Synopses & Reviews
This is the first academic book dedicated to the filmmaking of the Mexican born directors Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón. The book examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films. These include studies on del Toro's Cronos/Chronos, El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Iñárritu's Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel; and Cuarón's Sólo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria, Y tu mamá también, and Children of Men. All three have worked in diverse industrial contexts, and between them they have made key films that have changed the nature of filmmaking in Mexico, Hollywood blockbusters, US independent films, 'European' art films, and films that defy easy classification. They have had unprecedented international success and have crossed linguistic, national and generic borders, cutting through traditional divisions created by film markets.
As a result, this book challenges the ways both markets and critics have created clear-cut distinctions between mainstream commercial and independent art cinema, and the ways they have conceptualised US, Latin American and European cinema as discrete entities. The work of the three directors creates new hybrid formations and makes us rethink ways in which we have understood the auteur label. The main theoretical approaches applied in this book to analyse the directors' working practices and texts centre on new readings of auteurism and transnational film theories.
This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, and general cinema enthusiasts who are interested in the films of the three directors.
Synopsis
Now available in paperback, this is the first academic book dedicated to the filmmaking of the three-best known Mexican-born directors, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonz lez I rritu and Alfonso Cuar n. Deborah Shaw examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films with a focus on both the texts and the production contexts in which they were made. These include studies on del Toro's Cronos/Chronos, El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army; I rritu's Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel; and Cuar n's S lo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria, Y tu mam tambi n, and Children of Men. The Three Amigos will be of interest to all those who study Hispanic and Spanish cinema in particular, and world and contemporary cinema in general.
About the Author
Deborah Shaw is Reader in Film Studies at the University of Portsmouth
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Guillermo del Toro: the Alchemist
1. Cronos: Introducing Guillermo del Toro
2. Generating an authorial presence with Hellboy II: The Golden Army
3. El laberinto del fauno: Breaking through the barriers of filmmaking
Part II: Alejandro González Iñárritu: independent filmmaker
4. Crashing into the international film market with Amores Perros
5. 21 Grams: An American independent film made by Mexicans
6. Babel and the global Hollywood gaze
Part III: Alfonso Cuarón: A study of auteurism in flux
7. Alfonso Cuarón;s first films in Mexico and the USA
8. Cuarón finds his own path: Y tu mamá también
9. Children of Men: the limits of radicalism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Filmography
Index