Redeeming Realism: Alternate Historicities in Spanish Literature and Film.

Abstract

Located at the nexus of literary criticism and film theory, this dissertation examines the relationship between two conceptions of realism: as representational style in film and literature, and as rubric for the writing of history. Through close readings, the dissertation draws attention to how Spanish cultural texts ranging from the 19th to the 21st century foreground that realist fiction’s capacity to redeem and preserve certain events that have been left out of contemporary Spanish public discourse. The introduction presents a discussion of the views on history of Walter Benjamin, Hayden White, and Michel De Certeau, as well as a study of the conceptualizations of literary realism by Georg Lukacs and Bertolt Brecht, and filmic realism by Andre Bazin, and Siegfried Kracauer,. The first chapter analyzes three novels, Benito Perez Galdos’s La Primera Republica, Cesar M. Arconada’s Reparto de Tierras, and Ramon J. Sender’s Mr Witt en el Canton, and Luis Buñuel’s film Las Hurdes:Tierra sin pan. These four works focus on the two periods of republican governance in Spain: 1873-74, and 1936-39. The second chapter examines Carlos Saura’s film La Caza and Luis Martin-Santos’s novel Tiempo de Silencio. My analysis shows how both works highlight the failure of Francoism through the representation of individuals who had not been assimilated by the pervasive narrative of the regime. The third chapter questions the unresolved problems generated throughout the Civil War and Francoism. By focusing on repressed memories as represented in Suso de Toro’s novel Non Volvas, and the social exclusion generated throughout the post-Franco years in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu’s film Biutiful, my analysis engages with the unsettled past, upon which a shaky present has been built. The dissertation further examines how conceptualizations of literary and filmic realism have changed over time, responding to transformations in Spanish society by adhering to a commitment to exposing the sufferings and contradictions inherent in society, and a strong interest in the everyday life of the middle and lower classes, challenging conceptualizations of history and time in Spain’s development as a nation.