This course examines Argentine film in the second half of the 20th century. The end of World War II, the fall of the Peron government, and the close of cinema graphic studios in Argentina imposed a series of political, social, and cultural changes reflected in film. Through this medium, students view and analyze the link between cinema and avant-garde artists, high art and popular culture, films as a political instrument, and the development of film as a testimony of historic processes.
Prerequisites:
None
Learning outcomes:
Connect changing trends in Argentine cinema to past political, social and cultural changes in Argentina.
Compare and contrast representations of Argentine history in avant-garde film and popular cinema.
Analyze how films in Argentina have been used as political instruments and how they operate as historic records.
Method of presentation:
The course is comprised of one weekly session. The theory segments include lecture, discussion, and film exhibition. During practice sections, students will analyze the films, discuss course readings, and give oral presentations.
Required work and form of assessment:
Attendance is mandatory. Students are expected actively participate during class. Students are responsible for making up any work missed due to absence. Students must comply with the expectations required for their homework. They should carefully organize their lessons before class, complete their exercises, read the required texts and watch the required films according to what is indicated in the syllabus.
Participation in class, 15 %
Oral presentation, 15%
Mid-term exam, 20%
Essay, 25%
Final exam, 25%
Plagiarism/cheating
Written works, essays and papers must be the result of the student’s personal reflection. Quotations and bibliography must follow the MLA, APA or Chicago formats. The presentation of another person’s words, ideas, judgment, images or data as though they were your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes an act of plagiarism.
Written Works
Written exercises, essays and papers should be submitted in printed form. Written works must be submitted in timely fashion and it is not allowed to send them by email.
content:
WEEK 1: Brief look at the history of Argentine film.
The beginnings. Films with sound. Studio system and star system. Films and popular culture: the tango, criollismo, costumes. The cinema industry. Cinema and peronsim. The close of studios and the decline of the industry. View clips from, Tango!, Sucesos Argentinos and La Guerra gaucha in class.
WEEK 2: The 60s.
The new cinema in Argentina. The 60s generation. The influence of neo-realism and nouvelle vogue. The movies and the intellectuals. Crónica de un niño solo, Leonadro Favio, 1964.
WEEK 3: Post 60s generation.
The split and experimentation. The avant-garde artists and the movies. Independent films, underground films, and militant films. The movie industry and its margins. The political radicalization. Cinema as a political weapon. Third world and third cinema. Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos (1969). Hugo Santiago: Invasión (1969).
WEEK 4: Film during the military dictatorship.
The Dirty War, repression, the disappeared. Censorship. Resistant and complacent films. Metaphoric representation and reading between the lines. Adolfo Aristarain: Tiempo de revancha (1981).
WEEK 5: Film during the democracy and the revision of the military dictatorship.
Films as agents of social and cultural reconfiguration. Debate over the recent past: remembering and forgetting. Testimony, accusation, and opportunism. Luis Puenzo: La historia oficial (1984). Lita Stantic: Un muro de silencio (1993).
WEEK 6: Film in the 1990s, New Argentine Cinema.
Tradition and renovation. Film as a map of the Menem decade. Film and youth culture. The new social configurations. Film and the articulation of collective identities.
Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro: Pizza, birra, faso (1997), Martín Rejtman: Silvia Prieto (1998), Pablo
Trapero: El bonaerense (1999), Marcos Bechis: Garage Olimpo (1999) Lucrecia Martel: La ciénaga (2001), Adrián Caetano: Crónica de una fuga (2006), Nicolás Prividera: M (2007), Sandra Gugliota: Las vidas posibles (2007).
WEEK 1:
Unit 1. Brief historical overview. The studio system and the Hollywood classical model. Cinema and popular culture: tango and criollismo. Cinema under Peron´s regime. The decline of film industry.
REQUIRED READING:
King John, “The social and Cultural context”, in, King John, and Nissa Torrents (editors), “The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, Londres, British Film Institute, 1987.
Levinson Andrés and Félix-Didier Paula, “The building of a nation: La Guerra gaucha a historic melodrama”, in, Film and Melodrama in Latin America, Darlene Sadlier (comp.), Chicago University Press, 2009.
WEEK 2:
Unit 2. The New Wave: La Generación del '60 and the rise of independent cinema. Film as spectacle vs. film as artistic expression. Authorship and cinéma d'auteur. Influences: new-realism and nouvelle vogue. Discussion: Crónica de un niño solo.
Unit 3. Cinema and avant-garde. The film industry and its margins: underground cinema and militant cinema. Argentine filmmakers and the New Latin American Cinema movement. Fernando Solanas and The Hour of the Furnaces.
REQUIRED READING:
Solanas, Fernando and Octavio Getino, "Towards a Third Cinema: Notes and Experiences for the Development of a Cinema of Liberation in the Third World".
Stam Robert, “Hour of the furnaces and the two avant gardes”, in, Millenium, n° 7-9, 1980-81.
WEEK 4:
Unit 3. Third World and Third Cinema. Political radicalism and / vs. formal experimentation. Discussion:
Invasión, Hugo Santiago.
REQUIRED READING:
López Ana, “Argentine, 1955-1976: the film industry and its margins”, in, King John, and Nissa Torrents (editors), “The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, Londres, British Film Institute, 1987.
Michael Chanan, “The changing geography of third cinema”, Screen Special Latin American Issue Volume 38 number 4 Winter 1997.
WEEK 5:
Unit 4. Cinema during the military dictatorship. Dirty war, repression, exile, and desaparecidos. Cinema of resistance and cinema of complicity. Adolfo Aristarain: the allegorical style.
Discussion: Tiempo de Revancha, Adolfo Aristarain.
REQUIRED READING:
Taylor, Diana, "Damnable Iteration: The Traps of Political Spectacle", in Modern Language Quarterly 57:2, June 1996, pp. 305 - 323.
Castor, Nick, "Argentina: 1976-1983", in, King, John and Nissa Torrents (Editors), The Garden of
Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, British Film Institute, London, 1987, pp. 81 - 91.
WEEK 6:
Unit 5. The re-democratization period: the 1980s. The critique of military dictatorship. The debate between those who were forced into exile and those who remained in the country during the dark years of dictatorship. Discussion: The official Story.
REQUIRED READING:
Kriger, Clara, "The Official Story", in Elena, Alberto and Marina Díaz López (eds.), The Cinema of Latin America, Wallflower Press, London, 2003, pp. 177 - 183.
Foster, David William, "The Official Story: Truth and Consequences", in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London, 1992, pp. 38 – 54.
Unit 5. Films as cultural and social documents. Memory and oblivion. Opportunism, denunciation, and testimony. Luis Puenzo's official version of the years of dictatorship and Lita Stantic's critique of the official version. Debate: Un muro de silencio.
REQUIRED READING:
Reati, Fernando, "Argentine Political Violence and Artistic Representation in Films of the 1980's", in Latin American Literary Review, July-December 1989, pp. 24-39.
WEEK 10:
Unit 6. The New Argentine Cinema: between breakup and tradition. Young filmmakers and the rebirth of independent cinema: low-budget movies. Caetano, Stagnaro: Pizza, birra, faso. Trapero: El bonaerense.
REQUIRED READING:
Castagna, Gustavo, "From One Vanguard to Another: Is There a Tradition?"
Quintín, "From One Generation to Another: Is there a Dividing Line".
WEEK 11:
Unit 6. Two generations of independent cinema: la Generación del '60 and the new cinema of the '90s. Discussion: Silvia Prieto and La cienaga.
REQUIRED READING:
Horton Robert, “Silvia Prieto”, Film Comment, Mar/Apr 2000, 36, pp. 7-8.
Suárez, Pablo, "Martín Rejtman: la superficie de las cosas".
Morán, Ana Martín, "The Swamp", in Elena, Alberto and Marina Díaz López (eds.), The Cinema of Latin America, Wallflower Press, London, 2003, pp. 231 - 239.
WEEK 12:
Unit 6. Fiction and Dictatorship: Garage Olimpo and Crónica de una fuga. Screening and discussion in class.
REQUIRED READING:
Ana Amado, “Memory, identity and film”, in, REVISTA Harvard review of Latin America, fall 2009/winter 2010.
Wolf, Sergio, “Garage Olimpo and the portrait of the military dictatorship”, in Horacio Bernades, Diego Lerer and Sergio Wolf (editors), New Argentine Cinema. Themes, Auteurs and Trends of Innovation, Fipresci/Tatanka, 2002.
WEEK 13:
Unit 6. The new documentary: Trauma, memory and dictatorship. M, by Nicolás Prividera.
REQUIRED READING:
Gonzalo Aguilar, “New Argentine Cinema, The people’s presence”, in, REVISTA Harvard review of Latin America, fall 2009/ winter 2010.
Ana Amado, “Memory, identity and film”, in, REVISTA Harvard review of Latin America, fall 2009/winter 2010.
WEEK 14:
Unit 6. New waves on new cinema. Las vidas posibles, Sandra Guliota. Screening and discussion in class.
WEEK 15: Final exam.
Required readings:
Barnard, Tim (ed.), Argentine Cinema, Toronto, Nightwood, 1986.
Beceyro, Raúl, Ensayos sobre cine argentino, Santa Fé, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1986.
Bernades, Horacio; Diego Lerer y Sergio Wolf (eds.), Nuevo cine argentino. Temas autores y estilos de una renovación / New Argentine Cinema. Themes, Auteurs and Trends of Innovation, Buenos Aires, Fipresci, 2002.
Bernini, Emilio, "Ciertas tendencias del cine argentino. Notas sobre el 'nuevo cine argentino' (1956-1966)", Kilómetro 111 nº 1, noviembre de 2000.
España, Claudio (comp.), El cine argentino en democracia (1983-1993), Buenos Aires, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 1994.
Farina, Alberto, Leonardo Favio, Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de América Latina/Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1994.
Feldman, Simón, La generación del 60, Buenos Aires, Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía/Ediciones Culturales Argentinas/Legasa, 1990.
Filippelli, Rafael, “Contra la Realpolitik en el arte”, Punto de vista nº 26, abril de 1986.
Foster, David William, Contemporary Argentine Cinema, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1992.
Getino, Octavio, Cine y dependencia. El cine en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Puntosur, 1990.
King, John, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America, Londres, Verso, 1990.
--------------- y Nissa Torrents (comps.), The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, Londres, British Film Institute, 1987.
Mahieu, Agustín, Breve historia del cine nacional (1896 – 1974), Buenos Aires, Alzamor 1974.
Oubiña, David (comp.), El cine de Hugo Santiago, Buenos Aires, IV Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente / Gobierno de la Ciudad, 2002.
---------------, “Pop Rebel. The Cinema of Leonardo Favio”, Film Comment vol. 37 nº 5, septiembre– octubre de 2001.
Paraná Sendrós, Daniel, Fernando Birri, Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de América Latina/Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1994.
Podalsky, Laura, “High-Rise Apartments, Arcades, Cars, and Hoteles de citas: Urban Discourse and the Reconstruction of the Public / Private Divide in 1960’s Buenos Aires”, en Ann Marie Stock (ed.), Framing Latin American Cinema. Contemporary Critical Perspectives, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Reati, Fernando, “Argentine Political Violence and Artistic Representation in Films of the 1980’s”, en Latin American Literary Review 17:34, julio – diciembre de 1989.
Sarlo, Beatriz, “La noche de las cámaras despiertas”, en La máquina cultural. Maestras, traductores y vanguardistas, Buenos Aires, Ariel, 1998.
Schumann, Peter, Historia del cine latinoamericano, Buenos Aires, Legasa, 1987.
This course examines Argentine film in the second half of the 20th century. The end of World War II, the fall of the Peron government, and the close of cinema graphic studios in Argentina imposed a series of political, social, and cultural changes reflected in film. Through this medium, students view and analyze the link between cinema and avant-garde artists, high art and popular culture, films as a political instrument, and the development of film as a testimony of historic processes.
None
The course is comprised of one weekly session. The theory segments include lecture, discussion, and film exhibition. During practice sections, students will analyze the films, discuss course readings, and give oral presentations.
Attendance is mandatory. Students are expected actively participate during class. Students are responsible for making up any work missed due to absence. Students must comply with the expectations required for their homework. They should carefully organize their lessons before class, complete their exercises, read the required texts and watch the required films according to what is indicated in the syllabus.
Participation in class, 15 %
Oral presentation, 15%
Mid-term exam, 20%
Essay, 25%
Final exam, 25%
Plagiarism/cheating
Written works, essays and papers must be the result of the student’s personal reflection. Quotations and bibliography must follow the MLA, APA or Chicago formats. The presentation of another person’s words, ideas, judgment, images or data as though they were your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes an act of plagiarism.
Written Works
Written exercises, essays and papers should be submitted in printed form. Written works must be submitted in timely fashion and it is not allowed to send them by email.
WEEK 1: Brief look at the history of Argentine film.
The beginnings. Films with sound. Studio system and star system. Films and popular culture: the tango, criollismo, costumes. The cinema industry. Cinema and peronsim. The close of studios and the decline of the industry. View clips from, Tango!, Sucesos Argentinos and La Guerra gaucha in class.
WEEK 2: The 60s.
The new cinema in Argentina. The 60s generation. The influence of neo-realism and nouvelle vogue. The movies and the intellectuals. Crónica de un niño solo, Leonadro Favio, 1964.
WEEK 3: Post 60s generation.
The split and experimentation. The avant-garde artists and the movies. Independent films, underground films, and militant films. The movie industry and its margins. The political radicalization. Cinema as a political weapon. Third world and third cinema. Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos (1969). Hugo Santiago: Invasión (1969).
WEEK 4: Film during the military dictatorship.
The Dirty War, repression, the disappeared. Censorship. Resistant and complacent films. Metaphoric representation and reading between the lines. Adolfo Aristarain: Tiempo de revancha (1981).
WEEK 5: Film during the democracy and the revision of the military dictatorship.
Films as agents of social and cultural reconfiguration. Debate over the recent past: remembering and forgetting. Testimony, accusation, and opportunism. Luis Puenzo: La historia oficial (1984). Lita Stantic: Un muro de silencio (1993).
WEEK 6: Film in the 1990s, New Argentine Cinema.
Tradition and renovation. Film as a map of the Menem decade. Film and youth culture. The new social configurations. Film and the articulation of collective identities.
Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro: Pizza, birra, faso (1997), Martín Rejtman: Silvia Prieto (1998), Pablo
Trapero: El bonaerense (1999), Marcos Bechis: Garage Olimpo (1999) Lucrecia Martel: La ciénaga (2001), Adrián Caetano: Crónica de una fuga (2006), Nicolás Prividera: M (2007), Sandra Gugliota: Las vidas posibles (2007).
WEEK 1:
Unit 1. Brief historical overview. The studio system and the Hollywood classical model. Cinema and popular culture: tango and criollismo. Cinema under Peron´s regime. The decline of film industry.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 2:
Unit 2. The New Wave: La Generación del '60 and the rise of independent cinema. Film as spectacle vs. film as artistic expression. Authorship and cinéma d'auteur. Influences: new-realism and nouvelle vogue. Discussion: Crónica de un niño solo.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 3:
Unit 3. Cinema and avant-garde. The film industry and its margins: underground cinema and militant cinema. Argentine filmmakers and the New Latin American Cinema movement. Fernando Solanas and The Hour of the Furnaces.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 4:
Unit 3. Third World and Third Cinema. Political radicalism and / vs. formal experimentation. Discussion:
Invasión, Hugo Santiago.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 5:
Unit 4. Cinema during the military dictatorship. Dirty war, repression, exile, and desaparecidos. Cinema of resistance and cinema of complicity. Adolfo Aristarain: the allegorical style.
Discussion: Tiempo de Revancha, Adolfo Aristarain.
REQUIRED READING:
Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, British Film Institute, London, 1987, pp. 81 - 91.
WEEK 6:
Unit 5. The re-democratization period: the 1980s. The critique of military dictatorship. The debate between those who were forced into exile and those who remained in the country during the dark years of dictatorship. Discussion: The official Story.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 7: Mid-term exam WEEK 8: Mid semester break WEEK 9:
Unit 5. Films as cultural and social documents. Memory and oblivion. Opportunism, denunciation, and testimony. Luis Puenzo's official version of the years of dictatorship and Lita Stantic's critique of the official version. Debate: Un muro de silencio.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 10:
Unit 6. The New Argentine Cinema: between breakup and tradition. Young filmmakers and the rebirth of independent cinema: low-budget movies. Caetano, Stagnaro: Pizza, birra, faso. Trapero: El bonaerense.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 11:
Unit 6. Two generations of independent cinema: la Generación del '60 and the new cinema of the '90s. Discussion: Silvia Prieto and La cienaga.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 12:
Unit 6. Fiction and Dictatorship: Garage Olimpo and Crónica de una fuga. Screening and discussion in class.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 13:
Unit 6. The new documentary: Trauma, memory and dictatorship. M, by Nicolás Prividera.
REQUIRED READING:
WEEK 14:
Unit 6. New waves on new cinema. Las vidas posibles, Sandra Guliota. Screening and discussion in class.
WEEK 15: Final exam.
Barnard, Tim (ed.), Argentine Cinema, Toronto, Nightwood, 1986.
Beceyro, Raúl, Ensayos sobre cine argentino, Santa Fé, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1986.
Bernades, Horacio; Diego Lerer y Sergio Wolf (eds.), Nuevo cine argentino. Temas autores y estilos de una renovación / New Argentine Cinema. Themes, Auteurs and Trends of Innovation, Buenos Aires, Fipresci, 2002.
Bernini, Emilio, "Ciertas tendencias del cine argentino. Notas sobre el 'nuevo cine argentino' (1956-1966)", Kilómetro 111 nº 1, noviembre de 2000.
España, Claudio (comp.), El cine argentino en democracia (1983-1993), Buenos Aires, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 1994.
Farina, Alberto, Leonardo Favio, Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de América Latina/Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1994.
Feldman, Simón, La generación del 60, Buenos Aires, Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía/Ediciones Culturales Argentinas/Legasa, 1990.
Filippelli, Rafael, “Contra la Realpolitik en el arte”, Punto de vista nº 26, abril de 1986.
Foster, David William, Contemporary Argentine Cinema, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1992.
Getino, Octavio, Cine y dependencia. El cine en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Puntosur, 1990.
King, John, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America, Londres, Verso, 1990.
--------------- y Nissa Torrents (comps.), The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, Londres, British Film Institute, 1987.
Mahieu, Agustín, Breve historia del cine nacional (1896 – 1974), Buenos Aires, Alzamor 1974.
Oubiña, David (comp.), El cine de Hugo Santiago, Buenos Aires, IV Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente / Gobierno de la Ciudad, 2002.
---------------, “Pop Rebel. The Cinema of Leonardo Favio”, Film Comment vol. 37 nº 5, septiembre– octubre de 2001.
Paraná Sendrós, Daniel, Fernando Birri, Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de América Latina/Instituto Nacional de Cinematografía, 1994.
Podalsky, Laura, “High-Rise Apartments, Arcades, Cars, and Hoteles de citas: Urban Discourse and the Reconstruction of the Public / Private Divide in 1960’s Buenos Aires”, en Ann Marie Stock (ed.), Framing Latin American Cinema. Contemporary Critical Perspectives, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Reati, Fernando, “Argentine Political Violence and Artistic Representation in Films of the 1980’s”, en Latin American Literary Review 17:34, julio – diciembre de 1989.
Sarlo, Beatriz, “La noche de las cámaras despiertas”, en La máquina cultural. Maestras, traductores y vanguardistas, Buenos Aires, Ariel, 1998.
Schumann, Peter, Historia del cine latinoamericano, Buenos Aires, Legasa, 1987.