Performance and Spanish film is the first book to provide a detailed study of screen acting in Spanish film. With fifteen original essays by leading scholars of Spanish film, the book casts light on the manifold meanings, methods and influences of Spanish screen performance, from the silent era to the present day. In doing so, the book provides bold new readings of the work of significant Spanish actors and filmmakers, from Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Alfredo Landa, to Pedro Almodóvar, Carlos Saura and Alejandro Amenábar. The fine-grained study of acting in each chapter also provides a means of exploring broader questions surrounding Spanish film practices, culture and society.
Performance and Spanish film will be essential reading for both students and scholars of Spanish film alike, as well as to those more broadly interested in the history of screen acting.
'For enthusiasts of Spanish cinema and anyone bewitched by screen acting, this is a dream book. The editors bring together some of the most exciting and imaginative experts on Spanish Cinema writing in English today, as well as presenting a substantial and brilliant introduction to the topic. Each chapter has its own compelling revelations, whether by way of fine-grained analysis or wide new conceptual framings, whether on single named actors, particular films, modes of training, or successive new ways of making films.'
Chris Perriam, Professor of Hispanic Studies, the University of Manchester