| While children have appeared on screen throughout the history of Spanish cinema, their representations have not remained constant nor has their relevance been consistent. Close filmic analysis reveals the often-contradictory nature of their roles as manipulated projections of chosen socio-historic values. Although children can represent the artificial paradigms of national mythology, they can also contest such falsehoods through allegorical constructs.;In my dissertation, I examine the child's roles and representations in the context of specific cinematic genres, namely the musical film, the family film, and the fantasy film, from the 1950s into the 21st century. I first analyze the paradoxical roles of Joselito and Marisol (in 1950s and 1960s Spain) as both innocent characters and performing singers, specifically noting the use of the child's gaze and voice to conform to and critique the dominant discourse of Francoism. I then turn to the use of children as a choral unit of the family in the "gran familia" series (1962, 1965, 1979, 1999), focusing on the threat of the external force of modernization on the family and child's wellbeing, as well as the changes in the children's stock characterizations and the social values they signify. Finally, I discuss how the child uses fantasy and imagination to process his or her traumatic historical context of the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of the Transition in Carlos Saura's Cria cuervos and Guillermo del Toro's El laberinto del fauno, emphasizing the framework of the adult's memory (or lack there of) to reconstruct personal and national identity. |
