Other Worlds: New Argentine Film

284 Pages·2008·1.873 MB·English

by  Gonzalo Aguilar (auth.)

New Concepts in Latino American Cultures
A Series Edited by Licia Fiol-Matta & José Quiroga
Ciphers of History: Latin American Readings for a Cultural Age
by Enrico Mario Santí
Cosmopolitanisms and Latin America: Against the Destiny of Place
by Jacqueline Loss
Remembering Maternal Bodies: Melancholy in Latina and Latin American
Women’s Writing
by Benigno Trigo
The Ethics of Latin American Literary Criticism: Reading Otherwise
edited by Erin Graff Zivin
Modernity and the Nation in Mexican Representations of Masculinity: From
Sensuality to Bloodshed
by Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba
White Negritude: Race, Writing, and Brazilian Cultural Identity
by Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond
Essays in Cuban Intellectual History
by Rafael Rojas
Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing
by Damián Baca
Confronting History and Modernity in Mexican Narrative
by Elisabeth Guerrero
Cuban Women Writers: Imagining a Matria
by Madeline Cámara Betancourt
Other Worlds: New Argentine Film
by Gonzalo Aguilar
Forthcoming Titles
Cuba in the Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s
edited by Ariana Hernandez-Reguant
Telling Ruins in Latin America
edited by Michael J. Lazzara and Vicky Unruh
New Directions in Latino American Cultures
Also Edited by Licia Fiol-Matta & José Quiroga
New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone
by Raquel Rivera
The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901
edited by Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan, and Michele Rocío Nasser
Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities
edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, with a foreword by Tomás Ybarra Frausto
Tongue Ties: Logo-Eroticism in Anglo-Hispanic Literature
by Gustavo Perez-Firmat
Bilingual Games: Some Literary Investigations
edited by Doris Sommer
Jose Martí: An Introduction
by Oscar Montero
New Tendencies in Mexican Art
by Rubén Gallo
The Masters and the Slaves: Plantation Relations and Mestizaje in American
Imaginaries
edited by Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond
The Letter of Violence: Essays on Narrative and Theory
by Idelber Avelar
Intellectual History of the Caribbean
by Silvio Torres-Saillant
None of the Above: Contemporary Puerto Rican Cultures and Politics
edited by Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails
by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé
The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World
edited by Ruth Behar and Lucía M. Suárez
Forthcoming Titles
Violence without Guilt: Ethical Narratives from the Global South
by Hermann Herlinghaus
Puerto Ricans in America: 30 Years of Activism and Change
edited by Xavier F. Totti and Felix V. Matos Rodriguez
Other Worlds
New Argentine Film
Gonzalo Aguilar
Translated by Sarah Ann Wells
OTHER WORLDS
Copyright © Gonzalo Aguilar, 2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60659-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37391-8 ISBN 978-0-230-61665-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230616653
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aguilar, Gonzalo Moisés.
[Otros mundos. English]
Other worlds : new Argentine film / Gonzalo Aguilar.
p. cm.—(New concepts in Latino American cultures series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Motion pictures—Argentina—History. I. Title.
PN1993.5.A7A5813 2008
791.430982(cid:2)090511—dc22 2008019400
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: November 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Jorge Ruffinelli, cinephile and friend
To my father, Tuchi, who took me to see
that Buster Keaton picture
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 On the Existence of the New Argentine Cinema 7
The One Thousand and One Ways to Make a Film 8
Changes in Artistic Production 14
Aesthetic Paths 15
2 Film, the Narration of a World 33
Nomadism and Sedentarism 33
Dispersion and Fixity (between La ciénaga and
Pizza, birra, faso) 35
Intensities of Faces and Bodies (Rapado and Todo juntos) 48
The Return of the Documentary 57
The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Renouncement
and Liberty in a Lisandro Alonso Movie 60
Commodities and Experience 65
Cinema of Remains: Lisandro Alonso’s Los muertos 67
Silvia Prieto, or Love at Thirty 74
Sound, Track Separate 83
La niña santa and the Closure of Performance 85
Los guantes mágicos: Noises on the Surface 92
The Use of Genre: Trips and Detours 100
Comedy: Speed and Chance (Tan de repente and Sábado) 101
Pablo Trapero’s El bonaerense: The Genre of Corporatism 109
3 A World without Narration (Political Investigation) 117
Politics beyond the Political 117
Goodbye to “the People” 125
Nostalgia for Work 136
viii Contents
Words That Wound: Discrimination in Bolivia 146
Los rubios: Mourning, Frivolity, and Melancholy 155
The Testimony of a Dissolution: On Anahí Berneri’s
A Year without Love 170
Appendix 1: The World of Cinema in Argentina 183
Appendix 2: The Policy of Actors 209
Appendix 3: Argentine Films That Premiered between
1997 and Mid-2005 215
Notes 227
Bibliography 263
Index 271
Acknowledgments
In 1999, I put together a study group on film, literature, and theory
in which Jimena Rodríguez, Pablo Garavaglia, Lucía Tennina, Julieta
Lerman, Joana D’Alessio, Bárbara Rivkin, Julieta Bliffeld, and
Germán Conde participated. Together we discussed various ideas
that culminated in this book. Jimena Rodríguez, in addition to pro-
viding materials and ideas, wrote a paper on Lucrecia Martel’s film
that helped me rethink my central hypothesis. Pablo Garavaglia spent
many afternoons at the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires consulting
materials and journals.
In 2004, Nicolás Casullo generously invited me to teach a seminar
in the Master’s Program in Communication and Culture in the Social
Science department of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. This class
was fundamental for me in organizing many of the hypotheses and
proposals of this book. I would like to thank the students who shared
this seminar with me.
In early 2005, Elvira Arnoux had the kindness to invite me to
share the conclusions of my investigation at the Master’s Program
in Discourse Analysis that she directs at the Universidad de Buenos
Aires. There, students discussed my viewpoints and contributed new
perspectives.
The following people have lent me a hand with materials,
bibliography, or suggestions: Denise Estremero, Lucas Margarit,
Ana Amado, Juan Balerdi, Alejo Moguillansky, Gabriel Lichtmann,
Gregorio Goyo Anchou, Diego Lerman, Juan Villegas, Rodrigo
Laera, Santiago García, Ana Amado, Martín Kohan, Yaki Setton,
Cachi from the video store La fábrica de los sueños, Mariano from
Estilo, Mariano from Black 2, the guys at La Mirage, Andrés
Insaurralde from the library at the Museo del Cine, and Emilio
Bernini. Mariano Siskind translated texts and sent them to me from
far away. Paulina Seivach, whose statistics and studies I have used
here, responded politely to my emails.
x Acknowledgments
Comments on parts of this book enabled me to correct and edit
initial drafts. I would to thank Diego Trerotola, Patricio Fontana,
Claudia Torre, Santiago Giralt, Domin Choi, Gustavo Castagna,
and Hernán Musalupi, who also tracked down material that was
near- impossible to find and helped guide me in cinema’s industrial
complex.
It is difficult to quantify the role that Domin Choi played in the
editing of this book. He pushed me to give it shape and collaborated
actively throughout the production of the final manuscript.
I want to thank Claudio España for having thought of me for
several of his projects, and also Moira Soto, Gustavo Castagna, and
Ana Amado, with whom I shared the experience of selecting films for
the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in 2001 and 2002.
At the Universidad del Cine (FUC), directed by Manuel Antín, I
taught for seven years. I was lucky to meet marvelous students there,
many of whom were protagonists in the phenomenon studied here. In
that institution I not only learned a lot but also made friends: some of
them, boldly, invited me to participate in their movies. I hope not to
have let them down as a teacher with this book.
Ana Spisso has given me invaluable help, without which this book
would never have been finished.
Vera Waksman remembered the names of movie theaters that we
frequented as adolescents.
I would also like to thank José Quiroga, who has made this English
edition possible, and Sarah Ann Wells, who, with efficiency and
intelligence, took care of the translation.
Finally, Alejandra Laera was more than a reader: she contributed
ideas, discussed hypotheses, and accompanied me throughout all the
phases of this book. Along with Goyo and Chano, she has offered me
a world in which life is happier and more intense.