Search for Belonging (eBook)

The Mexican Cinema of Luis Bunuel

Marc Ripley (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2017
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
978-0-231-85109-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This book focuses on nine of Luis Buñuel’s films made in Mexico in order to show that a concerted focus on space can unlock new philosophical meaning in this rich body of work. The interdisciplinary approach of this book unites the two substrands of his work: the independent movies and the studio potboilers.

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As one of the foremost Spanish directors of all time, Luis Bunuel's filmography has been the subject of innumerable studies. Despite the fact that the twenty films he made in Mexico between 1947 and 1965 represent the most prolific stage of his career as a filmmaker, these have remained relatively neglected in writing on Bunuel and his work. This book focuses on nine of the director's films made in Mexico in order to show that a concerted focus on space, an important aspect of the films' narratives that is often intimated by scholars, yet rarely developed, can unlock new philosophical meaning in this rich body of work.Although in recent years Bunuel's Mexican films have begun to enjoy a greater presence in criticism on the director, they are often segregated according to their perceived critical value, effectively creating two substrands of work: the independent movies and the studio potboilers. The interdisciplinary approach of this book unites the two, focusing on films such as Los olvidados, Nazarin, and El angel exterminador alongside La Mort en ce jardin, The Young One, and Simon del desierto, among others. In doing so, it avoids the tropes most often associated with Bunuel's cinema-surrealism, Catholicism, the derision of the bourgeoisie-and the approach most often invoked in analysis of these themes: psychoanalysis. Instead, this book takes inspiration from the fields of human geography, anthropology, and philosophy, applying these to film-focused readings of Bunuel's Mexican cinema to argue that ultimately these films depict an overriding sense of placelessness, overtly or subliminally enacting a search for belonging that forces the viewer to question what it means to be in place.

Autor

Marc Ripley is a teaching fellow in Spanish and Latin American studies at the University of Leicester.

Inhalt

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Re-locating Bunuel’s Mexican Cinema2. The Island Heterotopias of Robinson Crusoe and The Young One3. Betwixt and Between: Liminal Space in La Mort en ce jardin and Simon del desierto4. The Body-self in Place: The Place-worlds of Los olvidados and Nazarin5. Questions of Belonging: The (Im)possibility of a Home-placeConclusionReferencesIndex

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.11.2017
• Zusatzinfo: <B>B&W Illus.: </B>24,
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
• ISBN-10: 0-231-85109-X / 023185109X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-231-85109-1 / 9780231851091