1 Shannon Chan Professor Almeida- Beveridge English 300 19 th December 2016 Hispanic Hollywood Cinemas and films have the ability to reveal a window into the culture of the country they were produced in. The values and perspective of a country can be determined in observing films as the way actors and actresses perform and the setting of the film all take into account the audience s desires. Not only culture, but history also pertains to film and the making of it. Political oppression or economic depression can be readily noted in films from the conflicts and obstacles that appear for the characters within the film. As the members of History Matters put it: Film has an important role to play in these histories. While traditional historical documents tend to privilege great events and political leaders, historians now use other records to discern the lives of ordinary people: census records, accounts of harvests and markets, diaries and memoirs, and local newspapers. Film is perhaps more like these records of daily life than it is like the documents that record great events (History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web). Film, very much like literature, reveals the collective thoughts and mindsets of the people living at the time it was produced. In this case, if gender roles and stereotypes were extremely prevalent during the time certain films were produced, then those films would definitely contain some element of sexism within it. However, it is also wise to
2 note that some directors choose to make a statement regarding the problems they have observed in society by producing films. Utilizing stereotypical situations and poking fun at them with sarcastic commentary allows many directors to suggest a message to all the everyday people that watch those films. If watched with careful observations and an analytical mindset then films can really teach society lessons and on how things could be changed for the better. Historical films, for that matter, provide such lessons and truly open a window to that society and the problems those people faced. Although the 1930 s in America are usually characterized by depression and economic downfalls, they were also a period in time where comic characters like Superman and Batman were being produced. Many people, even though they were lacking in money, were willing to spend hard-earned cash to watch movies and listen to radio stations. There was a hunger for heroes, and perhaps this was due to the Great Depression happening in 1929, but there was a powerful unifying experience, one that created the phrase the American way of life (Digital History). From that point on, the 1930 s were labeled The Golden Age of Hollywood where sound and color started revolutionizing film and the talkies were gradually improving from the late 1920 s when they were first developed. The talkies were the pairing of sound to pictures or also known as talking pictures. Around this time, as well, Spain was also improving on their cinematic films. However, for Spain they were undergoing a huge transition in their political governance and it became a very transgressive time for many Spaniards. 1 This also impacted Spanish 1 With the great advice from Nicole and Alexa, I realized I needed to explain why it was such a transgressive time for many Spaniards instead of simply stating it as a fact. So I included more background information to support this claim and idea.
3 films as censorship became introduced into society and they had to be careful with what was said about political issues and people of power. Franco took over after the Spanish Civil War where he led the Nationalist side of the war. Franco was an extreme dictator who really took control of all the citizen s lives and restricted them from voicing out their thoughts and opinions. Many Spaniards during this time were restless and hated how Spain was under Franco. Things were always too orderly and people were silenced. During that period in Spain, many directors were either exiled or silenced from making films. Although there were some directors who, were anti-fascist and did not support Franco, continued to produce films that went against the society Franco molded. Franco supported many films that advocated for his regime, like propaganda, while for other films that went against his control; he censored. Some famous Spanish directors during this period were Luis Buñuel, who directed Viridiana and Tristana. These films made Buñuel very famous and hated by the Spanish government. Although both films were produced after the death of Franco, the military still held much power in Spain. However, because Buñuel was so famous after these two films, the military and government could not do anything to him. There was also Carlos Saura who wrote films about life under Franco and modeled family relationships to the oppressed society in Spain. Carlos Saura directed movies such as Ay Carmela and Cría Cuervos. Saura was an excellent director who really utilized the image of childhood and women to convey a strong message about oppression. In order to produce the films in Spain, many of the directors used a lot of symbolism and different representations to make sure their films would pass the censorship while reaching out to the audience. Many of these films won awards at the Cannes Film Festival in France and became universally recognized and respected as a
4 work of art that really spoke to that history in Spain. So films in Spain were extremely important during this time and really conveyed the suffering that Spain has undergone while influencing future films that came after Franco s regime. A lot of things were happening for people during the 1930 s whether they were in Spain or America. Most importantly, film was booming and the desire for more films increased. It increased not only for American films, but also European ones and, of course, Spanish as well. Then Hispanic Hollywood was born. When the desire for more international films increased, there was a bustling of ideas for joint films to be created with American producers and Spanish ones. There were also many Spanish directors living in the states during this time, as well, and because the language barrier was so strong, Spanish film producers collaborated with French producers first. However, the desire was still there and films were shot in multiple languages to address this desire. Language was still an issue and raised many problems for the audience. In today s Hollywood, the audience encounters many Latino/ Latina and Hispano American stereotypes in movies and serializations. The same could be said especially for the 1930 s because in addition to the stereotyping of race and culture, there were also gender and sexism problems. So this issue of race and equality for actors and actresses appeared on top of language and accent conflicts. The Golden Age of Hollywood was great and so was the birth of Hispanic Hollywood, but there were still many underlying problems in stereotypes and racism between Spaniards, Hispano Americans, Latino/ Latinas and the Americans. However, Spanish films were extremely important during this period because it revealed new styles of film and pushed for more Span-American collaboration in the production of films. Not only that, but Spanish films
5 set the standards for and improved collaboration of American films and foreign films; making it possible for such a diverse place like America to be able to watch films in different languages. The very first collaborations between Spanish directors and American directors did not go so well because there was a lack of attention towards the directing of Spanish films. Funding was an issue and so was the focus of creating two fairly similar films. The goal was to create the same film in two different languages, however, because technology and equipment were not as advanced as it is now, producers and directors had to create two separate films for the same one. On the other hand, there was a problem because the directors focused on making the English version much better in terms of quality. As the András Lénárt describes it: [ ] the quality of the of the original films and their copies differed substantially. For economic reasons, English films were shot during the day, while Spanish versions, mostly at night. The original version was produced in a matter of months, while new versions only in a period of several days (American E-Journal). Fortunately, in 1930, the founder of Universal Studios Carl Laemmle took notice on the stark differences between the Spanish and English films. He chanced upon this by mistake as he never had the initial desire to watch the Spanish film, but he realized that the original version had strong lights provided by electric light while in the Spanish version only candles provided some dim light. Seeing this huge difference, Laemmle was very upset and from that moment he decided to have the same producer supervising both the American and Spanish version of the same film (American E-Journal). His initial reaction was one of shock because, as most people probably assumed, the Spanish version and the English version would be almost the same except for the language.
6 However, like many other people, they did not take the time to look over the Spanish version and make sure that quality and content were identical. Fortunately, this incident helped Spanish films take a bigger step in the Hollywood industry and brought to focus the differences in attention between American films and Spanish ones. The Spanish language and culture really came alive in Hollywood and filmmaking. Like literature, it brought audience s attention to their language and the differences between cultures. The dissimilarity between literature and films is the act of collaborating between people of different backgrounds. There was a demand for Spanish films around the 1930 s, not just because film was greatly improving, but also because America is such a diverse country. Films force people to work together to create more films and in the case with American and Spanish versions of the same film, Spaniards had to teach English speakers Spanish. Spanish actors were not as popular back then in Hollywood so there had to be translators there to help actors speak Spanish to produce the Spanish version of that film. As Lénárt also explains this part of Hispanic Hollywood: In terms of film stars, it was not unusual for famous American actors to do the same film several times in various languages; this procedure was quite common in the case of Spanish versions. Buster Keaton reenacted his role from Edward Segdwick s Free and Easy (1930) in Salvador de Alberich s Estrellados (1930), while Laurel and Hardy also copied themselves in James Parrott s twin shorts Night Owls (1930) and Ladrones (1930. Moreover, the two comedians shot five versions of James Parrott s Pardon Us (1931) in five different languages: English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian (American E-Journal). In this case, there were not only Spanish versions of American films, but also versions of many different European languages. Although the production
7 of more films is mainly for an increase in profit, this amalgamation of cultures and languages really pushed for a more accepting mindset of various cultures in America. There were still many disparities and obstacles that people of a different culture had to overcome, but this was a start to a more diverse-accepting America. The films produced in different languages had the occasional mispronunciation and their marked accent added an extra comical element to these dialogues, which non-english audiences greatly enjoyed. In the production of American films issued in other languages, actors read out from a sheet of paper written with the phonetic pronunciation of the foreign- language dialogues without knowing the meaning of the words they uttered. In most cases, the Spanish artists present on the set taught them and helped their American counterparts with the correct pronunciation (American E-Journal). There is this image of people with different languages coming together to create a joint film and this might not have happened with literature or other forms of media, per se. Film has this ability to enrapture the attention of the audience, while bringing people together in the making of it. The demand and boom for Spanish films in America pushed for better quality ones and revealed some of the flaws with creating Spanish versions of American films. Although there was a great improvement in including different languages and cultures into Hollywood and films, people still noticed an inequality between actors and actresses in different versions. In many cases, [ ] studios that received negative criticism about their films lack of cultural appeal began to respond by adapting films for Spanishspeaking audiences, albeit in ways limited by their understanding of what those criticisms meant. The most iconic and well-known Spanish version, Universal s 1931 Drácula, suggests to us some of the limitations and possibilities of the earliest phase of
8 Hollywood s Spanish-language film production (Lisa Jarvinen, 36). So even though Hollywood has taken a big step towards including various cultures, like Spanish, into their films, there were still many differences that were noticeable enough to impact the audience. Drácula and Dracula really show the disparities between each version and brought to light the challenges and issues Hollywood was facing when creating different versions of films. The Spanish version s director was George Melford and he worked alongside the producer, Paul Kohner, to produce the film of Drácula. However, in spite of the great care Kohner and Melford took with the film (the Spanish version), neither spoke Spanish and the result is audible. Yet the most notable difference between the two versions is the casting of the lead role. While Lugosi s performance made his reputation as the preeminent star of the horror genre, Villarías would spend most of his career as a supporting actor. These two key differences between Dracula and Drácula the incongruent mix of accents and the lack of a real star in the lead role of the Spanish version became the two most common criticisms applied to all of Hollywood s Spanish-language films (Lisa Jarvinen, 38-38). Hispanic Hollywood is great, not because of the differences they have shown in the making of different versions in different languages, but because they brought to attention the problems that occur when dealing with multiple cultures. They were forced to collaborate and although it never truly worked out the way some people would have liked it to, they at least were acknowledging many of the problems even after many years after the film was produced. So there were discussions on improvement and how to include Spanish actors and actresses into films more and the problem with language barriers.
9 Hispanic Hollywood is truly the beginning or the big leap in the amalgamation of different cultures, particularly Hispanic/ Latin@ and American ones. It was a start of a collaboration that, although needs much improvement, included multiple cultures and included them into such a big industry. As Colin Gunckel describes it: [ ] cinema be considered alongside a broader and more diverse array of cultural practices, an undertaking that necessarily produces a more complex understanding of the relationship between mass culture and national and/or ethnic identity (Gunckel, 325). Although some say that Hollywood and its control over different film versions with different languages dominates and controls the entertainment freedom for the Spanish language and people, it also brought to attention a lot of the flaws that needed to be corrected and in doing so, gave more notice to the Spanish culture; enabling it to further produce more improved films in Spanish. Film is extremely important and it really reveals the mindset of society and the issues it faces at that particular period in time. As Mónica Cantero explains, Cinema, like language, conveys not just manifest meaning (what is explicitly stated), but also latent messages about social reality. Film directors, like language users, define men and women (and social issues) differently (Cantero, 57). Film is a powerful tool, that if used correctly can change society and the way people view current issues and events. It is also a window into history and, perhaps, into the future as it reveals many problems and worries that society has and will face.
10 Works Cited Cantero, Mónica. Visions and Voices of the Self in Take My Eyes. In Visions of Struggle in Women's Filmmaking in the Mediterranean. Ed. Flavia Laviosa. New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 45-60 JARVINEN, LISA. Hollywood s Spanish Versions, 1930 1931. The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking: Out from Hollywood's Shadow, 1929-1939, Rutgers University Press, NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY; LONDON, 2012, pp. 35 59, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhwv8.7. JARVINEN, LISA. Language Controversies, 1930 1931. The Rise of Spanish- Language Filmmaking: Out from Hollywood's Shadow, 1929-1939, Rutgers University Press, NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY; LONDON, 2012, pp. 60 82, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhwv8.8. Gunckel, Colin. The War of the Accents: Spanish Language Hollywood Films in Mexican Los Angeles. Film History, vol. 20, no. 3, 2008, pp. 325 343. www.jstor.org/stable/25165485. Lénárt, András. "HISPANIC HOLLYWOOD. SPANISH-LANGUAGE AMERICAN FILMS IN THE 1920S AND 1930S." AMERICANA E-JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES IN HUNGARY. Dragonweb, 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. History.com Staff. "The 1930s." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. History Matters Staff. "Films as Social and Cultural History." Films as Social and Cultural History. American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, 2005. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.