Epilogue: Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón 2013), Birdman (Alejandro G. Iñárritu 2014), The Revenant (G. Iñárritu 2015) and Crimson Peak (Guillermo Del Toro 2015)

The Epilogue draws together the major arguments of the book in its focus on art cinema realism and the use and manipulation of genres (the Western, the [space] disaster film, the horror film) in some of the recent films by the transnational auteurs: Cuarón’s Gravity, Iñárritu’s Birdman, and The Revenant and del Toro’s Crimson Peak. It looks at the shifting contexts of their production and settings now situated in the ideological, institutional and industrial complex of Hollywood studio filmmaking and located narratologically for the most part in the Global North or off planet. It explores whether it is possible to think of Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant and Crimson Peak as speaking, in the way the book has argued these directors’ previous films speak, from a position rooted in a peripheral, Global South or Latin American perspective.

Argentina: Introduction

This introductory section and its account of the significant changes in Argentine filmmaking in the last twenty five years acts as a platform to the director-centred analyses of Juan José Campanella’s films in Chapter 6. It situates Campanella and his filmmaking practice as typical of one vector of Argentina’s changed filmmaking landscape (the ‘industry auteurs’ produced through the neoliberal reforms to the industry in the 1990s and fostered by transnational media conglomerates) but also addresses the vibrant independent filmmaking movement (the New Argentine Cinema) also a by- product of the 1990s reforms and fostered by the government and transnational funding bodies.

Introduction: The Cultural Politics of Transnational Filmmaking

The introduction establishes the book’s argument; how transnational cinema has become central to Latin American filmmaking and film industries. It briefly traces the national and global processes (neoliberalism) that have pushed these industries towards transnational modes. The introduction also explores theories of transnational cinema and how these fit within the political, postcolonial and auteurist discourses around Latin American national cinemas. It also explores how these discourses function in relation to Latin America’s art cinema resurgence. Centring on Madeinusa (Peru/Spain Claudia Llosa 2006) and La teta asustada (Peru/Spain Llosa 2009) the introduction examines their transnational (festival) funding structures and aesthetic features. The introduction concludes with an explanation of the rationale behind the structure of the book which places each transnational auteur within sections prefaced by accounts of the national industries (Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) in which they began and (in different ways) continue their filmmaking careers.

Juan José Campanella: Historical Memory And Accountability in El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret In Their Eyes 2009)

This chapter explores Juan José Campanella and his Oscar winning El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes 2009). Unlike the other transnational auteurs focused upon in the book, he has not followed an initial critical and commercial domestic success (El hijo de la novia) with deterritorialized feature films outside of Argentina (although he has worked in US television). However, like the transnational auteurs he has been the object of analyses that criticize the mainstream ‘commercial’ forms and venues (transnational conglomerates) he works in and question the national credentials of his filmmaking. Arguing against a critical hierarchy that rates the features of art cinema (the New Argentine Cinema) above those of a commercial cinema, the chapter explores how in El secreto de sus ojos Campanella uses genre film to engage with the legacy of Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’ with the period directly before it and also with the contemporary moment. This chapter argues that Campanella’s manipulation of melodrama and film noir are an effective means to self-consciously stage the past and also pose key issues of historical memory and accountability of the crimes committed during Argentina’s Dirty War.

Mexico: Introduction

This introductory section acts as a platform for the director-centred film analyses of chapters 1, 2 and 3. As well as looking at Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro’s ongoing connections to Mexico’s national film culture and ‘industry,’ the section offers an account of their beginnings in feature filmmaking in Mexico and the industrial, political, legislative and production model changes propelled by neoliberalism (North American Free Trade Agreement, ticket price de-regulation, private production models) that have been instrumental in shaping both the failures (reduction in production numbers, exhibition crisis) and successes (1999-2002 critical renaissance) in Mexican cinema from 1990 to the present moment. These changes are key to understanding both Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro’s early features and the circumstances that propelled these directors’ periods of deterritorialized filmmaking in the United S+tates and Europe.

Revolutionary Road Movies: Walter Salles’ Diarios De Motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries 2004) and On The Road (2012)

This chapter explores how Walter Salles’ Diarios de motocicleta and On the Road use road movie conventions to forward their political agendas. It establishes the interconnectedness of the near contemporaneous journeys recounted in the two films by Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and author of the seminal novel On the Road (1957) Jack Kerouac and how these are linked to the genesis of the road movie genre. It goes on to analyse how both films use the political strategies of the road movie (rebellion) to (re)explore and update the beginnings of the interconnected social, cultural and political revolutions (the Cuban Revolution, the Beat Generation and their links to the counter culture in the United States). In keeping with the broader aims of the book, this chapter is also about defending the political potential of the genre film and how it is used to address rather than ‘gloss over’ the political history of the continent.

Alejandro González Iñárritu: Mexican Director Without Borders

Chapter 1 analyses the cinematic transnationality of Iñárritu through an auteurist lens suggesting that his Mexican-produced Amores perros, US-produced 21 Grams, and Babel, and Spanish/Mexican co-produced Biutiful, problematise the notion of industrial and national borders and (for the deterritorialised productions) the assumption of political co-optation by a hegemonic mainstream cinema (Hollywood) because they share the same radical and alternative aesthetics and ideologies. The chapter traces continuities and critiques across the production contexts of Iñárritu’s films from Mexican independent (privately funded) cinema in Amores perros, to a complex institutional position including US independent distributors, European Government bodies, Spanish and Mexican production companies and Spanish and Catalan television companies in Biutiful. The chapter argues that the films’ ‘independent’, non-hegemonic funding structures and presence of a mostly unchanging core creative team facilitates the singular vision at the heart of the auteurist endeavour. The chapter’s analysis of Iñárritu’s first four transnationalised film projects (Birdman and The Revenant are analysed in the Epilogue) suggests that rather than purely imitate Hollywood or US traditions (as some scholarship suggests) his films embody a perspective aligned with Mexico, Latin America and more broadly the peoples of the Global South.

Fernando Meirelles as Transnational Auteur

This chapter examines Fernando Meirelles’ Brazilian film Cidade de Deus alongside his deterritorialized English language films The Constant Gardener and Blindness. The chapter begins by re-examining the terms of the critical arguments ignited by Cidade de Deus’ seeming commerciality, ‘foreignness’ and mainstream depictions of violence. It challenges these arguments by suggesting that Cidade de Deus’ gangster/gangsta (Goodfellas/New Black Cinema) film derived formal self-consciousness is actually a means of counter mainstream political engagement. The chapter continues by analysing The Constant Gardener and how aspects of the cinema-novo inspired critique of Cidade de Deus are carried into these films through their genre-based critique of white privilege and nefarious drug companies (film noir in the Constant Gardener) and allegorical treatment of Latin America’s history of political repression (disaster/contagion movie in Blindness).

Brazil: Introduction

This introductory section acts as a platform to Chapters 4 and 5 which explore the films of the transnational auteurs Fernando Meirelles’ and Walter Salles. It offers an account of the resurgence (retomada) of Brazilian cinema post the 1990 closure of the state run enterprise Embrafilme. The section centres around Meirelles and Salles as exemplary producers (02Filmes, Videofilmes) of, as well as primary participants in the retomada and in the global shifts in media strategies as they have occurred in Brazil. It focuses on the state’s fiscal measures designed to foment filmmaking and the state’s (re-configured) involvement in the industry and also on the strategies (convergence, local exceptionality) of MPA, transnational media conglomerates and local media (Rede Globo) which have reinvigorated and renewed some filmmaking (‘blockbuster brasileiro’) in Brazil.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Transnational Political Horror: Cronos (1993), El Espinazo Del Diablo (The Devil’S Backbone 2001) and El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’S Labyrinth 2006)

Chapter 3 looks at Guillermo del Toro’s horror trilogy Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. Using the frameworks of feminism, Marx and Freud it explores how horror and horrific tropes function in these films on a political level to address particular issues relevant to Mexico (the impact of NAFTA) and Spain (the recovery of historical memory of Spanish Civil War repression). It traces how these three films respond to and reproduce a shared Hispanic imaginary, history and politics by adapting and adopting Hollywood horror conventions as these have been read in political terms by Robin Wood (1985), Tanya Modleski (1999) and Barbara Creed (1999). Ultimately, it suggests that Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno (Crimson Peak is analysed in the Epilogue) speak not only to local/national issues but also to transatlantic political concerns enabled by the progressive discourse at the heart of horror cinema.