Having examined the creative documentaries that characterise the beginning of the New Catalan Cinema, as well as a number of films in that mode that are best studied in relation to ideas of Barcelonan Cinema, the thesis now turns its attention toward modes of
filmmaking that are more obviously associated with ideas of a Catalan national cinema; historical dramas and biopics. Belén Vidal writes that the heritage film has become ‘a supple term to refer to the ways in which the ways in which national cinemas turn to the past at different moments in their histories in search of foundational myths’ (Vidal, 2012, p. 10). And although the term ‘heritage film’ does not necessarily apply to the films discussed here, Crameri writes that ‘Catalonia’s past has become a constant presence in twenty-first century debates about independence’ (Crameri, 2014, p. 73). There was a spate of Catalan films to deal with historical subject matter during the Transition to Democracy, which was another moment when Catalan nationhood was being constructed. Among the films of the Transition to do so are La ciutat cremada (La ciudad quemada, ‘The Burnt city’) (Antoni Ribas, 1976) the first feature film in the Catalan language after the Dictatorship, which dealt with the Setmana Tràgica (‘The Tragic Week’) of 1901 when there was an uprising in Barcelona against the conscription of civilians for the Spanish colonial war in North Africa. La vieja memoria (Jaime Camino, 1979), was a documentary about survivors of the Civil War and Companys, procés a Catalunya (Companys, proceso a Cataluña, ‘Catalonia on Trial’) (Josep Maria Forn, 1979) was about the trial and execution of Lluís Companys, the exiled president of the Generalitat during the Spanish Civil War.
With the Transition to Democracy, and the Pacto del Olvido (Pact of Forgetting) that facilitated this, recent history became taboo in both Spain and Catalonia. Historical dramas are therefore largely absent from both cinemas until the 2000s, when, in the context of the
recuperation of historical memory and what Carla Subirana calls the ‘rebellion of the grandchildren’ against the pact of silence, history and historical memory are once more major themes in various modes of filmmaking. (Carla Subirana, cited in Martí Olivella, 2013, p. 52). In New Catalan Cinema, Catalan history and identity is a theme of many documentaries, and Martí Olivella explores Nedar (Nadar, ‘Swimming’) (Subirana, 2008),
Bucharest la memòria perduda (Bucharest, la memoria perdida, ‘Bucharest, The Lost
Memory’) (Solé, 2008) and Bicicleta, cullera, poma (Bicicleta, cuchara, manzana, Bicycle,
Spoon, Apple) (Bosch, 2010) as ‘three films dealing with the ravages of Alzheimer’s
disease in this historical moment’ that ‘create a narrative that bespeaks a national claim, Catalonia’s claim neither to forget nor to be forgotten’ (Martí Olivella, 2013, p. 57). As one objective of this thesis is to develop the discussion of New Catalan Cinema beyond documentary cinema to include genre, this chapter focuses on historical dramas and
biopics. The historical drama offers much in the way of understanding the New Catalan Cinema in context because as Chapman points out in relation in his study of British historical film and national identity, ‘a historical feature film will often have as much to say about the present in which it is made, as about the past in which it was set’ (Chapman, 2005, p. 1). In the context of Catalonia recovering from a temporary amnesia caused by the
Pacto del Olvido, and of favourable conditions for Catalan genre production in the mid-
2000s as discussed in chapter two, from 2006 onwards there were a significant number of productions to address Catalan history and identity with a serious and purposeful tone. That all of the films discussed here fared well commercially confirms a trend within the New Catalan Cinema for making and watching films which construct, articulate and problematise Catalan history and national identity on the big screen, often using history to do so.
However, although D’Lugo observes that the multiple expressions of Catalanism in film may lead us to consider it as a national cinema, the aim of the chapter is not to further
justify claims of a Catalan national cinema. The films discussed here may have a place in constructing the contemporary historical narrative of Catalan national identity, but rather than using this to proclaim the existence of a Catalan national cinema, this chapter ‘delves deep into the pathologies of national discourses and exposes the symbolic practices of these forms of enunciation’ (Hayward, 2000, p. 101). The pathologies of national discourses in the New Catalan Cinema, which can be understood as Barcelonan, Catalan, Spanish and transnational depending on the approach taken to studying the films, are seen to be
constructed and articulated through complicated symbolic practices. Thus, this discussion of Catalan historical cinema takes place within a framework that ‘perceives cinema as a practice that should not conceal structures of power and knowledge but which should function as a mise-en-scene of scattered and dissembling identities as well a fractured subjectivities and hegemonies’ (Hayward, 2000, p. 101). This framework facilitates a
discussion of the ways in which these films can be seen to reflect more about the context in which they are made rather than that within which they are set. However, particular
attention is paid to the specific mechanisms behind this process, so as not to assume meaning.
we must always be alert to the danger of reading films simply to prove our own preconceived theories or of making film-makers agents in a historical process of which they themselves were completely unaware. Only by close, empirically based investigation of the historical contexts of production and reception is it possible to establish what were the intentions of film-makers and the extent to which the meanings in the films that may now seem obvious to us were identified by contemporaries
(Chapman, 2005, p. 319) Jarvie observes that ‘at most a national cinema can be a contribution to nation building, neither necessary nor sufficient’(Jarvie, 2000, p. 80). However, the policies and institutions surrounding the New Catalan Cinema place a significant amount of importance on the relationship between nation and cinema, even if filmmakers do not. As explored in chapter two, Isona Passola’s speech at the Gaudí Awards reflects the Catalan Academy of Film’s
position on the links between cinema and nationhood; ‘without cinema, there is no nation’ (VIII Premis Gaudí de l’Acadèmia del Cinema Català (31/01/2016), no date). Thus, the framework in which these films are made, at least the part of the framework that is linked to Catalonia and Barcelona, is geared towards nation building.
The films chosen for examination are, in order of release; Salvador (Puig Antich) (Manuel Huerga, 2006), El Coronel Macià (Josep Maria Forn, 2006), Bruc; la llegenda (Bruc; el
desfío, Bruc; The Manhunt) (Daniel Benmayor, 2010), Pa negre (Pan negro, Black Bread)
(Villaronga, 2010), Fènix 11.23 (Joel Joan & Sergi Lara, 2012), and 13 dies d’Octubre (’13 Days in October’) (Carlos Marques Marcet, 2015). However, grouping them in terms of themes and subject matter facilitates a more in-depth analysis of their place within a Catalan historical narrative of resistance. Bruc, la llegenda is an action film based on a Catalan legend about a boy who defeated Napoleon’s advancing troops in 1808, placing the narrative over a century before the politics of the 20th century and using a fictional, rather than historical, hero. However, the use of landscape, language, narrative and metaphor construct a multilingual and transnational Catalan identity tied to territory. As such, the film can be used to explore the narration of a Catalan linguistic resistance to monolingualism by founding this multilingual identity in legend, landscape and history.
El Coronel Macià narrates the story of Francesc Macià, a General in the Spanish Army
who became president of Catalonia and declared it a ‘republic within the Iberian federation’ in 1931, before he died in 1933 and was replaced by Lluís Companys. Companys was democratically elected as president upon Macià’s death, and 13 dies d’octubre narrates the last thirteen days of his life, from the moment he was returned to Spain by the Gestapo (who had detained him in France where he was exiled), until his execution in 1940. In 2007 the ‘law of democratic memory’ was passed by the Catalan government which was designed to facilitate;
The recuperation, commemoration, and promotion of democratic memory in Catalonia (1931-1980), more specifically, the Second Republic, the Republican Generalitat, the Civil War and the victims for ideological, conscientious, religious or social reasons, as well as the repression of individuals and collectives on behalf of the Francoist Dictatorship, including in that the Catalan language and culture, exile and deportation.
(Generalitat de Catalunya, 2009) Made and released just after this law was passed and the Catalan statute of autonomy had been re-written and approved, El coronel Macià reflects on Macià’s life and the lead-up to the Second Republic with a generally positive tone. Made and released after the measures for increased autonomy in this statute were reversed by the Spanish Constitutional Court, and after numerous referendums on independence in Catalonia had been declared
unconstitutional, 13 dies d’octubre has a much more sombre tone. However, in reflecting upon the rise and fall of Catalonia’s development as a nation during the Second Republic,
El coronel Macià and 13 dies d’octubre can be analysed in terms of how they draw
parallels with the contemporary process of Catalan nation-building. More obviously, these two films narrate political resistance.
Salvador (Puig Antich), narrates the life of an anarchist from Catalonia who was put on
trial and executed in 1974, the last person in Spain to have been executed by garrotte. His story is one of Leftist anti-Franco resistance during the late stages of the Dictatorship, and as such does not initially appear to articulate any specifically Catalan nationalism.
However, it is explored here in relation to the blurring of Leftism and Catalanisme in Catalan narratives of anti-Franco resistance. Fènix 11.23 is a biopic of another civilian, the young Èric Bertran, who was investigated and put on trial for terrorism by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2004 for demanding that supermarkets label their goods in Catalan.
Fènix 11.23 therefore focuses on a much more recent history, one that bleeds into the
present. The portrayal of Èric’s story bears much resemblance to that of Salvador it can be explored in terms of the parallels being drawn between the state’s treatment of Catalonia in
the 2000s, and at the end of the Franco Dictatorship. These two films can also be seen to articulate political resistance on a personal level.
Pa negre is a literary adaptation of two of Emili Teixidor’s novels; Retrat d’un assassí d’ocells (‘Portrait of a Bird Killer’) (1988) and Pa negre (‘Black Bread’) (Teixidor, 2003).
The film is set in rural post-war Catalonia and therefore differs from the other films in that the protagonist is the fictional Andreu (Francesc Colomer). However, through its historical setting and treatment of taboo topics such as the actions that people on both sides of the Civil War committed in order to survive, it represents a significant contribution to the discussion of the historical drama as a vehicle through which to articulate contemporary attitudes toward the past. It complicates the narration of Catalonia as a site of
homogeneous resistance to Franco, and therefore questions the blurring of Leftism and
Catalanisme in contemporary discourse.
Together, these films articulate a complicated Catalan national identity that is natural, historical, socio-political, and personal. It is possible to see the narration of a Catalan national identity that is portrayed as timeless, with its origins firmly tied to landscape (as in
Bruc), but which is also portrayed as manifest in politicians (El Coronel Macià and 13 dies d’ocubre) and civilians (Salvador and Fènix 1123) that is complicated by a national
political identity that is split along a ‘Left/Right espanyolista/catalanista’ four-way axis (Pa negre).
Naturalising National Identity: Bruc; la llegenda (Daniel Benmayor 2010)
Bruc, la llegenda is based on a Catalan folk tale about a boy, Joan (Juan José Ballesta), in
the village of Bruc who forces the Napoleonic Army into retreat by using the mountain of Montserrat to amplify and echo his banging of a drum, making it sound like a large army is approaching. In doing so he temporarily saves his village, Catalonia and Spain from
the film narrates the French manhunt for Joan and his flight, and eventual fight, which leads to glory. It was arguably the first ‘pre-modern warfare historical action film’ in Catalonia (and Spain) and it follows the established genre norms; a double sided revenge story with a reluctant hero, a romantic sub plot and numerous action scenes which lead up to the final face-off between good and evil (Directe.cat, 2010). The film has been criticised for its superficial treatment of the characters and the simple distinction between good and evil, being described as ‘Catalan Rambo’, ‘like a video game’ and with ‘one-dimensional, stereotypicalcharacters’ (Quintana, 2010). However, despite these criticisms, Bruc la
llegenda is the third cinematic production of this legend and it can be seen to address
issues of Catalan identity at the time of production, as did the two films before it. The first,
El tambor de Bruch (‘The drum of Bruch’) (Ignacio F. Iquino, 1947) was a cinematic
production of this legend in which signs of Catalan identity, at that time prohibited, managed to slip past the censors imposed by the Dictatorship. In El tambor de Bruch, the Catalan echo of ‘Visca l’independència!’ after the Castilian ‘Viva la independencia!’ has been described as ‘a battered but insistent Catalan national alternative […which]
necessarily troubles, by pluralizing, the referential force of the “fatherland”.’ (Epps, 2012, p. 50).
The second, El timbaler del Bruc (La leyenda del Tambor, ‘The Drummer of Bruc’) (Grau, 1982), was made at the end of the Transition to Democracy and in a context of increased support for nationalist parties in the historical nationalities. The titles at the beginning put a distinctly Catalan angle on the historical context of the myth, setting it within the context of the Napoleonic War. El timbaler de Bruc is awash with visual references to Catalan culture, in a celebration of the renewed visibility of Catalan symbols of identity. Caparrós Lera summarises as follows:
Coproduced with Mexico and following a model of commercial cinema, it is a work of low art, but with an overexcited obliging nationalism, closer to romantic legend than rigorous history, that possesses pronounced sentimental touches and
definite narrative correction, sustained by a successful formal brilliancy with regards to the scenic Catalan locations of Montserrat, Sampador and other spots where the exotic meets the picturesque.
(Caparrós Lera, 2001, p. 111)
Bruc; la llegenda can also be discussed in relation to censorship, although not of the
political kind. At the beginning of the New Catalan Cinema, film professionals in Barcelona were concerned that the market can be seen as another form of censorship on Catalan identity in film, because of the difficulties that Catalan-language films face in the Spanish marketplace (Bellmunt et al. 2001). Thus, the legend of Bruc has repeatedly appeared in cinema as an articulation of reactions to censorship of Catalan language and symbols of identity, whether political or economic. Bruc; la llegenda navigates this perceived linguistic censorship through filming multiple language versions; filming the same scenes in different languages in order to gain access into foreign markets, changing character names and cultural references as they did so. The original version of Bruc; la
llegenda is in Catalan and French, but there is also a Spanish and French version and a
Spanish dubbed version, of which there are almost four times as many copies (Directe.cat, 2010).
The use of multiple-language version filming was not only a strategy, along with using well-known French actors, to gain access to foreign markets. Here, it is understood as a strategy used to access subsidies from the Generalitat for films with their original version in the Catalan language, whilst also providing a linguistic version that more people would watch, given the linguistic preferences for films in the Castilian language in both Catalonia and Spain. Examining the multiple language versions of Bruc; la llegenda suggests that this film can be seen to house, or articulate, the complexities of Catalan national-linguistic identity whilst also being able to circulate as a Spanish or French genre film on
Catalunya), Spanish (El Toro Pictures, Telefónica producciones) and French (Mesfilms)
companies under the umbrella of Universal Pictures. It is also funded by both Catalan and Spanish public (Institut Català de les Industries Culturals, Insitituto de Crédito Oficial,
Instituto de la Cinematografía y de les Artes Audiovisuales) and private (Telefónica, Televisió de Catalunya) sources.
If market forces are a contemporary form of censorship of the Catalan language in cinema, as is reflected in the multiple linguistic versions of Bruc; la llegenda, then the use of landscape to articulate Catalan identity in those versions where the Catalan language does not feature is of great significance. Epps suggests that landscape functioned as a signifier of Catalan-ness when language, the most obvious signifier, was prohibited during the Dictatorship in his analysis of El tambor de Bruch, writing that ‘the Catalan language is reduced to little more than a sonorous or scripted blip, [but] that other mainstay of national identity, land, proves more obdurate in its insistence’ (Epps, 2012, p. 71). In Bruc la
llegenda, landscape is central to the plot. Whereas in the first two films the defeat of the
French is attributed to the cleverness of the drummer, in Bruc la llegenda it is attributed to the mountain of Montserrat: ‘a signifier of Catalan identity that is timeless and linked to territory, history, and tradition’ (Nogué and Vicente, 2004).
Unlike the previous two films, which depict the events leading up to the battle, this narrative begins after the battle is already over and depicts the vengeful manhunt for the protagonist Joan. In the opening scene it is established that the battle has already taken place as a crane shot scans the valley and a dying French soldier recounts how they heard a large army approaching. Maraval (Vincent Perez), the French officer who will hunt Joan, fires a shot and, noticing the echo that the mountain provides, realises that the ‘army of hundreds’ was in fact the echo provided by Montserrat. In the next scene the bilingual French journalist, Henri Magne (Justin Blankaert) asks Joan to tell him what happened and he replies that ‘it was the mountain’. As he is saying this, the voice of the mountain
(provided by Catalan singer Beth) increases in volume and a tilt shot brings one of the mountain’s peaks into full view, introducing a flashback to the battle. Joan’s scream of anger then links the flashback to a return shot of the peak, before tilting back down to the conversation, where Joan repeats that ‘it was the mountain, and the Virgin of Montserrat’, incorporating Catholicism into the myth of a natural Catalan identity.
Sound, camerawork, dialogue and editing link Joan’s memory with that of the mountain, and from this moment on numerous other devices are used to symbolically connect Joan with Montserrat until the moment when he uses coal, a product of the land, to disguise himself and retreat inside the mountain to kill Maraval. Epps describes Montserrat as ‘mythically charged’ and ‘a signal emblem of Catalan culture’ in reference to El tambor de
Bruch (Epps, 2012, p. 71). In Bruc, la llegenda Montserrat is central to the narrative of
Joan’s heroic defeat of the French, who, unlike in previous versions, targeted their revenge on him personally.
The villain, Maraval, is marked as the Other in all linguistic versions of the film because of his status as a monolingual French speaker. All other characters in the Bruc; la llegenda