Cuentos póstumos de Una, Grande, Libre Nación: Españolidad en las películas españolas post Franco

Alfredo Martínez-Expósito

doi:10.5565/rev/athenead/v0n14.357

Posthumous Tales of One, Great, Free Nation: Spanishness in post-Franco Spanish Film

Authors

Alfredo Martínez-Expósito University of Queensland

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Abstract

An important form of transmission of knowledge about the Spanish nation is based on the continuous telling of stories in which the nation features as a suprahistorical, perennial entity. Myths of national origin, golden-age legends, and epics of national heroes are some of these stories. This mode of access to knowledge assumes a suspension of disbelief for the audience, and precludes other attempts to comprehend the nation through scientific research. Subjective national identities constructed upon such suspension of disbelief have a tendency to reify, personify or even deify the nation. In the struggle between mythic and objective knowledge, the question of authenticity becomes a hotly contested arena. This paper attempts to address questions of mythical national representation in Spanish films of 1975-2000.

Keywords

National identity, Mythic knowledge, Objective knowledge

References

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Author Biography

Alfredo Martínez-Expósito, University of Queensland

Alfredo Martínez is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Queensland, Australia, and president of the Association for Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia. He is the author of two books on Spanish gay fiction (Los escribas furiosos, 1998 and Escrituras Torcidas, 2004), and numerous articles on contemporary Spanish film and literature.