Victoria Pastor-González
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Vol. IX comparative cinema Victoria No. 16 2021 Pastor-González Towards New Ways of Representing 52-74 History: Generic Innovations in the Historical Biopic in Spain As virtual sites of public memorialization, historical biopics play an important part in shaping our view of the past. The genre employs a range of formal and narrative strategies in order to create persuasive narratives about historical characters and events. However, nation-specific socio-cultural and industrial conditions frequently determine whose lives are deserving of biographical treatment and how their stories are told. The following comparative analysis of two recent historical biopics, Clara Campoamor, The Forgotten Woman (Clara Campoamor, la mujer olvidada, Laura Mañá, 2011) and While at War (Mientras dure la guerra, Alejandro Amenábar, 2019), foregrounds some of these nation-specific circumstances in the Spanish context. It then proposes that these two works employ innovative strategies that signal possible new avenues for the historical biopic in Spain. In the case of Clara Campoamor, Mañá suggests alternative ways of representing historical female figures in the public arena, whilst in his film Amenábar mobilizes the conventions of the Hollywood biopic to aid transnational readability. Keywords HISTORICAL BIOPIC FEMINIST BIOPIC MALE MELODRAMA FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN SPAIN SPANISH SECOND REPUBLIC LAURA MAÑÁ ALEJANDRO AMENÁBAR CLARA CAMPOAMOR MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO Date submitted: 07/01/2021 Date accepted: 13/04/2021 Victoria Pastor-González [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0001-6305-3933 Senior Lecturer at Regent’s University London, her research interests include Spanish and Latin American docudrama, representations of memory, trauma and political conflict in film, and multimodal pedagogies. She has published in the areas of fact-based drama, employability and languages, and learner-generated materials. Her latest research on contemporary female biopics appeared in the edited volume Film and Domestic Space (2018). She has also contributed with a chapter on contemporary Spanish docudrama to the edited volume Docudrama on European Television (2016). DOI: 10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i16.04 Commonly defined as “a fiction create, icons for a fledgling democracy.1 film that deals with a figure whose The 2010s witnessed a second peak existence is documented in history, in the production of televisual biopics, and whose claims to fame or notoriety once again, prompted by a combination warrant the uniqueness of his or her of social and economic factors, most story” (Vidal 2014, 3), biopics in general notably the enactment of the Ley and historical biopics in particular play General de la Comunicación Audiovisual comparative cinema comparative a part in shaping the public memory of (Law of Audiovisual Communication), in the past. As a consequence, multiple March 2010. With the expectation that pull and push factors influence they should invest between 5% and 6% the production and distribution of of their profits to support European film, biopics. These may include cultural both private and state-owned channels and institutional approaches to the resorted to producing made-for- process of memorialization, specific television films and miniseries to fulfil conditions within the local film industry their quota. In an attempt to expand and the indigenous star system, and their existing portfolio of celebrity- even conflicting discourses on what driven programs, private channels constitutes a prestige project. released a wide range of mini-series In this sense the Spanish context is based on the lives of artists and singers. no different, and the two works I shall Meanwhile, the production of biopics be considering in this comparative based on historical figures remained analysis—Clara Campoamor, The mostly in the hands of national and Forgotten Woman (Clara Campoamor, la regional state-owned channels, Clara mujer olvidada, Laura Mañá, 2011) and Campoamor, The Forgotten Woman 53 While at War (Mientras dure la guerra, being a paradigmatic example. With a Alejandro Amenábar, 2019)—illustrate generous budget and displaying high industrial conditions and cultural production values compared to those of attitudes that have determined the the historical mini-series of the 1980s, existence and significance of historical the film was conceived as a prestige biopics in the Spanish media landscape. project to commemorate the 80th If we first consider Spanish anniversary of the granting of female television, the production of biopics suffrage in Spain. Clara Campoamor, The “has been frequently linked to Forgotten Woman ignited public interest economic, socio-political and cultural in a previously-overlooked historical interests” (Hernández Corchete 2011, figure (Campoamor) and proved highly 349) which in the last forty years successful, attracting two-and-a- have resulted in uneven patterns of half million viewers when it was first production, characterized by periods broadcast. of significant output followed by years Whilst the production of historical of scarcity. Many television scholars biopics in Spanish television has been cite the 1980s as a particularly prolific the object of several academic studies,2 decade, when generous budgets tracing the history of the biographical combined with “the will of the new genre in the context of Spanish cinema government to translate socialist is a challenge that lies beyond the ideals into television images” (Palacio limited scope of the present article. 2008, 159) resulted in the production This is further problematized by the of several prestige biographical fragmentary nature of the scholarship Article PASTOR-GONZÁLEZ VICTORIA Generic History: Representing of Ways New Towards Biopic in Spain in the Historical Innovations mini-series. Whether they dealt with in this area, which may indicate that the historical or contemporary subjects, biopic as a film genre has struggled to these programmes emerged as make a significant mark on Spanish film 2021 Vol. IX IX Vol. No. 16 No. conscious attempts to reclaim, or culture. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i16.04 Cinema scholars frequently look to consent that dominated the political the list of nominees and winners of the and public arenas in the aftermath of film industry’s most notable accolades, the dictatorship (Fra Molinero 2009, the Academy Awards, to seek 245).4 Two decades later, the debates confirmation of the genre’s enduring around the 2004−07 passage through attraction and the fact that “in parliament of the Ley de la Memoria contemporary cinema the biopic is an Histórica (Law of Historical Memory) comparative cinema comparative ubiquitous vehicle for prestige projects, became a catalyst for an intense and and in many ways it has become often polarized reassessment of the synonymous with award-worthiness” Spanish Civil War and its repressive (Vidal 2014, 2). If we were to carry aftermath. In cinema, this resulted in out a similar exercise in the Spanish the production of “some outstanding context, with the list of nominees and documentaries but, in the field of fiction winners to the Goya Awards as our data film, a succession of feel-good nostalgia sample, our findings would be radically movies that all too often romanticize different. For instance, in the last ten their subject matter” (Rodríguez Ortega years not a single historical biopic has 2013, 253). Television documentaries received the Goya Award for Best Film,3 such as Siempre días azules (Israel nor has a Goya Award for Best Leading Sánchez-Prieto, 2005) and historical Actor or Actress been bestowed dramas such as The Sleeping Voice upon a performer playing a historical (La voz dormida, Benito Zambrano, figure. In this respect, the second 2011) responded to a perceived need production that I shall be considering to rediscover private experiences and in this article is also paradigmatic. In individual memories that had been 54 2020, Alejandro Amenábar’s film While “forced to remain a private matter until at War garnered a record-breaking very recently, thanks to repression seventeen nominations for the Goyas, under the dictatorship and a lack of including Best Film, Best Director and interested interlocutors at the time of Best Leading Actor (Karra Elejalde). A the transition” (Labanyi 2008, 120). As a historical drama recounting the last consequence, these narratives focused months in the life of the Spanish writer “on the victims of history, and no longer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, on the heroic figure of the warrior” the film only obtained a meagre five (Loureiro 2008, 231), and audiences awards, the majority of them for seemed to have little appetite for technical categories. portrayals of exceptional individuals In addition to conditions in the local doing extraordinary deeds, which industry and the shifting production are frequently part and parcel of the models that may determine the making historical biopic. of historical biopics in Spain, it is The two works considered in this essential that we mention the nation- article, Clara Campoamor, The Forgotten specific socio-cultural and historical Woman and While at War, partake in circumstances that have had a deep this desire to unveil and rediscover impact on determining whose lives forgotten figures and forgotten events, were worthy of biographical treatment. but unlike these other cinematic In his assessment of televisual representations of the past, this is done biopics of the 1980s, Baltasar Fra through the personalized narratives of Molinero argues that historical