................................................... 81 Figure 10 Carlos approaches Santi ................................................................................................. 82 Figure 11 Santi stares through the keyhole ................................................................................... 83 Figure 12 Santi the ghost child ....................................................................................................... 87 Figure 13 The stages of creating Santi............................................................................................ 88 Figure 14 Carlos inspects the children in ‘limbo water’ ................................................................. 89 Figure 15 A title sequence transition ............................................................................................. 92 Figure 16 Jaime looks at the cess pit .............................................................................................. 92 Figure 17 Carmen shows the boys a mural of a hunting scene ...................................................... 97 Figure 18 Carmen teaches the boys about hunting ....................................................................... 97 Figure 19 The boys hunt Jacinto ..................................................................................................... 97 Figure 20 Jacinto sinks into the amber liquid ................................................................................. 98 Figure 21 Carlos chases after his tutor’s car in an opening scene ............................................... 106 Figure 22 Carlos and the boys leave the orphanage in the closing scenes of the film ................ 106 Figure 23 Ofelia meets the Faun in the labyrinth. ........................................................................ 114 Figure 24 Ofelia looking at the faun ............................................................................................. 116 Figure 25 Captain Vidal's view of Ofelia, without the faun .......................................................... 116 Figure 26 Ofelia enters the Pale man's abode ............................................................................. 117 Figure 27 Ofelia creates her own doorway with the magical chalk. ............................................ 121 Figure 28 An earlier scene transition highlighting the separation between the two worlds ...... 122 Figure 29 A scene transition in which the two colour palettes start to blend ............................. 122 Figure 30 Ofelia p repares the mandrake baby which she believes represents her mother’s unborn child ................................................................................................................................. 124 Figure 31 Ofelia’s dress swings in the wind, abandonned. .......................................................... 127 Figure 32 Arthur Rackham's Alice in Wonderland illustration ..................................................... 128 Figure 33 Ofelia climbs into the tree ............................................................................................ 129 Figure 34 Ofelia crawls into the tree ............................................................................................ 130 Figure 35 Ofelia (left) and Mercedes (right) ................................................................................. 133 Figure 36 Captain Vidal’s dinner party ......................................................................................... 135 Figure 37 Ofelia enters the Pale Man’s dining room .................................................................... 136 Figure 38 Ofelia eats a grape as the Pale Man approaches ......................................................... 137 Figure 39 Ofelia crosses her Mother’s old bedroo m .................................................................... 142 Figure 40 Title sequence of El espíritu .......................................................................................... 148 Figure 41 Title sequence of El espíritu .......................................................................................... 148 Figure 42 A child’s drawing from And They Still Draw Pictures (Weissberger 1938). .................. 150 vii The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Figure 43 Carlos looks at the drawings of Jaime in El espinazo del diablo (del Toro 2001)......... 150 Figure 44 Ofelia looks at the Book of Crossroads in El laberinto del fauno (del Toro 2006) ....... 151 Figure 45 a drawing from del Toro's notebooks .......................................................................... 153 Figure 46 Poster produced during the Spanish Civil War ............................................................ 167 Figure 47 Carlos approaches Santi ............................................................................................... 169 Figure 48 Ofelia lays dead in El laberinto ..................................................................................... 169 viii The Agentic Child: Redefining the Child Seer in Contemporary Spanish Horror Film Note on Style I quote American sources verbatim,