Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America / Edition 1

by John King

Overview

Still the most comprehensive analysis of the subject to have appeared in English, Magical Reels charts the development of Latin American film industries in a world increasingly dominated by the advanced technology and massive distribution budgets of the North American mainstream.

John King sets up a historical framework to unfold the overlapping histories of cinema in the continent: the itinerant film-makers of the silent era who projected their films in cafes and village halls, the inventive use of vernacular music and local comedy in early sound pictures, the “golden age” of 1940s Mexican cinema, and the “new cinema”—oppositional cinema made “with an idea in the head and a camera in the hand”—of the late 1950s and beyond. A country-by-country account of this new wave allows detailed discussion of, for instance, Peronist cinema in Argentina, 1960s’ revolutionary film-making in Cuba, state-sponsored cinema in 1970s’ Brazil and Venezuela, and the struggle for democratization in Chile in the 1980s. A new chapter written for this edition examines Latin American cinema of the 1990s, raising issues such as globalization, new cinema audiences, film funding and distribution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781859842331
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	09/17/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John King is Professor of Latin American Cultural History at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	v
	Introduction	1
1	Rugged Features: The Silent Era	7
2	From Sound to 'New Cinema': 1930 to the 1950s	31
3	The 1960s and After: New Cinemas for a New World?	65
4	Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay: Recent Decades	79
5	Brazil: Cinema Novo to TV Globo	105
6	Mexico: Inside the Industrial Labyrinth	129
7	Cuba: Revolutionary Projections	145
8	Chilean Cinema in Revolution and Exile	169
9	Andean Images: Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru	189
10	Colombia and Venezuela: Cinema and the State	207
11	Central America and the Caribbean: Movies in Big Brother's Backyard	225
	Conclusion	245
	Afterword to the New Edition Cinema in the Nineties: The Snail's Strategy	253
	Select Bibliography	298
	Index	303

Editorial Reviews

Politically engaged, vigorously written ... an indispensable guide to the story so far.”—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher