On Muerte de un Ciclista

MUERTE DE UN CICLISTA

This post is film critic Fernando Croce's review of the film, published in Slant  magazine in April, 2008.



Death of a Cyclist is Spanish director Juan Antonio Bardem's response to a national cinema he famously denounced as "politically ineffective, socially false, intellectually worthless, aesthetically nonexistent, and industrially crippled." Fittingly, his portrait of the complacent and disaffected upper class during Franco's regime opens with a crash, as adulterous couple María José (Lucia Bosé) and Juan (Alberto Closas) accidentally run over a man on a bicycle and, fearing discovery, leave the wounded cyclist behind. The man's death brings guilt upon Juan's shoulders, yet it also precipitates a painful new awareness: A former idealist hollowed out by the country's civil war, he comes to see the emptiness of his bourgeois ways as well as experience a renewal of his rebelliousness. María José, on the other hand, has no intention of trading the gilded cages supported by her husband Miguel (Otello Toso) for spiritual redemption, and soon becomes the femme fatale promised by the film's noir-tinged strains. The most intriguing aspect of Bardem's social critique is the way Juan's increasing need for exposure is contrasted with the sardonic insinuations of Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla), the slimy art critic whose observations on his decadent companions ("All the ugly things you hide, I dig them up and lay them before you") show that, within bourgeois circles, even self-critical impulses have become utterly corrupted. Unfortunately, many of Bardem's insights are blunted by his unsubtle technique, which provides redundant dialogue ("A new bracelet versus a thousand impoverished customers" is typical party chatter) and enough shock cuts for an entire John Frankenheimer retrospective. (Bosé's presence irresistibly invites comparison with Story of a Love Affair, but where Michelangelo Antonioni dissected his couple's alienation with a diamond-cutter's delicacy, Bardem for the most part merely parades it unilluminatingly.) Explicitly designed as a shock to the system, Death of a Cyclist too often settles for academic subversion.

HOMEWORK FOR TUESDAY'S CLASS:

1. Read the blog entry on Talk to Her and write a reaction to an element of the film within the context of the class discussion. At this time, simply explore your personal reaction: what did you think of the film and of the way director Pedro Almodovar explores the issues of stereotypes of masculinity and femininity and of the challenges of modern vs. traditional expectations in the modern world. Use specific scenes or the development of specific characters to explain your reaction. Your piece should be 300-700 words and should be incorporated to the blog in the form of a "comment" to the blog entry on Talk to Her. The comment is due Tuesday BEFORE class. 

2. Please read the article below before tomorrow's class. You will be asked to incorporate the information  into your next blog comments due on WEDNESDAY before class. Please wait until we have watched and discussed the film in class before you post it. The article is:

 "Death of a Cyclist: Creating Modern Spanish Cinema," by Marsha Kinder:

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/550-death-of-a-cyclist-creating-a-modern-spanish-cinema

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail. 

On Pedro Almodóvar´s Hable con ella/Talk to Her (2002)

Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar, 2002)

I wanted to begin our screenings with Pedro Almodovar's "Talk to Her" because I think it represents the culmination of the variety of processes I would like us to explore in the class. 

Mostly I think the film allows for a very transparent view of what the process of cultural redefinition of Spain, from dictatorship to modern democracy, represents aesthetically as well as ideologically, in the evolution of Spanish film, although this will become more apparent as we see some earlier films.  

Pedro Almodovar and Rosario Flores in the set of Hable con ella

Aesthetically it is representative of that process of redefinition because, as we will see over the following weeks, it is the culmination of a process of articulation of a very unique, modern, narrative style that builds on the aesthetic traditions of Spanish and international film and art histories, incorporating elements from Spanish high art and popular culture –music, literature, film, art— but also of other nations' (someone in an earlier class commented how the images of Alicia in the hospital, and her nakedness echoed religious iconography of the European renaissance). This generates a vision of culture that effectively subverts many of the more negative aspects of the values assigned to the established tradition of Spain by appropriating that tradition and giving it a broader meaning, more in line with the principles of a new, democratic, European, Spain.

Ideologically, the film can be read as a complex and also highly individualized and insightful reading of Spain’s struggle to overcome the challenges of deeply ingrained prejudices. In that sense, Talk to Her is also symbolic of the trauma that results from not dealing with unresolved issues (for all of the principal characters, except, perhaps, Alicia). A political reading of the film could suggest that Almodóvar presents a Spain that seems to have come to terms with its cultural conflicts but where prejudices persist not only in the surface, but also at the psychological level, preventing the society from healing. The secretary is capable of talking about her bowel movements on the telephone, but Benigno, Marcos, and Lidia are not able to express their feelings clearly or openly to each other, with disastrous consequences –Benigno, perhaps, because the dysfunctional nature of his environment (fatherless, with a domineering mother-figure have not allowed him to…) the others, we could argue, for something similar, but would have to dig a bit deeper into the dialogue to decipher it.

It is not surprising that the film addresses many of these issues through the prism of sexuality and gender. During the Franco dictatorship strict social mores were imposed through education, censorship and information manipulation, that is, by using propaganda, hiding and/or distorting information. Gender roles were strictly defined and enforced through social pressure and legislation that, for example, required a woman to have her husband’s written permission to have a driver’s license. In the post-Franco years, addressing issues of gender equality represented a challenge to the traditional mores that were symbols of the oppression of the fascist regime; in the 21^st century Spain the film represents, these traumas seem to linger in the subconscious of the characters despite having been, at least theoretically, overcome in everyday society (for example, nobody is supposed to ask Benigno about his sexual orientation, but the matter is dealt with in the crudest terms in the private conversation of the nurses. The reaction of Alicia’s father, a psychiatrist, when he sees Benigno massaging Alicia’s thigh also hints at the persistence of this dysfunction). It could be argued that it is precisely the tension between the expected social attitude towards certain behaviors and the persisting prejudice that is behind  Benigno’s inability to recognize (and even feel and confront) his traumas –although none of the characters of the film seem to do this in a “healthy” manner…     

But it is also possible that Almodovar is cautioning us about something. The society that the characters inhabit is not perfect. One unresolved tension is perhaps represented by how, despite the fluidity of gender roles allowed by modern society, all the characters suffer from "emotional scars" that are associated not to direct political events, but to society’s inability to confront them directly (in the prison, the booth Marcos speaks into is called “communication”, the center where there are all these strict rules about how inmates (excuse me, interns) are to initiate communication with the outside world, an apparently imposed attempt at guiding these prisoners towards establishing ties with the outside world. This prison communications center seems to bring even more attention to the emotional damage inflicted by the fact that the characters live in a dehumanized culture that assigns them roles into which no one can fit perfectly, and therefore can seem arbitrary. And although this modern world seems accepting of these characters’ “minor flaws”, there remains an undercurrent of old closed-mindedness: Although everyone seems accepting of Marcos’ emotional tears, these still catch peoples' attention. Lidia’s femininity is openly challenged in the confrontation with the television host, who insists she has made her way in a male-dominated medium (ironically breaking the glass ceiling by throwing women like Lydia under the bus). This suggests stereotypes still weighted heavily on gender roles despite appearances. Similarly, the nurses’ coffee break conversation, as was mentioned in class, shows that some of those stereotypes remain in the “collective unconscious”.

In previous class discussions, when I have screened this film students have talked about the moral relativism of the story: We want to hate Benigno for what he has done, but he seems to be depicted as too nice a guy. But Almodóvar and society seem to punish Benigno; his life is ruined, he dies. Although Marcos is his friend, and he helps him get a lawyer, he had warned Benigno of the consequences of his infatuation with Alicia when the male nurse confessed to wanting to marry the dancer.  The limit of morality seems to be there where one’s desire runs into someone else’s space: "She cannot say no to you with any part of her body" Marcos yells at Benigno when the nurse is confessing his love for Alicia. That sets the limit of personal freedom, the point at which barriers become necessary.

The film then seems to address also the pursuit of fulfillment –the desire not to be alone—and draws on very complex process of communication that do not work well as absolutes. The film takes a moral position, although it also stresses how all the characters are flawed.  Marcos’ growth seems to sprout from his acceptance of Benigno’s women’s magazine wisdom, his seemingly candid, simplistic worldview.  Peace might be achieved by the recognition and acceptance of one's own weaknesses and those of others, and perhaps by the achievement of a sense of personal freedom through the fulfillment of desire ("from the earthly rises the ethereal" Katarina tells Alicia and Benigno). 

Is Almodovar rejecting every myth about gender roles in Spanish society? Does Benigno, who shares all kind of advice about women ("talk to her"), really "know everything about women", as he claims? His argument is laughable, and has echoes of another film sociopath, Alfred Hitchcock’s Norman Bates from the movie Psycho. Benigno claims he knows all about women because he "lived 20 years with one and has taken care of this one for four". But it is the advice Benigno gives Marcos that seems to be the stepping stone to a new way of approaching relationships, which is why, as we said in class, we can't hate Benigno despite what he does. It is why we think that now Marcos is going to have a successful relationship with Alicia, because he has grown, (which contributes to the notion of a happy ending, although we don't really see an ending, that is, there really isn't an ending because this is a movie and the actors wrapped up the shoot and went home). 

Perhaps there are critiques in the story as well. Perhaps Almodovar is telling us that history is a tale told by an idiot--perhaps made of contradictions-- about the way gender roles are adopted and performed? After all, the women are not heard in the film. Lidia complains about it: When Lydia tells Marcos they need to talk before the bullfight, he tells her: "We have been talking for an hour", Lidia replies: "No. You have". 

Such a reading, and if we looked at the film as an allegory (a symbolic representation) of what Spain is confronting as a society --or should confront, it is being told that it should confront its identity crisis by embracing itself as a global space.  

On Spanish History

SPAIN: THE CRISIS OF HISTORY. 

Spain's Empire in Europe in the time of Charles the 5th (Grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella)

It is almost impossible to set a historical starting point that would explain a Spanish Volkgeist, but as the 20th century is concerned, 1898 is often used as a key historical marker to explain the unfolding of political events that transformed the country through the century. In that year, Spain, which in the 16th century had been the largest imperial power in the world, reigning over the Americas, most of Western Europe, and some parts of Asia, lost control of its last colonies: the Philippines, in Asia, and Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Americas. The Spanish kings saw the nations' power as a god-given right derived from the nation's allegiance to the Catholic faith. Catholicism had been the rallying cry for the reunification of the country after 700 years of Islamic occupation, and also was behind the justification for the conquest of America. During the height of its imperial power, again the state rallied around the Catholic tradition, and Spain became the protector of the faith against Protestantism, which challenged the traditional authority of the church, and therefore also of those monarchs who allied themselves with it.

In the 1800s, as the wave of anti-monarchic feeling erupted through Europe culminating in the Napoleonic wars, the Spanish people rallied around their authoritarian king, and again sought refuge in their allegiance to the church to set themselves apart from the rest of Europe, where industrialization and capitalism were transforming social, political, and cultural structures. Through the 19th century, while European nations grew economically and expanded their trading networks and political influence around the world, Spain remained relatively unindustrialized, except for some urban areas. In the southern part of the country there still existed a semi-feudal agrarian system where large landowners inherited farms and its inhabitants from one generation to the next. When in 1898, with the help of the United States, the country lost its last colonies, Spain suffered a devastating blow to its national identity. Many, including thinkers and artists who had exposure to the European world, advocated a democratic transformation for Spain that would allow it to follow the path to modernization taken by other western countries. Through the first decades of the 20th century, these social and political pressures resulted in radical transformations of the Spanish political and social landscape; the monarchy was abolished, and Spain became a republic, although it was still far from a democracy. In 1936 Spain's cultural landscape looked very much like that of other western nations in the middle of the great depression. Tensions between labor and industry, between nationalist groups and regionalist ones, between the defenders of the traditional values established by the monarchy and the new values demanded of global, industrial modernity, culminated in a Civil War between two factions: The Nationalists, under the command of general Francisco Franco, who demanded that Spain return to an authoritarian form of government under a single ruler, and the Republicans, who wanted to establish a republic governed by popular democracy. This is where you do your homework and look up the Spanish Civil War.

Franco, on the right, with Charlie Chaplin

Franco, on the right, with Charlie Chaplin

Now you know who Franco is, and that he won the war. (That's Hitler in the picture with him, by the way). Because he had received support from the Axis powers during the Spanish Civil War, and supported Hitler and Mussolini in World War II, Franco did not get much sympathy from the winners of the war. Its Civil War devastated Spain, and the economic crisis that accompanied the European war only worsened conditions in the country, were a new economic elite was emerging that combined the remnants of the traditional aristocratic classes and some industrialists who benefited from government influences and massive smuggling. The country was economically, politically, and culturally isolated. Then, the Cold War heated up. In the early 1950s, with many European countries on the brink of social revolution and increased hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States and their allies, it was to the advantage of the west to allow Spain into its sphere of influence. Spain was accepted into the United Nations and became open to trade with the international community. Seeking the social and economic benefits of modernization, Franco's growth strategy was building a State-directed industry that would provide for the nation, building infrastructure for tourism and products for national consumption. This jump-started the Spanish economy, but also created an exodus from the countryside to the cities, where farmers who had lived meager subsistence existences, found jobs in the new factories, or industrial projects.

Our class begins at that moment. Spain was under an authoritarian government that justified its authority on the preservation of traditional principles, but needed, in order to survive, to adopt some social and economic strategies that compromised its authority in relation to those principles.

And here is Franco with U.S. President Eisenhower. Politics make strange bedfellows

Franco's motto was "Spain: One, Great, Free". His promise was that even if Spain could not become the world power it once had been, it continued to be the "Spiritual Repository of the West", the one place where the true faith, as it had been defended by the great warriors of medieval times, survived in principle and practice, under the guidance of those who had inherited their authority (the church, the traditional aristocracy, and the military).

The economic growth that accompanied modernization also eroded the very tight control over information that was exercised by the regime. On the negative side, urban expansion generated an urban underclass that presented the regime with a new set of challenges, and an urban middle class that, because of its access to education and communication, found itself empowered financially, but not politically. Members of these groups, and other critics of the regime, sought ways to challenge the ideological principles of the state, demanding to play a role in the destiny of the nation by contributing to its redefinition. This was a tremendous task in a country where information was as ferociously controlled as in under Franco's Spain.
In Cinema, we can observe such a strategy in the adoption of specific visual languages (in the case of Spain in the 1950s, that of Italian neorealism) that produce a type of message that indirectly challenge the state ideological apparatus. In the film "Muerte de un ciclista" (Death of a cyclist, 1955) we will see a bit how this works. In the next few days we will also explore more direct critical strategies such as those used by Luis Buñuel, a key figure in the development of Spanish cinema, who uses the Spanish historical and cultural tradition to challenge the version of Spanish identity espoused by the regime.

After that we will watch films from the period of transition to democracy, which goes from the time of Franco's death in 1975 to the consolidation of the democratic process in the early 1980s. Here there are attempts at creating a "new" Spanish cinema, one that speaks of the new realities of the nation, as well as attempting to incorporate some elements of both modern and traditional popular culture.

The last part of the course will focus on contemporary film. It covers the period of what we could call the Europeanization of Spain, when the country, having chosen a new direction --democratic, European, capitalist, globalist-- sets out to define its new identity internally and externally --for its own inhabitants and for the international market. Almodovar's "Talk to Her," which we watched on the first day of class, clearly illustrates this period.

Throughout the course we will see how Spanish filmmakers develop a visual language that, while critical, accompanies Spain in a redefinition of itself that seeks to reconcile with its past --it is even used as the justifying basis for the "new" Spain-- but also is able to recognize and meet the challenges of the modern world, those which constitute the new "ideological state apparatus".

Introduction to the Course

As stated in the syllabus, this class uses Spanish film since the 1950s to explore how its evolution reflects the aesthetic, social, political, and cultural changes that took place in Spain from that time to the present, and which are also an open dialog with the values inscribed through the traditions and history of the country as it confronted the challenges of modernity/globalization. 

The class develops from the philosophical theories of German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who argued that ideas, images, actions, etc. represent and conform SYSTEMS OF REPRESENTATION through which people experience the material conditions of their existence. These systems of representation are structures constructed by THE IDEOLOGICAL APPARATUS OF THE STATE  (ideas around which the state justifies its authority) and reflected --consciously and unconsciously-- in literature, education, religion, art, popular culture, etc.   

Our goal is to explore, through the class, how the arts --in our case, cinema-- can be used to observe mechanisms for questioning or subverting the dominant ideological paradigms during times of crisis (in other words,  art is used to challenge the authority of the state, or REFLECTS how those challenges emerge in a given society).  

We will explore this through Spanish cinema because the recent history of Spain offers some very clear examples of how these changes take place.

In the end, this is not JUST a class on Spanish cinema, not even Spanish history. I would hope that the course serves beyond its narrow historical or aesthetic scope, and it will help students develop new tools for understanding and critical analysis applicable to any academic field.