Synopses & Reviews
New Argentine Film is the most complete text to be published on the new Argentine cinema. While anchored in critical discourse and written by an academic, it also has the virtue of using clear and accessible language. In addition, the book is more than a study of cinema; in its pages, the author reflects upon the recent crisis in Argentina. In the words of Argentine critic Diego Trerotola, “the trajectory of this essay forms a vivid map of over ten years of innovation, in order to understand the aesthetic work of our national cinema.”
Review
“In this insightful, well-researched, theoretically grounded, and original critical-analytical study, Aguilar seeks to characterize and interpret this movement by examining films through the lenses of such social and aesthetic concepts/topics as nomadism (the absence of a home and of ties of belonging), the frequent omniscience of commodities and merchandise, the "thematization" of soundtracks, the deconstruction of social stereotypes, and the striking modifications of film genre expectations. With its thorough scholarly apparatus, this book will be invaluable, including to those familiar with Tamara Falicov's outstanding The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (CH, Jan'08, 45-2504). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.”--CHOICE
Synopsis
Respected film critic Gonzalo Aguilar offers a lucid and sophisticated analysis of Argentine films of the last decade. This is the most complete and up-to-date work in English to examine the "new Argentine cinema" phenomenon. Aguilar looks at highly relevant films, including recent award-winners at all of the major festivals.
About the Author
Gonzalo Aguilar is professor of literature in the Department of Philosophy and Letters and the University of Buenos Aires. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Harvard University, and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2005 he received a Guggenheim fellowship. Currently he is a researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Table of Contents
Introduction * On the Existence of the New Argentine Cinema * The Thousand and One Ways to Make a Film * Changes in Artistic Production * Aesthetic Paths * II * Film, the Narration of a World * Nomadism and Sedentarism * Dispersion and Fixity (between La ciénaga and Pizza, birra, faso) * Intensities of Faces and Bodies (Rapado and Todo Juntos) * The Return of the Documentary * The poetics of indeterminancy: renouncement and liberty in a Lisandro Alonso movie * Commodities and Experience * Cinema of Remains: Lisandro Alonsos Los muertos * Silvia Prieto, or love at thirty * Sound, track separate * La niña santa and the closure of performance * Los guantes mágicos: noises on the surface * The use of genre: trips and detours * Comedy: Speed and Chance (Tan de repente and Sábado) * Pablo Traperos El bonaerense: the genre of corporatism * III * A world without narration (political investigation) * Politics Beyond Politics * Goodbye to “the people” * Nostalgia for work * Words that Wound: Discrimination in Bolivia * Los rubios: mourning, frivolity, and melancholy * Testimony of a Dissolution * Appendices * The World of Cinema in Argentina * The Policy of Actors * Argentine Films that Premiered between 1997-2005.