The Film Archipelago
Islands in Latin American Cinema
Published on 13. January 2022
Book
Hardback
360 pages
978-1-350-15796-5 (ISBN)
Description
How do the islands and archipelagos of the New World figure in Latin American cinema? Comprising 15 essays and a critical introduction, The Film Archipelago: Islands in Latin American Cinema addresses this question by examining a series of intersections between insular spaces and filmmaking in Latin America. The volume brings together international scholars and filmmakers to consider a diverse corpus of films about islands, films that take place on islands, films produced in islands, and films that problematise islands.
The book explores a diverse range of films that extend from the Chilean documentaries of Patricio Guzman to work on the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, and films by Argentine directors Gustavo Fontan and Lucrecia Martel. Chapters focus on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the Mexican Islas Marias, and the Panamanian Caribbean; on ecocritical, environmental and film historical aspects of Brazilian and Argentine river islands; and on Cuban, Guadeloupean, Haitian, and Puerto Rican contexts.
The Film Archipelago argues that the islands and archipelagos of Latin American cinema constitute a critically interesting, analytically complex, and historically suggestive angle to explore issues of marginality and peripherality, remoteness and isolation, and fragility and dependency. As a whole, the collection demonstrates to what extent the combined insular and archipelagic lens can re-frame and re-figure both longstanding and recent discussions on the spaces of Latin American cinema.
The book explores a diverse range of films that extend from the Chilean documentaries of Patricio Guzman to work on the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, and films by Argentine directors Gustavo Fontan and Lucrecia Martel. Chapters focus on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the Mexican Islas Marias, and the Panamanian Caribbean; on ecocritical, environmental and film historical aspects of Brazilian and Argentine river islands; and on Cuban, Guadeloupean, Haitian, and Puerto Rican contexts.
The Film Archipelago argues that the islands and archipelagos of Latin American cinema constitute a critically interesting, analytically complex, and historically suggestive angle to explore issues of marginality and peripherality, remoteness and isolation, and fragility and dependency. As a whole, the collection demonstrates to what extent the combined insular and archipelagic lens can re-frame and re-figure both longstanding and recent discussions on the spaces of Latin American cinema.
Reviews / Votes
From Cuba to Rapa Nui/Easter Island, from 1930s Hollywood Mr. Moto murder-mysteries to contemporary Patricio Guzman documentaries, The Film Archipelago draws on the uniqueness of islands (their distinctive memories, their liminality, relationality, imaginary) to provide a timely perspective on our tumultuous world from the Global South. This standout book is a truly engaging, wonderfully varied, and deeply insightful contribution to Film Studies (as it turns increasingly away from the nation towards the wider world), which will also resonate strongly across Latin American and Island Studies. A captivating read! -- David Martin-Jones, University of Glasgow, UK Focusing on island spaces and territories from Martin Garcia to the Antilles, the essays collected here brilliantly investigate their cinematic representation, meanings and how their study further questions the critical paradigm of national cinemas. A major contribution to Latin American film studies and studies of space in film. -- Deborah Martin, University College London, UK This well-curated and insightfully organized volume invites us to reconceptualize Latin America and the Caribbean from an innovative, rigorous, and unexplored perspective: cinematic islandscapes. Essential reading for anyone seeking breadth and depth in Latin American and Caribbean film. -- Veronica Garibotto, The University of Kansas, USAMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
30 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
760 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-15796-5 (9781350157965)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€32.99
Available for download
Persons
Antonio Gomez is Associate Professor of Latin American Literature and Film at Tulane University, USA.
Francisco-J. Hernandez Adrian is Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University, UK.
Francisco-J. Hernandez Adrian is Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University, UK.
Content
Introduction - "Islands in Latin American cinema: Film(ing) Archipelagos" Antonio Gomez and Francisco-J. Hernandez Adrian
Part 1: Islands at the end of the world
1. "Deserted islands for the nation: Empty land- and seascapes in three Argentine films of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands" Jason A. Bartles
2. "Marooned testimony: Chilean islandscape and the politics of memory in Sebastian Silva's Magic Magic (2013)" William Benner
3. "Memory islands: Repeating traumas in Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia de la luz (2010) and El boton de nacar (2015)" Amanda Holmes
4. "Insular spaces: A documentary and an affective ethno-mapping of the Rapa Nui culture" Irene Depetris Chauvin
Part 2: Liminal islands
5. "Social reformation and the edges of sovereignty: Fernando Soler's La hija del penal (1949) and Emilio Fernandez's Islas Marias (1951)" Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado
6. "Exposed insularities: Islands, capitalism and waste in Jorge Furtado's Ilha das Flores (1989)" Axel Perez Trujillo
7. "Islands in Lucrecia Martel's Nueva Argiropolis (2010): Eroding and fracturing the national map" Natalia D'Alessandro
8. "Gustavo Fontan's films: On faces, specters, fragments of matter" Laura M. Martins
Part 3: Antillean relations on screen
9. "The duplicitous empire: Ambiguous representations of Puerto Ricans and Japanese-Americans in Herbert I. Leeds's Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939)" Naida Garcia Crespo
10. "An archipelago of crossed gazes: Intersections of documentary media practices in Cuba and Puerto Rico" Juan Carlos Rodriguez
11. "'Irreducible memories' of Caribbeanness: Mariette Monpierre's Le Bonheur d'Elza (2011)" Sheila Petty
12. "Documenting lifestyle migration: Anayansi Prado's Paraiso for Sale (2011)" Carolyn Fornoff
13."Raoul Peck's archipelagic cinema: Island contestations of the international order in Assistance mortelle (2013)" Jana Evans Braziel
Part 4: Reimagining islandscapes
14. "Notes on an island film: A journey to Martin Garcia" Edgardo Dieleke
15. "Letters from the islands: A visual essay" Antonio Traverso
Index
Part 1: Islands at the end of the world
1. "Deserted islands for the nation: Empty land- and seascapes in three Argentine films of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands" Jason A. Bartles
2. "Marooned testimony: Chilean islandscape and the politics of memory in Sebastian Silva's Magic Magic (2013)" William Benner
3. "Memory islands: Repeating traumas in Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia de la luz (2010) and El boton de nacar (2015)" Amanda Holmes
4. "Insular spaces: A documentary and an affective ethno-mapping of the Rapa Nui culture" Irene Depetris Chauvin
Part 2: Liminal islands
5. "Social reformation and the edges of sovereignty: Fernando Soler's La hija del penal (1949) and Emilio Fernandez's Islas Marias (1951)" Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado
6. "Exposed insularities: Islands, capitalism and waste in Jorge Furtado's Ilha das Flores (1989)" Axel Perez Trujillo
7. "Islands in Lucrecia Martel's Nueva Argiropolis (2010): Eroding and fracturing the national map" Natalia D'Alessandro
8. "Gustavo Fontan's films: On faces, specters, fragments of matter" Laura M. Martins
Part 3: Antillean relations on screen
9. "The duplicitous empire: Ambiguous representations of Puerto Ricans and Japanese-Americans in Herbert I. Leeds's Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939)" Naida Garcia Crespo
10. "An archipelago of crossed gazes: Intersections of documentary media practices in Cuba and Puerto Rico" Juan Carlos Rodriguez
11. "'Irreducible memories' of Caribbeanness: Mariette Monpierre's Le Bonheur d'Elza (2011)" Sheila Petty
12. "Documenting lifestyle migration: Anayansi Prado's Paraiso for Sale (2011)" Carolyn Fornoff
13."Raoul Peck's archipelagic cinema: Island contestations of the international order in Assistance mortelle (2013)" Jana Evans Braziel
Part 4: Reimagining islandscapes
14. "Notes on an island film: A journey to Martin Garcia" Edgardo Dieleke
15. "Letters from the islands: A visual essay" Antonio Traverso
Index