The Child in Contemporary Latin American Cinema

252 Pages·2019·3.571 MB·English

by  Deborah Martin

GLOBAL
CINEMA
The Child in
Contemporary
Latin American
Cinema
Deborah Martin
Global Cinema
Series Editors
Katarzyna Marciniak
Department of English
Ohio University
USA
Anikó Imre
University of Southern California
USA
Áine O’Healy
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Loyola Marymount University
USA
Global Cinema series publishes innovative scholarship on the trans-
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Deborah Martin
The Child
in Contemporary
Latin American
Cinema
Deborah Martin
Department of Spanish, Portuguese
and Latin American Studies
University College London
London, UK
Global Cinema
ISBN 978-1-137-53060-8 ISBN 978-1-137-52822-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52822-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962974
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For Patti
A
cknowledgements
In its early stages, this project was supported by a generous Arts and
Humanities Research Council Fellowship, which enabled travel to vari-
ous Latin American countries and provided time for writing. I would like
to thank Tony Kapcia and Joanna Page for advice and recommendations
on carrying out research in Cuba and Argentina respectively, as well as
numerous staff members at libraries and film institutes in those countries.
I also wish to remember the help of Andrea Noble, sadly no longer with
us, in orienting me for research in Mexico City. In Buenos Aires, the staff
of the INCAA Library, especially Adrián Muoyo and Octavio Morelli,
helped me considerably with reading and viewing suggestions, and
their help continued to be invaluable as the project progressed. Marcela
Casinelli of the Fundación Cinemateca Argentina made important sug-
gestions and spent time discussing the project with me. In Mexico City,
the staff of the Cineteca Nacional Library were extremely helpful, and
I am especially grateful to Raúl Miranda for his enthusiasm and view-
ing suggestions, as well as his ongoing help with contacts and documen-
tation. I am also grateful to the staff at the ICAIC for enabling me to
view many films from their archives, and especially to Pablo Pacheco for
his kindness and support before and during my stay in Havana, and the
invaluable material he made available to me.
The project has benefitted from the support and assistance of a wide
network of colleagues and friends in the UK and beyond. For reading
my work—from the project’s early stages to more polished drafts—I am
very grateful to Emilio Bejel, Jordana Blejmar, Jo Evans, Wendy Everett,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Geoffrey Kantaris and Karen Lury. I would also like to thank others who
have given practical help or encouragement, or discussed aspects with
me in ways that have contributed to the book’s development, includ-
ing Amanda Alfaro Córdoba, Maria Carlota Bruno, Constanza Ceresa,
Maria Delgado, Charlotte Gleghorn, Catherine Leen, Claire Lindsay,
John Harris, Stephen Hart, Lúcia Nagib, Trevor Norris, Deborah Shaw,
Cecilia Sosa, Fernanda Tavares and Sarah Wright, as well as to students
of my Latin American film classes at UCL, whose responses to the films
have informed my own. Many thanks also to the film-makers Lucrecia
Martel, Eugenio Polgovsky and Julia Solomonoff for discussing their
work with me. Two conferences in particular have shaped the devel-
opment of this book, and I wish to thank Rachel Randall and Geoffrey
Maguire for the opportunity to speak at ‘The Figure of the Child in
Contemporary Latin American Visual Cultures’, in Cambridge, May
2014, as well as for organising that event. Later, the colloquium ‘Penser
le cinéma au prisme de l’enfance et l’enfance au prisme du cinéma’, in
Paris, April 2018, provided a wonderful forum in which to discuss ideas;
thank you to Bettina Henzler, Perrine Boutin and Emanuel Siety for
organising that event and inviting me to present my work. I am also
very grateful to the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, especially Shaun Vigil
and Glenn Ramirez, for your patience with ever-extending deadlines, and
your efficiency and care for the project. Part of Chapter 6 has appeared
in Journal of Romance Studies and part of Chapter 7 in The Blackwell
Companion to Latin American Cinema. At the former, I thank the anon-
ymous reviewer, and at the latter, the editors, for their advice.
My family and friends make life much sweeter, and books easier to
write. Special thanks to my parents, Lyn and Mike Martin, for their love
and support. The final stages of writing have been made much easier by
the fantastic childcare of Sultana and Sha Ahmed, which has given me
the peace of mind I needed to focus. As always, I thank my dear Anna
Poppa for her steadfast encouragement, love and belief. And now, won-
derful Patti, for sparking off lots of new thoughts about children and
childhood.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Child Death in Buenos Aires viceversa, La vendedora de
rosas and La mujer sin cabeza 37
3 Children’s Journeys: Central Do Brasil, Viva Cuba and
Cochochi 71
4 The Childhood of a National Hero: José Martí:
el ojo del canario 107
5 The Child in Post-dictatorship Southern Cone Film 133
6 Unruly Bodies: La rabia and El último verano de la boyita 165
7 Transnational Mobility, Authenticity and the Child:
Alamar 193
Bibliography 217
Index 239
ix
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Chachita’s teary-eyed, uplifted gaze in Nosotros los pobres 12
Fig. 1.2 Pedro throws an egg at the camera in Los olvidados 15
Fig. 1.3 Children run alongside a train, hoping to catch coins,
in Tiré dié 17
Fig. 2.1 Shanty town children pose cutely for Daniela’s camera
in Buenos Aires viceversa 46
Fig. 2.2 Bocha beseeches the security guard not to shoot,
in Buenos Aires viceversa 48
Fig. 2.3 Mónica dies in her grandmother’s embrace,
in La vendedora de rosas 59
Fig. 2.4 Mónica’s face in close-up as she dies, in La vendedora de rosas 60
Fig. 2.5 Jaibo’s death, in Los olvidados 61
Fig. 3.1 Josué cradles Dora in Central do Brasil 83
Fig. 3.2 Malú and Jorgito cling to each other at the edge of land
and sea, in Viva Cuba 96
Fig. 4.1 Niño Pepe, eavesdropping on the adult world, in José Martí:
el ojo del canario 112
Fig. 4.2 Niño Pepe spies the slave child, in José Martí: el ojo del canario 114
Fig. 4.3 The slave child looks back at Pepe, in José Martí: el ojo del
canario 115
Fig. 5.1 Guillermina speaks to her father on the telephone for the last
time, in Cordero de Dios 151
Fig. 5.2 Guillermina and her father’s reflection, in Cordero de Dios 152
Fig. 6.1 Nati looks on as the pig’s body is washed in La rabia 174
Fig. 6.2 It is difficult to read Nati’s voyeuristic gaze as she watches
her friend being beaten in La rabia 175
xi