Useful study of The Spirit of the Beehive

I found this (part 2 is here) on Youtube. It's by Linda C Ehrlich from the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She edited 'An Open Window: The Cinema of Victor Erice'. She talks alot about how the film relates to the Civil War, both in obvious ways and also how she interprets it.

• The village as a microcosm for Spain.
• The links between Ana's father, Franco and Frankenstein.
• How the film relates to other artistic forms, eg. Spanish Golden Age Theatre.
• An effort to understand the war through a child's eyes. Cinema as an escapist, all-absorbing tool.
• The role of Ana
• The Spirit - fantasy. The Beehive - concrete reality.

A useful site :)

Scope, part of The University of Nottingham's Film Studies department is quite a useful website with a collection of academic articles and reports. In fact, it's Nottingham's Film Journal. The department's homepage is here. Unfortunately, the website doesn't seem to have been updated in a while, so I am looking for a more recent version. So far, I have found these articles:

• This is about The Butterfly's Tongue, by Antonio Lázaro-Reboll... 'the use of both Galician and Spanish traditions in Cuerda's latest production poses a number of questions about cultural identity'... It explores the Republican importance of education (it was seen as the ideological arm of the new Republic... 'of the nearly 300 historical films produced in Spain since the 1970s, more than half are set during the Second Republic (1931-1936), the Civil War (1936-1939), and the dictatorship of Franco (1939-1975)'...it has a 'polarized, oversimplified vision' of the war... doesn't 'display the complexities of Cuerda's more masterful work'.
• This is a review of the 2000 Viva! Spanish film festival in Manchester, by Andrew Willis of the University of Salford... The film shows how 'Spain and, in particular, its impressionable young children, fell into the hands of the Franco regime because many were too afraid and too weak and selfish to speak out against it'.

Some random links...

A BFI article about the The Butterfly's Tongue - it criticises the realism of the film, particularly surrounding the region of Galicia, where the film it set. It also makes links to The Spirit of the Beehive and Spanish culture during the Civil War. It's actually quite scathing about the film, which surprised me a bit.

This is from the Socialist Review, so it gives a different angle on the cinema of the Spanish Civil War. It gives a good (although politically motivated) background to the war, as well as making brief mentions of The Butterfly's Tongue and Land And Freedom.

Critical reviews of each film

Pan's Labyrinth - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

The Butterfly's Tongue - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times (note: in America the film is called Butterfly)

The Spirit of the Beehive - A.O. Scott, New York Times (Ebert didn't review the film)

Pan's Labyrinth Notes from IMDB

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Writers: Guillermo del Toro

Music: Javier Navarette

Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro

Editing: Bernat Vilaplana

Production design: Eugenio Caballero

Ofelia Ivana Baquero

Vidal Sergi López

Mercedes Maribel Verdú

Fauno/Pale Man Doug Jones

Carmen Ariadna Gil

Doctor Álex Angulo

In 1944, in the post-Civil War in Spain, rebels still fight in the mountains against the fascist troops. The young and imaginative Ofelia travels with her pregnant and sick mother Carmen Vidal to the country to meet and live with her stepfather, the sadistic and cruel Captain Vidal, in an old mill. During the night, Ofelia meets a fairy and together they go to a pit in the center of a maze where they meet a faun that tells that she is a princess from a kingdom in the underground. He also tells that her father is waiting for her, but she needs to accomplish three gruesome, tough and dangerous assignments first. Meanwhile, she becomes friend of the servant Mercedes, who is the sister of one of the rebels and actually is giving support to the group. In a dark, harsh and violent world, Ofelia lives her magical world trying to survive her tasks and sees her father and king again.

The Spirit of the Beehive Notes on IMDB

Director: Victor Erice

Writers: Victor Erice (screenplay and story)

Ángel Fernández Santos (screenplay and story)

Francisco J. Querejeta

Music: Luis de Pablo

Cinematography: Luis Cuadrado

Editing: Pablo González del Amo

Art Direction: Jaime Chávarri

D. Fernando Fernando Fernán Gómez

Teresa Teresa Gimpera

Ana Ana Torrent

Isabel Isabel Tellería

Milagros Ketty de la Cámara

The Fugitive Juan Margallo

In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl in a rural Spanish hamlet is traumatized after a traveling projectionist screens a print of James Whale's 1931 "Frankenstein" for the village. The youngster is profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers. She questions her sister about the profundities of life and death and believes her older sibling when she tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. When a Loyalist soldier, a fugitive from Franco's victorious army, hides out in the barn, Ana crosses from reality into a fantasy world of her own.

The Butterfly's Tongue Notes from IMDB

Director: José Luis Cuerda

Writers: Rafael Azcona, José Luis Cuerda

Music: Alejandro Amenábar

Cinematography: Javier Salmones

Editing: Ignacio Cayetano Rodriguez

Nacho Ruiz Capillas

Production design: Josep Rosell

Don Gregorio Fernando Fernán Gómez

Moncho Manuel Lozano

Rosa (Moncho’s mum) Uxía Blanco

Ramón (Moncho’s dad) Gonzalo Uriarte

Andrés (Moncho’s brother) Alexis de los Santos

Roque (Moncho’s friend) Tamar Novas

O’Lis (couple) Guillermo Toledo

Carmina (couple) Elena Fernández

For Moncho, it's an idyllic year: he starts school, he has a wonderful teacher, he makes a friend in Roque, he begins to figure out some of the mysteries of Eros, and, with his older brother, a budding saxophone player, he makes a trip with the band from their town in Galicia. But it's also the year that the Spanish Republic comes under fire from Fascist rebels. Moncho's father is a Republican as is the aging teacher, Don Gregorio. As sides are drawn and power falls clearly to one side, the forces of fear, violence, and betrayal alter profoundly what should be the pleasure of coming of age.

The Spanish Civil War on Film

I've decided I am going to do my project on The Spanish Civil War and Film.

So far I have been looking at these films:

• The Butterfly's Tongue, 1999, Jose Luis Cuerda - I think this will be really helpful as it shows the political divides of the 1930s from the perspective of a Republican child.
• The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973, Victor Erice - This was released just two years before Franco's death, so it will be interesting to look at as a contemporary comment on the regime. The main character, Ana acts as a metaphor for Spain - her experiences surrounding the war represent the corruption of Spanish innocence. Also, interestingly it uses fairy tales (Frankenstein) to tell the story.
• Pan's Labyrinth, 2003, Guillermo del Toro - A much more explicit film about the civil war and Franco's rule. It has narratives surrounding both government officials and rebel Republicans, which run in parallel to Ofelia's story. Interestingly this also uses fairy tales!
• Land and Freedom, 1995, Ken Loach - I didn't think this would be particularly helpful, as although it was a good demonstration of the events of the war, to me there didn't seem to be anything to read into it and it had quite a splintered narrative and no believable character. So good for background viewing but it's not going to be one of my focus films.
• La Caza (The Hunt), 1966, Carlos Saura - I haven't been able to get hold of this, but it looks really interesting. About some Civil War veterans on a rabbit hunt. Subject to Franco's strict censorship, so it could be useful as a look at how the result of the war affected cinema and how directors managed to make political comments about the war despite the controls.

I would like to focus on The Butterfly's Tongue, The Spirit of the Beehive and Pan's Labyrinth. I would have liked to bring La Caza in to the project, but as it is much more obscure it is proving much harder to find and there is less written about it. I will probably still try to get hold of it for another perspective, but it won't form a major part of the project.

Initial sources and things

In terms of Latin American Cinema, I have found this website, which gives a general overview of 'third world' cinema. It talks about 'cine liberacion', an early Argentine film movement which came to define Latin American cinema. It also talks about Cuban post-liberation film and the Chilean cinematic revolution.

Looking at the Spanish Civil War, I found this site, from the University of Nottingham, which is a review of The Butterfly's Tongue with particular reference to the politics of the civil war (the main character's family are strong Republicans, so this has quite a bearing on the narrative). It also has several references to other films on the same subject, which might be useful. Actually, the main site seems to have lots of helpful articles.

On the BFI website I found several articles:

• This is about Mexican cinema...
• This one is quite broad and talks about European Cinema. It recommends some books about Spanish national cinema and European films in general. A book that looks particularly useful is Kinder, Marcia Blood Cinema: the reconstruction of national identity in Spain (Berkeley CA; London: University of California Press), which is about the relation 1980s - 90s film has to Franco and national violence. It also has links to academic journals, world film festivals and websites that might come in handy.

Ideas

• The Spanish civil war. Looking at The Butterfly's Tongue (1999, Jose Luis Cuerda) as an exploration of the origins of the Civil War from the perspective of a Republican child. Possibly also looking at The Spirit of the Beehive.
• Cuba/The Cult of Che Guevara. Focusing on The Motorcycle Diaries or Che. I don't know much about this, but I'm interested in the political context. Also, I'd like to find a Cuban-made film for this topic.
• Patagonian cinema. I'm not sure what topic to do within this - I really like both Historias Minimas and Bombon El Perro (which I've just realised are by the same director), but I would like to compare one of these to something else...? Not sure yet.
• Latin American cinema more broadly. Probably on the topic of revolution, but I'm not sure.