Papers by Dean Allbritton
On Infirm Ground: Masculinity and Memory in El Mar
Paternity and Pathogens:: Mourning Men and the Crises of Masculinity in "Todo Sobre Mi Madre" and "Hable Con Ella
Disabling Bardem’s body
Performance and Spanish film, 2016
Hispanic Research Journal, 2015
From the pistol-packing Mother Superior of Entre tinieblas to the neo-noir thrills of La mala edu... more From the pistol-packing Mother Superior of Entre tinieblas to the neo-noir thrills of La mala educación (and a host of other films in between), death has long been a staple of Pedro Almodóvar's filmic oeuvre. But so often death is read as a finalizing dead end, the overwhelmingly negative result of bad health, bad circumstances, or bad luck, when it has the potential to be read as productive and engendering possibility. This article claims that Almodóvar resists the foreclosing negativity of death in order to create a politics out of lack and loss. This is seen most notably in his 2006 film Volver, which ultimately provides new ways of thinking about family, gender, and life itself.
The Spanish obscenities of Bruce LaBruce
Porn studies, Dec 5, 2022
Performance and Spanish Film, Dec 12, 2016
The importance of screen acting has often been overlooked in studies on Spanish film. While sever... more The importance of screen acting has often been overlooked in studies on Spanish film. While several critical works on Spanish cinema have centred on the cultural, social and industrial significance of stars, there has been relatively little critical scholarship on what stars are paid to do: act. This is perhaps surprising, given the central role that acting occupies within a film. In his essay 'Why Study Film Acting?', Paul McDonald argues that acting is not only crucial to understanding the affective charge of movies, but integral to the study of film as a whole (2004: 40). Yet, despite its significance, performance remains one of the most elusive and difficult aspects of film analysis. One of the reasons for this, according to Pamela Robertson Wojcik, is its apparent transparency (2004: 1). A 'good' actor supposedly renders their performance 'invisible', thereby concealing the process of acting from the audience, and engaging us within the emotional universe of the character. To this effect, discussion on acting is all too frequently evaluative: we think in terms of how convincing or naturalistic a given performance is, or are invited to appreciate the actorly skills and techniques that are brought to bear on the film. Yet, when it comes to writing about performance academically, it can prove altogether more challenging. It requires us to single out and momentarily freeze the flow of specific moments of performance within a film, and to break them down to their tiniest details. We need to pay attention to what Paul McDonald has called the 'micromeanings of the voice and body' (2004: 40), intricately drawing out the ways in which gesture, body, facial expression and vocal delivery work together to create meaning. From the clench of a fist to the faintest curl of a lip, we should be attuned to the repetition and rhythm of the most minute and subtle of gestures. The orchestration of all of these signs-which, crucially, are both visual and aural-not only help the actor to construct their character, but enable us to glean a greater understanding of cinematic practices and politics of Spanish film. Analysing the fine grain of performance enables us to connect the micro to the macro, alerting us
Disabling Bardem’s body: the performance of disability and illness
Manchester University Press
This chapter questions what it means to ‘perform’ sickness and disability, and in particular, how... more This chapter questions what it means to ‘perform’ sickness and disability, and in particular, how common perceptions of the two may be revealed in their cinematic reiteration. Analysing Javier Bardem as emblematic of a whole branch of Spanish acting expertise, the chapter discusses the appearance of disability and illness in Mar adentro/The Sea Inside (Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) and Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010). Rather than assume that illness and disability are already understood phenomena, the chapter instead argues that their threat is kept at bay, that the performance of the two serves to reify the importance of the healthy body. Bardem, for this reason, is emblematic, as his physicality has long been praised and admired in Spanish cinema. For that reason, the chapter concludes, acting choices, cinematic styles, and the artificiality imposed by the camera keep illness and disability at arm’s length, constantly eluding audiences and actors alike.
It Came from California: The AIDS Origin Story in Spain
Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 2016
La mala educación (and a host of other films in between), death has long been a staple of Pedro A... more La mala educación (and a host of other films in between), death has long been a staple of Pedro Almodóvar's filmic oeuvre. But so often death is read as a finalizing dead end, the overwhelmingly negative result of bad health, bad circumstances, or bad luck, when it has the potential to be read as productive and engendering possibility.
Even though Agustí Villaronga’s 2010 film Pa Negre / Black Bread garnered the attention of criti... more Even though Agustí Villaronga’s 2010 film Pa Negre / Black Bread garnered the attention of critics and moviegoers in Spain and worldwide, its seemingly sour take on the effects of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco is at odds with the hopeful promises in most of the films about the Civil War that have recently been produced in Spain. This essay considers Villaronga’s decision to showcase (and, in some ways, actively promote) psychosis and death over representations of health or happy lives, as well as what it might mean to portray Spain as a country of near-ghosts and angry angels. In representing his child protagonists in this manner, Villaronga challenges the portrayal of Spain as a nation in recovery from the traumas of the past while also reshaping the boundaries between health, life, psychosis, and death.
![Research paper thumbnail of Allbritton, Dean. "Prime risks: the politics of pain and suffering in Spanish crisis cinema, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies" (2014). [DOI: 10.1080/14636204.2014.931663]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/34316215/thumbnails/1.jpg)
This essay analyzes recent Spanish cinema that addresses the economic crisis, taking particular n... more This essay analyzes recent Spanish cinema that addresses the economic crisis, taking particular note of the ways that physical vulnerability is utilized as a metaphor for political and social precarity. I focus on three films in particular in order to highlight the metaphors of contemporary vulnerability to the Crisis: Chispa de la vida (2012), 5 metros cuadrados (2012) and Los últimos días (2012). By repeatedly exposing their protagonists to lasting physical damage, debility and death, these films underscore the metaphor that is already at work and present in the signification of political vulnerability. Tracing these ties, this essay seeks to locate the impulse behind the metaphors of physical vulnerability produced within recent “crisis cinema” in Spain and to understand what happens to the fantasy of collective vulnerability and community when facing the duress of contemporary precarity.
Syllabi by Dean Allbritton
The focus of this course is on the history of Spain and its cultures. We will focus on 20th and 2... more The focus of this course is on the history of Spain and its cultures. We will focus on 20th and 21st Century Peninsular Spanish expression across a variety of mass media (digital and print media, television, and film); in other words, the study of Spanish Pop Culture. This course will introduce students to the discipline of cultural studies and ask us all to consider how the concept of españolidad comes to be defined in an ever-changing present, as well as how to define regions and identities that may not even consider themselves Spanish in the first place. We will discuss representations of Spain during the dictatorship, the rocky moments of transition to democracy, and the contemporary expression of culture through media that has helped to consolidate a sense of what modern Spain is. The ultimate purpose of this course is to introduce students to contemporary Spain in a way that allows for a broad analysis of all cultures on a large scale -- from sex and sexuality, regionalism and linguistic difference, race and immigration, to the state of contemporary politics.
This course combines recent Spanish visual culture and media to explore themes of censorship and ... more This course combines recent Spanish visual culture and media to explore themes of censorship and comedy in Spain from the early stages of the dictatorship to the present. While official governmental censorship ends with Franco's death and the transition to democracy, actual censorship of thought and speech persists in many subtle (and some entirely unsubtle) forms. In the limitation of what can be said and what must remain unsaid in social spaces, in the self-censoring acts we routinely perform day after day, or in our adherence to political structures which demand our obedience, censorship regulates our lives in ways that we are often oblivious to. In such an atmosphere of omnipresent restriction, both self-selected and enforced, can comedy become a tactic of resistance? Can our laughter somehow express something that is so often rendered inexpressible?
The focus of this course is on the history and particularities of 20th and 21st Century Peninsula... more The focus of this course is on the history and particularities of 20th and 21st Century Peninsular Spanish culture as seen through its cinema. The Language of Spanish Cinema is a title with its own contradictions, as it suggests an adherence to textuality (through language) from which cinema is ultimately able to break free. Even as we focus on representations of Spain during the dictatorship and the fits and starts of its transition to democracy, as well as to the politics of cinema that have helped to consolidate a sense of what modern Spain is, we must remember that these histories may not be articulated in the sensible and coherent language we are used to. What about silent histories and silent cinema, the unintelligible past and experimental films? Our end goal is two- fold: to contextually analyze a film in all of its richness and specificity, and to become aware of the ways that the history of modern Spain itself may be told in gaps and silences, confusion and forgetfulness.
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Papers by Dean Allbritton
Syllabi by Dean Allbritton