«Don Juan, ¿español?». Sobre la españolidad en Don Juan de José Luis Sáenz de Heredia

Although Franco-era film adaptations of the Spanish comedia are often dismissed as propaganda due to the regime’s broader ideological use of the Golden Age to promote ‘traditional’ Spanish values, this essay suggests that these films merit closer scrutiny. Saenz de Heredia’s 1950 film Don Juan is both a response to Hollywood’s Adventures of Don Juan (Vincent Sherman, 1948) and a narrative film that, while reclaiming the Don Juan legend as Spanish cultural patrimony, reveals inherent contradictions and flaws in Franco’s idea of Spain and Spanishness. Superficially, it is ideologically orthodox, but closer examination reveals how the film is symptomatic of defects in Franco’s projected vision of Spain.

Del teatro al cine: sobre el concepto de adaptación y sus transformaciones

From the origins of cinema, the relationship between theater and the moving image has been persistent. It has also been problematic in several ways. Theatre seemed a particularly suitable medium to provide film with plots, as well as actors and a sense of staging. The two media proximity has caused many misunderstandings and not a few headaches to writers, producers and film directors. The aim of this article is to trace different options for film adaptations of theatrical texts and also to understand the problems posed in several films by Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, Louis Malle, Peter Brook, and Ingmar Bergman.

El perro del hortelano: de espacio escénico a espacio cinematográfico

In 1996, the movie El perro del hortelano, a film version of the homonymous comedy by Lope de Vega due to Pilar Miró, premiered in Spain. This essay aims to study how the rather vague and reduced space of the piece becomes a filmic space characterised by realism, as well as abundance. Attention is also paid to some omission of dialogue, very important to understand the character of Teodoro; they can be compensated by the silent image. Finally, the consequences of having shot the film in different parts of Portugal, easily recognisable to the Spanish spectator, are analysed.

Las reescrituras fílmicas de la comedia nueva

Broadly speaking, the cinematographic adaptations of the comedia nueva have not drawn the Hispanists’ attention. Why? Have there been any changes to that trend lately? This essay aims at tackling these issues. It suggests that the underdevelopment of this field of study is due to a strong philological orientation of most Spanish departments and the scattering of film materials. It also proposes that the increasing academic interest inSiglo de Oro’s presence on screen is linked to the recent release of TV series such asEl Ministerio del Tiempo, which has brought Lope and Cervantes close to a broader public. This essay concludes by suggesting some relevant research threads that are still to be explored, such as studying unfinished cinematographic adaptations and the analysis ofcomedia’s diffusion through TV.

«Humano, demasiado humano»: reinterpretaciones cinematográficas y televisivas de La vida es sueño en el tardofranquismo

In the 1960s, Calderón’s Life is a Dream went through two popular audiovisual adaptations: Luis Lucia’s movie El príncipe encadenado (1960), a ‘free version’ with peplum influences, and Pedro Amalio López’s televised performance (1967). By analysing how these works trivialise or manipulate the playwright’s theological and political perspective, the article aims to question the notion of an orthodox Calderonian canon in the late Francoist period.

El teatro áureo en la pantalla: estrategias de cinematización del monólogo (I)

The purpose of this essay is to propose, through some significant examples, a model of study of film rewriting strategies of Spanish Golden Age drama, starting with monologues modalities of adaptation. After a methodological introduction, the study will focus on appropriation tactics of two famous female monologues, taken from Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna and Calderón de la Barca’s El alcalde de Zalamea.

La dama duende prohibida: la censura de la película argentina en la España franquista

This article brings to light censorship documents about Argentinian film La dama duende (1945) that is preserved in the Archivo General de la Administración of Alcalá de Henares, files number 9425 and 9426. Censors opinions clarify the reasons for its prohibition and provide new information about the film.

La dialéctica alto vs bajo en El perro del hortelano

Pilar Miró shows a great ability in translating into cinematographic terms the linguistic, social and metaphorical elaboration that Lope de Vega realises in his play The Gardener’s Dog opposing high vs low. If the dramatist hardly alludes to specific places where the characters act, Miró adopts a number of effective solutions, both spatial and symbolic, some of them really original (such as the introduction of a dwarf who always accompanies the Countess being her monstrous double). Many sequences reflect perfectly in spatial terms the distance that separates Teodoro and Diana up until Tristán, with his tricks, finds the way they can consider themselves equal at the end of the play.

El teatro áureo en la gran pantalla: Menos es más de Pascal Jongen y El desdén con el desdén de Moreto

This article analises the relationship between the film Menos es más (2000) and El desdén con el desdén (1651-52), a comedia by Agustín Moreto. The film adaptation uses a theatrical text by making a series of changes in order to reach a new target, teenager viewers.