Changing narratives of minority peoples’ identities in Welsh and Basque film. Elizabeth Dilys Jones (B.A.) School of Creative Arts A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of a PhD in Film Studies by the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David To be Resubmitted May 2013 Director of Studies: Dr Robert Shail, School of Creative Arts University of Wales: Trinity Saint David Second Supervisor: Professor Santiago de Pablo, University of the Basque Country at Vitoria-Gazteiz This research was undertaken under the auspices of the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David and was submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of a Degree of the University of Wales 1 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed..............................................................................................(candidate) Date................................................................................. STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed..............................................................................................(candidate) Date................................................................................. STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and abstract to be made available to outside organisations. Signed..............................................................................................(candidate) Date................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements I am particularly fortunate to have the supervision of Dr Robert Shail and Professor Santi de Pablo. I am very grateful for the quality of their supervision, and how quickly they came back with suggestions for improvements when chapters were submitted over the past few years. Thank you also to The University of Wales: Trinity Saint David for granting my request for a second supervisor, and to their Research Officer Alison Sables and to Kathy Miles in the library for assistance with Inter library loans and all other help. Also I thank my previous supervisor, Simon Horrocks. Dymunaf o waelod calon ddatagan fy nyled yn gyhoeddus i’m teulu agosaf sef Gwilym fy nghŵr, ein tair merch, ein meibion yng nghyfraith a’n chwech o wyrion. Diolch i chi am eich cefnogaeth ardderchog ers i mi ddechrau fel myfyriwr yn y flwyddyn 2000. Very grateful thanks to my immediate family, led by Gwilym my husband for close on fifty years, our three daughters and their husbands, and our six grandchildren who have supported me during my career as a student from 2000. I give sincere appreciation to Phil Judd (DSA Assessment Officer) at Bridgend College Assessment Centre who assessed my learning needs and made sure these were met, and to Wendy Owens and the late Gerwyn Richards at Ceredigion County Council Education Department. In particular I am fortunate to have had a support team that employed Tom Delph-Janiurek, to provide constant assistance with organizing my research and transferring my thinking into these volumes. I am indebted to the library staff at Trinity Saint David and the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, the BFI, and the Basque Film Archive in San Sebastian. Those numerous smiling faces that never blinked at awkward requests, dealt with telephone requests, who staffed the library counters and have become friends and voices I grew to rely on. They provided much encouragement, particularly Catrin Jenkins and Elen Jones at the Welsh Film Archive in the National Library who arranged viewing sessions for films, as did Mary Moylett, who arranged inter-country film loans, and who first introduced me to the late Dave Berry. Grateful thanks to George Jones at the Mercator Centre, Aberystwyth, who introduced me to Patxi Azpillaga of the Department of Audio-Visual Communications at The Basque University in Bilbao, and for the continued support I received from Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones , the Director of Mercator; also to the film technician Nere Pagola Mikeleiz and to Maider Zendoia at the film archive in San Sebastian/Filmoteca Vasca run by the Basque Department of Culture. Through them I came to meet María Pilar Rodríguez, with whom I enjoyed interesting discussions about the theoretical framework adopted in this thesis. Diolch i Carwen Fychan am roi o’i hamser i brawf-ddarllen. Thanks to Carwen Fychan for proof- reading. A huge thank you to the many family members and friends who kept asking me how this research was progressing, and who encouraged me to dig deeper and to plough on. 3 Abstract: This thesis discusses how changing narratives of Welsh and Basque identity have been represented in film. It builds on Higson’s (1989) notion of ‘heritage film’, and ideas derived from postcolonial theory to develop a threefold system of classification. It develops an argument that narratives of identity have shifted from long-standing ‘traditional’ essentialist versions centred on heteropatriarchy and collective, stable narratives of identity; through a transitional stage featuring the reversal of dualisms on which the ‘traditional’ is grounded and narratives based much more on the individual and connected to a crisis in masculinity; to a stage that transcends these dualisms through featuring ambiguous narratives of multiple selves and characters caught between fractured selves and global currents. Films are thus classified according to the degree that they may preserve, reverse or transcend traditional narratives of identities. Analysis focuses on elements such as the representation of minority nationhood, rural and urban landscapes, character, religion, gendered familial and social roles, aspects of community, cultural heritage, resistance and stories about sameness and difference, continuity and discontinuity, charting how these alter to shape new narratives of identities. It describes how films over the period from the 1930s to the present document the impact of politics and wider social changes and trends on Basque and Welsh peoples, for instance the impacts of Thatcherism and in the case of the Basques, the Civil War, Franco’s regime and post Franco democracy. This threefold system of classification is used to structure the chapters of this thesis. By comparing and contrasting Welsh and Basque films, this thesis identifies common themes that may be evident in film narratives of other minority peoples’ cultures and identities. 4 Contents Volume One ..................................................................................................... 10 Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................ 11 Research Aims: highlighting changes in narratives of identity .................................... 13 Previous approaches to culture and identity ................................................................. 14 Raymond Williams...........................................................................................................14 Manuel Castells................................................................................................................ 16 ‘Legitimising Identities’................................................................................................... 16 ‘Identities for resistance’.................................................................................................. 17 ‘Project identity’...............................................................................................................18 Methodology: selecting films for inclusion in this research .......................................... 21 Methodology: textual analysis ........................................................................................ 23 A threefold system of classification ................................................................................ 24 Preserved.......................................................................................................................... 28 Reversal............................................................................................................................ 30 postnational...................................................................................................................... 32 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 34 Chapter Two: Welsh Preserved ..................................................................... 35 Introduction...................................................................................................................... 35 ‘Preserved’ ....................................................................................................................... 35 Why ‘Preserved’? ............................................................................................................ 36 Narratives of identity and Preserved ............................................................................. 38 Feature films and documentaries ................................................................................... 39 Men and masculinities ....................................................................................................