Focus Publishing´s textbooks on film

I have written in the past about my disappointment that Spanish-language film textbooks don't offer more films by female film directors. However, this winter I discovered two film textbooks by Focus Publishing that have made significant strides in offering a more equitable gender balance in their plans. I was already a fan of the textbooks from Focus Publishing, and I am even more so now. 

The first textbook isn't exactly new, but I only just discovered it:  Cultura y cine: Hispanoamerica hoy (Focus Publishing, 2012) has two great films by female directors:  Entre Nos (Paula Mendoza, 2009) and Cinco días sin Nora (Mariana Chenillo, 2008).  I have taught Cinco días sin Nora  in one my courses, and blogged about it here.  Although not part of my course on female writers and film directors, several students opted to view and research Entre Nos for their final projects.

As the name implies, this textbook is designed for courses with a cultural focus and includes 6 films (one per unit), literary readings, interviews with native speakers, newspaper articles, rich cultural information, and statistics all centered on a single cultural topic. Cinco días sin Nora is the film selection for "Ritos y tradiciones" and Entre nos is included in "Inmigracion e hispanos en Estados Unidos."

I was excited to see that the authors choose to pair Cinco días sin Nora with El día de los muertos by Octavio Paz, as I had done when I taught the film (it is nice to know that my ideas are not totally off base!). I like their Notas Culturales regarding the film and the vocabulary and discussion questions are helpful. Their article on La Virgen de Guadalupe is another great religious tie in with the film that I hadn´t thought of. I founds their statistics on Judaism in the Hispanic world helpful but those on religion in Mexico lacking in detail.

Not having created my own plans for Entre nos, I appreciate the detailed statistics and resources (including an interview with the director) and will likely use this plan in a future class.

This text would be a great add on for a high intermediate language class or as the main text for a culture class.

The second textbook is the newly released 4th edition of Focus Publishing's Cinema for Spanish Conversation. I have used the 3rd edition of this book in my courses, and will be using this latest edition in my film course this upcoming fall. I like the plans in this book, which includes the following components for each film:

• Vocabulario 
• Antes de ver la película 
• Investigación
• Exploración
• Notas Culurales
• Temas de conversación o de composición
• Una escena memorable
• Hablan los personajes
• Hablando de la cultura
• Hablan los críticos y los directores  

The third edition of this book included 2 films by female directors: La misma Luna (Patricia Riggin, 2007) and Flores de otro mundo (Icíar Bollían, 1999).  The newest edition also includes these films, but adds a second film by Bollían: También la lluvia (2010). I had written and used my own plan for También la lluvia  (discussed in this previous blog post) but will now use a hybrid plan in future semesters, which combines elements of my own plan and that presented in Cinema for Spanish Conversation. The text offers some high quality cultural notes that will help make the movie even more accessible for students, and more detailed vocabulary and comprehension activities than I had in my plan.

Cinema for Spanish Conversation has many other great films in the 4th edition, including the film No by Pablo Larraín (discussed in my post from last week).  It´s entire table of contents is available on the Focus Publishing website.

References:

Gill, Mary McVey, Deana Smalley. ¡De Película! Focus Publishing, 2009.

Gill, Mary McVey, Deana Smalley, and María-Paz Haro. Cinema for Spanish conversation. 3rd ed. Focus Publishing, 2006.

Gill, Mary McVey, Deana Smalley, and María-Paz Haro. Cinema for Spanish conversation. 4th ed. Focus Publishing, 2014.

No (Pablo Larraín)

Over winter break I watched No by director Pablo Larraín (2012), and decided to include it in my upper-level culture course this semester. The film stars Gael García Bernal and is inspired by the real-life TV ad campaign (la franja) that lead up to the 1988 plebiscite that ousted Chilean dictator August Pinochet.

The film makes use of documentary footage from the ad campaign, which is virtually undetectable from the fictional story-line, thanks to fact that the rest of the movie was shot using only the technology of the 80s. With the grainy picture, the frequent over-exposed light (think home videos of the 80s), and the details of the wardrobe and set, the film allows the viewers to feel that they are viewing the events of Chile 1998 unfolding before their eyes.

The film has its critics, including those who rightly claim that it that it distorts reality by over-emphasizing the role the TV ad campaign played in the results of the plebiscite.  However, when properly framed, and with this criticism presented to students, the film is appropriate for the Spanish-language classroom that wishes to study the dictatorship of Pinochet and Chile´s transition to democracy post-Pinochet.

Because I showed this film in an upper-level culture course the plan's organization is a bit different from other films that I have highlighted in this blog. It should be noted that this film is included in the new edition of the textbook Cinema for Spanish Conversation (Focus Publishing, 4th edition), which has a variety of excellent resources related to the film.

Previewing:
My students had already studied details related to the government of the dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989), including the human rights violations that were inflicted on the citizens, in their textbook (Gac-Artigas, Priscilla. Hoja de Ruta: Cultura y civilización de Latinoamérica. 5th ed.  New Jersey: ENE Academic Press, 2010.) . They also read information regarding the transition to democracy precipitated by the referendum of 1988. This textbook information will serve as the background information necessary to understand the context of the film.  This information can also be found in other sources, including many of the film-reviews about the movie. This review from NPR gives a good high-level overview in English, and this article from The Telegraph interviews some of those who participate in the actual No campaign in 1988.  If you are looking for detailed information in Spanish, the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile has a collection entitled Memoria Chilena which contains extensive information on Pinochet. The Bibliografía Nacional de Chile also has very interesting information on the panfletos of the dictatorship, including those used during the campaigns leading up to the plebiscite.

The New York Times English-language review is the most comprehensive that I have found.  It discusses the controversy that the film has caused by those who believe it to be an over-simplification of the role the TV campaign played in the plebiscite, the adaptation of the movie from a play "El plebiscito" by Antonio Skármeta, the controversy surrounding the political tendencies of Larraín´s family and more. In the end, I had my students read this review, despite the fact that it is in English, as it is so comprehensive in its analisis of the film. 

While viewing outside of class:
Students answered questions related to the portrayal of General Pinochet in the film, noting the difference in the portrayal of the Sí and the No campaigns. They also took notes on how the film portrayed the censorship of the press and political oppression under Pinochet and the themes presented in the No song La alegría ya viene...

Post viewing:
We devoted only one class period to this film, so our post-viewing activities were a bit limited. In addition to group-discussion of the comprehension / analysis questions, we also watched some of the original footage of the Sí and No campaigns are available on Youtube.  We discussed the criticisms of the film, specifically what the film doesn´t show about the many other important aspects of the No campaign, and we briefly mentioned Chile's current president, Michele Bachelete, whom we will study in more detail later in the semester.  Finally, students did a brief (15 minute) writing assignment in which they answered the question "Explica cómo esta película ayuda a recuperar la memoria colectiva de la sociedad Chilena."

Other information of interest:  

• Spanish-language interview (8 minutes)with director Pablo Larraín in which he talks about his use of cameras 
• Spanish-language review of the film from the site Historia y Cine.
• This review/news article, in Spanish, has many quotes from Pablo Larraín  and Gael García Bernal about the movie and the movie making process.

References:
Gac-Artigas, Priscilla. Hoja de Ruta: Cultura y civilización de Latinoamérica. 5th ed.  New Jersey: ENE Academic Press, 2010.

Gill, Mary McVey, Deana Smalley, and María-Paz Haro. Cinema for Spanish conversation. 4th ed. Focus Publishing, 2014.

Hirmas, María Eugenia. “The Chilean Case: Television in the 1988 Plebiscite.” Television, Politics, and the Transition to Democracy in Latin America. Ed. Thomas E. Skidmore. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Neira, Camila Cárdenas. "“Mi alegría es distinta a la tuya”: No La Película y las transformaciones del signo histórico."