What is the role of fear in “El espíritu de la colmena”/“The Spirit of the Beehive”?
Released in October of 1973, during the dying years of General Francisco Franco’s harsh forty-year long dictatorship in Spain , the first full-length feature film by director Victor Erice, ‘El espíritu de la colmena’, quickly became one of the most iconic Spanish films of the era. Although an instant success amongst film critics, winning prizes for its screenings at both the Chicago International Film Festival and the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1973, ‘El espíritu’ remained a little known film until New York Times critic Richard Eder praised the then three-year old film in 1976, when it finally gained the international acclaim and merit for
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As this film was created in 1973, whilst although his health had deteriorated in these latter years of his reign and ‘the Francoist regime in Spain was rotting from the inside’ , Franco was still the dictator in Spain and therefore its release was subject to censorship by the authorities. During Franco’s reign, people were limited and repressed with what they were allowed to express, think and do, in order to make them conform to his idyllic catholic and conservative society, thus ‘official censorship was made compulsory for the whole country after Franco’s victory by a Ministerial Order passed July 15th, 1939’ . Following this order, any films produced had to pass severe scrutiny before being released to the public, to ensure that they were films of so-called ‘national interest’ and such examinations would often lead to entire scenes being eradicated, scripts being altered, or even fully rejected and advertising posters being banned if they were deemed to not enforce the conservative ideas of Catholicism and nationalism. In order to get round these barriers of censorship and share their ideas safetly, script writers and directors were forced to turn to symbolism and ‘tortuous detours’ to help hide the true intentions of any critical piece against the civil war or Franco’s dictatorship . Being set in the years immediately succeeding the Spanish Civil War, Erice knew that this film would be ‘highly representative of the circumstances of the Spanish people’ and that he would therefore have to be careful with how he portrayed the true impact of the civil war on his characters to avoid censorship and political persecution. Fear that his masterpiece would be altered or yet still, rejected by the authorities, the director self-censored the contents of his film and it is for this reason
Film Noir, as Paul Schrader integrates in his essay ‘Notes on Film Noir,’ reflects a marked phase in the history of films denoting a peculiar style observed during that period. More specifically, Film Noir is defined by intricate qualities like tone and mood, rather than generic compositions, settings and presentation. Just as ‘genre’ categorizes films on the basis of common occurrences of iconographic elements in a certain way, ‘style’ acts as the paradox that exemplifies the generality and singularity at the same time, in Film Noir, through the notion of morality. In other words, Film Noir is a genre that exquisitely entwines theme and style, and henceforth sheds light on individual difference in perception of a common phenomenon. Pertaining
In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...
Francisco Franco (1892-1975) was a lifelong military leader. He rose through the ranks until the early 1930s, when he found himself, a right-wing monarchist, in the middle of a left-wing republic. He was demoted, but later rose up again, and by 1935 he had been named chief of staff of the Spanish Army, a position he used to get rid of left-wing figures and their military institutions. When the left- wing social and economic structure of Spain began to fall, Franco joined the rebellion. He soon led an uprising and took control of Spain after the Spanish Civil War (1939). From then unti...
In the article “The Separation of Church and State in Spain” it is stated, “with almost 90% of the Spanish population being of the Catholic faith, the historical bond between Catholicism and Spain cannot be so easily overturned by laws alone” (Charlotte White, para. 1). 5. This film exhibited the lack of life Ramón was experiencing, and his fight to end the suffering. Because the Church had an impact on society and the court system, Ramón legally was unable to end his suffering.
This analysis will explore these cinematic techniques employed by Pontecorvo within a short sequence and examine their effects on our understanding of the issues and themes raised within the film.
Nichols, John. ""Counbtering Censorship: Edgar Dale and the Film appreciation movement (critical essay)."." Cinema Jouranl. Fall 2006.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
In order to understand the effects of the Spanish Civil War, the atmosphere of Spain prior to 1936 needs to be understood as well. Spain, unlike major European powers, never experienced a bourgeois revolution and was therefore still dominated by a significant aristocracy. However, Spain had gone through several civil wars and revolutions making violence one of the most common devices for change. It, also, had undergone several cycles of reform, reaction from the opposition, and reversal by military uprising led by a dictator before 1936 (Preston 18).
Lannon, Frances. "Introduction." In The Spanish Civil War: 1936-1939, 7-10. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Limited , 2002.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” Forgiveness is a necessary attribute that everyone must acquire as they grow and mature. Lily Owens, the protagonist in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, exemplifies the need to forgive in order to find inner peace. Lily suffers many hardships and difficulties as she ages due to the faults and flaws of the people who surround her. Throughout the novel, Lily must learn how to forgive, accept, and love herself and
Fear is the emotional state that someone goes into when they feel threatened or endangered. The fact that we do not know everything makes us think that everything we do not know is feared. There are many stories that include the fear of the unknown. Each poem, story, and drama include some type of fear. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, “Hills Like White Elephants”, and “Poof” there is an extensive amount of fear for the unknown. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ernest Hemingway, and Lynn Nottage all used the fear to their advantage while writing and making an entertainment for the readers.
“of exhibitionist confrontation rather than absorption,” (Gunning, Tom 2000 p 232) as Gunning suggests the spectator is asking for an escape that is censored and delivered with a controlled element of movement and audiovisual. Gunning believes that the audience had a different relationship with film before 1906. (Gunning, Tom 2000 p 229)
An obvious difference in these films is that the 1931 version played to a Depression audience and that the Coppola version played to a modern audience. (I am being extremely careful because, obviously, the 1931 audience was modern in 1931; however, we like to think of ourselves as being more modern than past generations. There are differences in the audiences which viewed the respective versions in their time, and I hope to prove this point as the paper unfolds.)
It was not until the mid 1930s that the brutish dictator truly recognized the potential power of media, where in 1935 a special funding was given to the production of Italian films which was used to open up film institutions like the ‘Centro Sperimenale di Cinematografia’ (CSC) film school, and ‘Cinecitta’ (Cinema City) studios in 1937 (Ruberto and Wilson, 2007). The development of these institutions sparked the appearance of early sound cinema, specializing in genres such as comedies, melodramas, musicals and historical films, but were all categorized as ‘propaganda’ and ‘white telephone’ films by many critics due...
The Bee and the Flower Mutualism is a relationship between at least two organisms from different species where they all benefit from the interaction. Mutualism is used by a variety of different species everyday for survival. It is used even in some of the most well-known circumstances that everyone knows about. An example of mutualism in use is between the bee and the flower.