Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

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1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

Getting round the censors

As you might expect, the most interesting cinema of

the early Franco years came from more subversive

directors; film-makers who tried to slip something juicy

through the censors’ net. Ironically, it was the state-

sponsored IIEC film school, established in 1947, that

taught them the film-maker’s art. Crucially, students

were allowed to watch foreign films deemed too

incendiary for wider consumption. In particular, Italy’s

neo-Realist cinema inspired young directors who

emerged in the 1950s with movies that gently prodded

at the regime. They hoped to create something more

representative of contemporary Spain than the idealised

impressions of the 1940s.

Spain’s changing economic relationship with the United

States (a less autocratic outlook meant more cash for

Spain) and the directors’ guile saw more dissident work

reaching the public. Luis García Berlanga was the most

important director. ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! (1952),

his most significant early work, became a watershed

in Spanish cinema. Subtly, expertly, it parodied the

bland myth-making españoladasof the previous decade

with humour while also pondering Spain’s exclusion

from the Marshall Plan. The film finds a Castilian

village dressing itself up to be Andalusian, with all the

associated stereotypes of costume and music, to

welcome Mr Marshall, who simply drives through their

village without stopping. Somehow, the censors passed

it. Another graduate of the IIEC, Juan Antonio Bardem,

was more militant. He’d co-written ¡Bienvenido Mister

Marshall! with Berlanga but found his own, international

success with Muerte de un ciclista(1955), about an

adulterous couple who mow down a cyclist on their

way back from a tryst.

“SPANISH CINEMA

HAS TURNED ITS

BACK ON REALITY

AND IS TOTALLY

REMOVED FROM

SPANISH REALISTIC

TRADITIONS

AS FOUND IN

PAINTINGS AND

NOVELS.”

Juan Antonio Bardem,

writing in 1955

Bardem behind bars

When Juan Antonio

Bardem’s Muerte de un

ciclistawon the

International Critics’

Award at the 1955

Cannes Film Festival,

the director was in

prison, serving time for

left wing beliefs. His

rising international

profile led to calls for his

release from the likes

of Charlie Chaplin and

Albert Schweitzer, and

he was duly set free.

In 1953 Juan Antonio

Bardem founded

Objectivo, a journal

of film critiques

and information on

proscribed films.

The government banned

it after nine issues.

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