by Gage Patterson For my research project into the culture of Spain, I decided to see how the Spanish people feel about one of my favorite things: movies. Prior to traveling to Spain and taking the class, I did not know too much about Spanish cinema. I knew a few Spanish actors such as Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz and I had previously done a research project on Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar in high school, but other than that, I had no previous knowledge. Over the course of taking the class, I learned quite a bit. One big thing was that Franco basically caused the downfall of Spanish movies. When he was dictator, he required movie theaters to play a certain number of big American blockbusters to try to rake in money because that is what he thought the people wanted to see. Due to this, Spanish directors and their movies did not make nearly enough money to warrant another try so most directors gave up during Franco's reign. This giving up lead to the decline of actual Spanish culture being transmitted across the world. Cinema is usually a way for a culture to spread and diffuse across the globe, but without any real Spanish movies being produced, Spain sort of became a blank space in the mind of most of the world culturally. During Franco's reign, there was also a lot of censorship so directors could not actually put what they wanted to in their own films. Why would a creative, artistic person want to pour their heart and soul into a project only to have it ripped up and the original meaning behind it taken out? The answer is they would not. That is why there was a void of Spanish cinema during the dictator's reign. You would think that once Franco died in 1975, then the censorship would be over and that more Spanish films would begin to be released, but this was not the case. Censorship did not end until 1977, two years after Franco died. This end in censorship did not actually help the Spanish film industry. Spanish directors wanted to do films that meant something and that were very artsy and made people think. This was very different from the high octane American blockbusters that the people were used to, so these Spanish films were not very well attended. The people were more interested in going out to bars at night instead of spending time at a movie theater.
While in Spain, I noticed that these feelings are still relatively true. The whole time we were there, I noticed a single movie theater on the way to our first hotel in Madrid. This theater however did not seem busy at all. Most of the people just walked on by and entered the local bars instead. There did not seem to be much interest in cinema. Also, just walking around the streets, I did not see one poster for Spanish movies. The only posters I saw were for big American movies such as Taken 3, Into the Woods, and Annie. It seems that Franco's idea of bringing in big American hits still lives on today. I did learn that there is a big film festival every year in San Sebastian in September in which the show some of the greatest Spanish films of that year. Last year, the seven films had received 35 Goya nominations between them. That seems to show that the film industry is starting to get more footing in Spain amongst the people. The Spanish are starting to feel more pride in their culture and want it shown to the rest of the world through cinema.