Alejandro Amenábar's "Tesis": Art, Commerce, and Renewal in Spanish Cinema

Christina A Buckley

Something is afoot in Spanish cinema: generational renovation, industrial and legal changes, new blood to relieve the old guard, transformations in the sociological portrait of its audience, increasing media interest in its images ..., different metamorphoses that, whether considered in combination or separately, are changing the face of filmic production in this country.

Carlos Heredero, in the introduction to 20 nuevos directores del cine español¹

Since the mid-1990s, and after a decade of steady decline, Spanish cinema has been undergoing a renaissance in local and global markets. There are myriad practical explanations for this shift, as Carlos Heredero affirms in the above quote. Noteworthy particular changes range from the remodeling of Audiovisual/Communications departments, previously a concentration offered by Journalism schools, which enabled university students to gain practical experience in running television and film networks, to the rebirth of ???escuelas de cine,??? prestigious film schools across the country that operate outside the university system but which carry national accreditation. Perhaps the principal reason for the recent success in Spanish filmmaking and spectatorship, however, resides not in the newly acquired equipment and training centers, but rather in what underlies these practical applications--a transformation in the Spanish philosophy towards the seventh art: the acceptanceby audiences, directors, producers, critics, and the media that art and commerce are not necessarily an incompatible combination.

One of the major forces driving this unlikely marriage of art and commerce is the quest of the newest generation of Spanish directors to appeal to their audience's ???enjoyment factor??? while presenting them with ???quality cinema,??? seemingly a category conventionally reserved only for films that make little or no profit at the box office. New directors, most of whom were infants or toddlers when Franco died, have found success by virtually turning their

¹ ???Algo se mueve en el cine español: renovación generational,mutaciones industriales y legislativas, relevo profesional, transformacionesen el retrato sociológico de su audiencia, creciente interés mediático haciasus imágenes ... , diferentes metamorfosis que, bien tomadas en conjunto obien par separado, le están cambiando la cara a la productión fiílmica deeste paiís.???

¹ This and subsequent translations are my own.

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ana torrent in alejandro amenábar's tesis.backs on the themes of the Civil War and Francoism, as well as...