Joanna Page is a lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Cambridge.

CRISIS AND CAPITALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ARGENTINE CINEMA

By JOANNA PAGE

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2009 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-4457-5

Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………xiIntroduction………………………………………………………………11. Nation, State, and Filmmaking in Contemporary Argentina…………………….92. New Argentine Cinema and the Production of Social Knowledge…………………343. Labor, Bodies, and Circulation…………………………………………..574. Crime and Capitalism in Genre Cinema……………………………………..815. Nation, Migration, and Globalization……………………………………..1106. Memory and Subjectivity…………………………………………………1527. The Politics of Private Space……………………………………………180Conclusion………………………………………………………………..195Notes…………………………………………………………………….201Bibliography………………………………………………………………217Index…………………………………………………………………….227

Chapter One

NATION, STATE, AND FILMMAKING IN CONTEMPORARY ARGENTINA

THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL FILM STUDIES: THE ARGENTINE CASE

Following the recent leap to prominence within world distribution networks of a few international coproductions from Latin America-and in view of current theories of globalization, which emphasize the flow of ideas, information, and goods across rapidly disappearing national boundaries-it is becoming de rigueur to argue that the nation presents an obsolete framework for the analysis of Latin American film. Although prioritizing the transnational and the global dimensions of filmmaking has undeniable value in combating essentialist notions of the nation, and in challenging the inflexible application of national boundaries in what has always been a global industry, in this chapter I draw attention to some of the limitations of transnational approaches to film criticism. In the case of Argentina it becomes clear that a critical focus on international coproductions often masks the real conditions of film production at a time when this form of funding is not available to (or sought by) the majority of filmmakers and when the state is becoming increasingly involved in the financing and promotion of national cinema. It may also obscure some of the inequalities that still govern transnational exchange in the film industry, in spite of the moderate success of certain international funding schemes such as Ibermedia. I also argue that transnational approaches to film criticism frequently fail to account for the public role of culture within a national context. My objective throughout is to emphasize the inescapably political nature of transnational or globalized approaches within film studies, which can often appear disingenuously to respond merely to an existing set of economic conditions or to the impact of inevitable trends toward greater globalization. That this veiling of ideology beneath a discourse of economic inevitability is also a characteristic of neoliberal discourses should alert us to the very real stakes at play in criticism, especially given the particular importance of the critical (including academic) reception of Latin American films for distribution possibilities abroad.

An emphasis on the extraordinary entry of a handful of recent Latin American films into worldwide distribution networks, and on the cross-border trajectories of their directors and stars, effectively masks the asymmetries of exchange that still limit production and distribution for all but a very few of the continent’s films. Among the most celebratory of recent accounts is Stephen Hart’s A Companion to Latin American Film, in which Hart argues that the international commercial success of Central Station (Brazil, 1998), Amores perros (Mexico, 2000), Y tu mam tambin (Mexico, 2001), and City of God (Brazil, 2002)-presented as the pinnacle of the continent’s achievements in filmmaking-“demonstrated to the world that Latin American cinema had finally come into its own.” This occurred, according to Hart, when Latin American cinema began to compete without favors in international distribution networks and in the Oscars; his evident approval of the shift toward private capital in funding, together with the fact that several of the films he presents as evidence of Latin America’s “international acceptance,” and demonstration of the fact that it has “come of age,” are coproductions with Europe and the United States, confirms that the “coming-of-age” he describes really means “opening up to international capital.” John King is surely correct to suggest that the extraordinary success of a handful of Latin American directors in recent years tends “to disguise rather than illustrate the very real obstacles that most filmmakers have always encountered in the region.” The overwhelming critical attention accorded in recent years to these four films, while they are certainly worthy of extensive analysis, has the unfortunate effect of casting into shadow many other films of merit and drawing a veil over the inequalities of production and distribution that have prevented their greater visibility. Hart cites the Mexican director of Amores perros, Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu, who “loathe[s] the government-financed movie-making that seems to operate by the maxim: ‘If nobody understands or nobody goes to see a movie, that it must mean it’s a masterpiece.'” Underpinning Hart’s apoliticized survey is not this particular myth but another: that of the market as a level playing field, as the sole impartial judge of quality, which raises up those films deserving of private finance and international audiences and condemns to obscurity those made only for academic film critics. “Parece innecesario decirlo,” writes Beatriz Sarlo: “el mercado cultural no pone en escena una comunidad de libres consumidores y productores” (It seems unnecessary to say this: the cultural market does not create a community of free consumers and producers). Perhaps the task of insisting on the inequalities of transnational exchange is not, after all, so unnecessary.

I have already outlined in my introduction some of the production difficulties encountered by contemporary Argentine filmmakers. Equally significant, however, is the fact that the exhibition of Argentine films has proven to be a continual struggle in recent years, partly alleviated by changes in state policy. The past two decades have seen the closure of hundreds of independent movie theaters across Argentina. Octavio Getino charts the vertiginous decline of the number of cinema screens in the country from 1,500 in 1975 to just 420 in 1995. Cinemagoing in Buenos Aires and other cities has been dominated since the late 1990s by the presence of new and lavish megaplexes owned by North American and Australian companies, chiefly Hoyts General Cinemas and Warner Village. Their location within ultramodern shopping malls is symbolic of cinema’s transformation into a middle-class leisure activity, becoming increasingly associated with the First World aspirations of wealthy Argentines. The entrances to such malls, defended by armed security guards, mark the boundaries between these islands of prosperity and the urban decay and poverty that encircle them, dividing cracked pavements from gleaming marble floors and separating immigrant vendors of fake watches and cheap leatherware from the quiet glamour of designer clothes shops. Often cocooned at the heart of these centers, the new multiplexes are laid with luxuriously plush carpets and boast the latest in audiovisual quality and spectator comfort. Pretrailer advertisements feature exclusive restaurants and plastic surgery clinics, while usherettes with candy-striped uniforms and matching baseball caps sell chewing gum, Coca-Cola, and M&Ms before the film-almost always a Hollywood import-begins.

By contrast, until very recently, the only cinema committed to screening local productions was a run-down city-center theater with ageing technology, where quiet or intimate scenes are still accompanied by the rumble of underground trains below or the clatter of rain on the roof. Aggressive U.S. distribution practices have often all but eclipsed the exhibition of other films in Argentina. Big-budget publicity campaigns prepare the way for each Hollywood blockbuster, and distribution companies flood the country with hundreds of copies of one film at the same time, undercutting the rental prices of the one or two copies typically available of Argentine films. Foreign films are subject to very low import duties, which results, in the words of Jorge Coscia, in “una suerte de dumping frente a nuestra industria cinematogrfica” (a kind of dumping vis–vis our film industry), which has to compete with films that have already recovered their costs, while Argentine films must often attempt to do so solely within the national market. There is little evidence to suggest, either to Argentine filmmakers or to cinemagoers, that the globalization of the film industry means anything other than its Americanization; nor is there indication of the much-vaunted potential for globalization to erode divisions between center and periphery, producing relationships of mutual dependency rather than domination.

The international coproduction might seem to offer an instance of precisely such transnational dialogue and reciprocity, but coproductions enjoy a position of dominance in the literature that they do not actually occupy in national production across the continent. Ann Marie Stock asserts the “prevalence of coproduction” in Latin American filmmaking, which “has become increasingly transnational”; Kathleen Newman likewise observes that “many of the recent feature films considered to be Latin American … are co-productions with European companies or institutions.” Again, for Marvin D’Lugo, coproductions with European producers and state agencies “have increasingly dominated much Latin American film production.” King, in his survey of changing trends in Argentine cinema during the 1990s, claims that coproduction became “the dominant viable route for film-makers” in this period. Michael Chanan refers to “the foreign coproducer, without whom, in Argentina, few films are nowadays made.” At least in the case of Argentina, however, current figures simply do not bear out these claims. Although an increase in coproductions is notable during the 1980s, figures in more recent years do not show significant or sustained rises. International coproductions account for only 23 percent of the Argentine films on general release in the country between 1995 and 2006; expressed as a proportion of films produced in Argentina, many of which are never screened commercially, this figure would be smaller still.

What is clearly the case, of course, is that those Argentine films that have been widely distributed internationally have been produced with external funding, often Spanish: El hijo de la novia (Juan Jos Campanella, 2001) was coproduced with Spain, and Nueve reinas (Fabin Bielinsky, 2000) was financed on the basis of a script-writing competition launched by Patagonik, a multinational production company with significant Spanish interests. To overemphasize the role of international coproductions in Argentine cinema is to overlook the majority of Argentine films that are not financed in this way and that therefore do not receive such wide distribution, thus replicating in criticism the imbalance already existing in the market; it is also often to disregard the very important role of the state in contemporary Argentine production.

Despite the decline of the film industry in the early 1990s and the devastation of the recent Crisis, the state has reemerged in Argentina with significant power to promote the production of local films and to create a space, however limited, for their exhibition. The taxes introduced by the “Ley de Cine” created a new and substantial source of funding for Argentine filmmaking, to be administered by the INCAA. The figures reveal the extent of the resurgence enjoyed by cinema in the wake of this legislation: in 1994 only eleven new Argentine films were released, and between them they mustered less than 2 percent of all ticket sales; in 2000 the number of new films released had risen to forty-four, and their market share had increased by more than tenfold. Although the INCAA’s funding was cut at crucial points in the deepening economic crisis, and corruption marred its activities during the 1990s, the institute’s support of national filmmaking has been significant. Very few films are currently made in Argentina without loans and grants made available through its funds; even the box-office hit El hijo de la novia, nominated for an Oscar, would not otherwise have recovered its costs. More recent resolutions bringing in more stringent screening quotas have redoubled efforts to protect screening time for local films, with greater success. In addition the INCAA has recently embarked on a program to dedicate cinemas to the exclusive screening of Argentine and other Spanish-language productions both at home and abroad, where venues are located as far afield as Paris and Rome.

National cinemas in other Latin American countries also appear to be flourishing in the context of increased state support. Similar legislation has been introduced in Brazil, again with clear results for the national film industry. Even Mexico, which appeared to be pursuing the route of greater privatization for its cinema with the introduction in 1992 of the Nueva Ley Federal de Cinematografa, reducing state subsidies for production and phasing out screening quotas, has since passed legislation (the Nuevo Reglamento de la Ley de Cinematografa, 2001) to bolster state involvement in the financing of production and to protect screening time for national films, although the implementation of these provisions has been less than straightforward. The impact of public finance is strongly implied by the fact that production in Mexico dropped 40 percent in 2002, when cinema funding was accidentally left out of the state budget, and recovered the following year, when it was reinstated. This pattern, Randal Johnson notes, has repeated itself throughout the history of cinema in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, in which periods of success have most often been accompanied by enhanced state support; current figures seem only to confirm the crucial role of the state in financing the production of national films and ensuring their distribution. This role has, of course, produced its own set of distortions and inequalities. Filmmakers in Argentina have often maintained an uneasy relationship with the INCAA, whose decisions over funding have repeatedly been subject to allegations of a lack of transparency, impartiality, or coherent artistic grounds. While far from revealing an unsullied picture of aesthetic discernment and beneficence on the part of state institutions, close examination of the role of state policy and its impact on national production is key to an understanding of Argentine film.

(Continues…)

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