Myth making and myth breaking: unity and difference in Spanish and French film

Introduction:

Outline theories of nation here + short outline of history of national unity in Fr/Sp and how

regionalism plays an important part in the way that individuals define themselves. These are themes

[nation, projection, cinema] that are at the centre of the films ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! (Luis

García Berlanga, 1952), Jour de fête (Jacques Tati, 1949) and Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Dany

Boon, 2008).

¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! is an ironic account of Spain’s exclusion from the 1947-51

European Recovery Plan. More popularly known as the Marshall Plan after the then U.S. Secretary

of State, George Marshall, it was designed to rebuild European economies after the devastating

effects of the Second World War. This film depicts the lives of the inhabitants of a small, rural,

Castilian town, Villar del Río, as they prepare, rehearse and play out a large-scale welcoming party

for the American diplomats soon to be arriving in the town that proves to be futile. Jour de fête is

also set in a rural town (Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, some 200km south of Paris) and follows François

the local facteur on his daily rounds. This, Tati’s first full-length feature, is an amusing exposé of

the obsession with American speed and efficiency in that period. Impressed by the depiction of the

American postal service in a film shown in the town square, François makes a wholly misguided

attempt to introduce these modern methods to his own work. The film, which oscillates between

satire and slapstick, is a mocking but affectionate tribute to the vanishing way of life of ‘la France

profonde’ under the ever-increasing influence of American culture that François, like the inhabitants

of Villar del Río in ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall!, fail to assimilate. The last and the most recent of

the three films, Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis, follows Philippe Abrams, a Post Office manager, in his

relocation from Salon-de-Provence in the south of France to Bergues, a town near Dunkirk in the

Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, northern France. This region is home to the urban vernacular Ch’timi,

which for Philippe is initially unintelligible. Having begun his life in the north feeling like an

outsider and alienated by the language barrier, Philippe is ultimately won over by his new

colleagues, proving the Ch’tis proverb, “Quand un étranger vient vivre dans le nord, il brait deux

fois: quand il arrive et quand il repart.”

Through an examination of these comedies, this study will explore myths surrounding Spanish

and French identity in which there are three levels of identity to be considered: the national, the

regional and the personal. It will focus particularly on myths in the form of stereotypes of nation and

the regions that make them up, as well as the archetypes of character subscribed to by the

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individuals that populate them. It is key that these films are comedies: in all three it is the humour

that illustrates what these myths and stereotypes are, exaggerates them to the point of farce and then

breaks them. The vehicle for the exaggeration to the point of farce is performance, often explicitly

referred to as such, and involving costumes, props and sets. These performances are part of the

multi-directional projection of myths between nations and regions and orchestrated by the

individuals that make them up.

It is significant that two of these films use the word ‘welcome’ in their titles because it

introduces the idea from the outset of communication and cultural transmission that is inextricably

linked to these aforementioned projections of myth. (what is the medium of communication? – post

office? Film itself?).

.

The theme of communication (mention post office link) is inextricably linked to myths that

surround the collective idea of nation because ________ [cultural transmission, border crossing,

projection, exoticism].

Talk about unity and difference.

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1) Performance/stereotypes/myth making

Cinema has long been an indispensable tool in portraying, projecting and promoting national

identity and, in the past, has been often used as an effective myth-making (propaganda) tool by

European governments, particularly in times of conflict to boost morale and promote national unity

in the face of adversity. Susan Hayward has examined to what extent French cinema exploits and

creates specifically national myths of identity that reflect ‘the texture of society at a national level’

(1993: 15). From an examination of these three films in particular, it is clear that cinema is able to

exploit and create myths of identity not just on a national level but on a regional level too.

Furthermore, it is the manner of the portrayal of the individual characters (personal identities) that

make up these communities and their behaviour that the viewer can infer that myths of national and

regional identity, whether created by the film or within the film, are constructed using performance.

These performances go about ‘reconstructing myths already mobilised by the nation as they are

inscribed in the indigenous culture’ (Hayward 1993: 15). They are the stereotypes that are deeply

ingrained in the psyche of the “foreigners” and in the psyche of their nation of origin. The projection

of identity is thus a multi-directional process and outsiders’ perspectives on a nation or region’s

characteristics is shown in these films to be often assimilated and projected back via performances.

The performances depend on what a nation, region or individual wants to promote and what they

believe their “audience” wants to see. Often explicitly referred to as performances in the films and

aided by the use of costumes, props, sets and the film’s mise-en-scène, these myths/stereotypes are

exaggerated to the extent that they are subverted by the comedy they induce, thus breaking them.

What does the fragility of these myths in the hands of comedic actors and film directors convey to

the viewer about projections of national identity and how representative are they? What motivates

these performances and who “directs” them? By using humour to undermine the myths constructed

by performance is the viewer being invited by Berlanga, Boon and Tati to be sceptical of this type of

cultural transmission?

Films in themselves are performances in that they are an artistic visual construction on the part

of the film director. The director carefully constructs the mise-en-scène in such a way to best aid the

communication of the storyline and/or message of the film. It is the mise-en-scène that marks film

out as a performance and closely allies it to theatre. In ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! Luis García

Berlanga maintains for an extended period a sense of distance between the viewer and the fictional

space of Villar del Río that constantly reminds the viewer that they are watching a film. It is

nowadays expected that films, because of the popular Hollywood model that promotes seamlessness

through invisible editing, will “suture” their viewers into the action depicted. The system of suture,

introduced into film studies by the theorist Jean-Pierre Oudart (1977) and based on studies in child

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psychoanalysis conducted by Jacques Lacan in the 1960s, allows the spectator to identify with the

image and to lose their audience objectivity (Hayward 2000: 383). The viewer becomes part of the

performance themselves, often invited to identify with the characters using point-of-view shots. At

the very opening of this film, a still focus on a dusty and winding road, lined with trees and fields

and vanishing into the meseta, situates the viewer at the centre of this celebrated part of the Castilian

countryside. A bus then enters the shot from the right-hand side as it travels at a leisurely pace down

the road and approaches the camera. As it passes by, the camera pans 180 degrees to the left to

follow it and to focus on the town sign announcing Villar del Río. The bus drives on and the camera

remains for a few moments on the outskirts of the town looking in, thus introducing the distance and

lack of suture that Berlanga will maintain particularly explicitly in the new few scenes. This shot,

which leaves the viewer surveying the town from afar just outside of its boundaries, also reinforces

the idea of the gaze of foreigners. It sets up the viewer for a later understanding of the way in which

the town being perceived by outsiders and the image it will later try to project through performance.

As the camera, and thus the viewer, is permitted to move into the town a voice-over narrator

begins speaking and the viewer’s sense of a performance being acted out is highlighted by the

narrator’s first line, ‘Érase una vez un pueblo español…’, because this is an opening line common to

fables and fairy stories in Spanish. The narrator proceeds to then introduce the characters of the film

and inhabitants of the town with various appropriate epithets and snippets of information. In an

affectionate, indulgent tone, for example, Don Luis, the local hidalgo is described as always

‘esperando una carta que nunca llega’ because the ancestors he reveres so ‘se olvidan de escribirle,

por lo visto.’ It is as if the narrator is reading from the stage directions of a play and the characters

are never developed past the stage of being merely characters. This is also partly due to the way in

which the narrator, who is omnipresent and omniscient, is able to remove the them at will from the

frame, giving the camera free access into the emptied town. He can pause the action in order to give

himself more time in which to introduce each character and even zooms in on Genaro, the bus

driver, exclaiming: ‘Quizá éste un poco lejos, ¡así lo ven mejor!’ The characters function as

powerless two-dimensional types at the mercy of the narrator-director who makes them do his

bidding. The narrator is portrayed as having a direct influence on the characters because of his

pausing of the action: he apologises and quickly unfreezes the film when he realises that Genaro has

been frozen in the process of unloading heavy packages. Furthermore, during some of the first

scenes in which the narrator introduces the town and its inhabitants, Berlanga uses a “God shot” to

look down on them. The narrator-director is set up as an omnipotent deity by the shot and, like when

seamlessness is achieved in films, the spectator is also led to believe he or she has supremacy

(Hayward 2000: 344). The downwards gaze of the viewer onto the Plaza Mayor in which

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townspeople mill around also renders the scene like a model of the town in miniature (an indication

of the later performances and set-building in the film) and no point-of-view shots are used.

This camera work is indicative of the view of outsiders looking in on Franco’s Spain of the early

1950s. Despite the regime’s attempts to project a national image of economic self-sufficiency and

cultural and historical greatness as a product of ‘¡Una España una, grande y libre!’ (‘A united, great

and free Spain!), this constant distance imposed by Berlanga between viewer and characters and the

lack of opportunity for identification with them subversively undermines this performance, directed

by Franco, and staged by his ministers on behalf of Spain. Outsiders watching this performance

would have seen instead a country that (barely) functioned, was politically and socially isolated,

technologically backward and inward-looking. Thus, the mise-en-scène discussed above breaks

Franco’s desired myth of unity and greatness and undermines Spain’s projected national identity of

that time. The fragility of this particular myth shows predominantly that projections of national

identity on the part of a country’s leader are often motivated by political gain, are not infallibly

trustworthy and are more closely aligned to mere performance and the spinning of national fictional

yarns than based in fact. This is not the case for most kinds of stereotype are, however. Stereotypes

of nations, regions and individuals usually contain some element of truth that has been exaggerated.

The difference here is that Franco was more concerned with hiding the truth of the nation’s

predicament by staging a performance on national identity based on outdated notions of past glory

than he was at upholding existing ones. This past glory was that surrounding the conquistadores of

the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain

and Portugal subsequent to the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

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¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! as a whole represents Franco’s staging of national identity, which

is then subverted by the mise-en-scène, the main indicator of the performative nature of film.

Additionally, on an individual level within the film the characters put on an elaborate performance

of their own. The actors portraying the inhabitants of Villar del Río become actors once more in a

staged welcoming fiesta for the American diplomats soon to be arriving in the town in order to

(supposedly) distribute beneficent gifts of money and material goods under the Marshall Plan like

the reyes magos. Like Jacques Tati for Jour de Fête and Dany Boon for Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis,

Berlanga chose to film in the real town of Guadalix de la Sierra. He did so “sin maquillar” apart

from building a church that looked more authentically Castilian and a fountain for the Plaza Mayor

(IVAC-La Filmoteca 2004: 48). Within the film, however, whilst staging this welcoming fiesta, the

(Castilian) townspeople dress in Andalusian traditional garb and construct a stage set/film set

around the existing infrastructure of their town to turn it into the picture postcard stereotypical

(Andalusian) town that is so readily associated with Spain by foreigners. This section of the film in

which the set is built is particularly humorous because they take their performance to an extreme

level, using traditional dress and headwear, Spanish guitars and exotic planting. The scene opens

with the whitewashed hardboard-covered theatre flats for a house front on the Calle de Salero being

erected quickly and roughly hewn wooden doors and wrought iron gates inserted. The fade into the

scene suggests a passage time from the last scene as the wall of the Calle de Salero rears up into

position and the camera zooms out to give a fuller picture of the set-building scene. Manolo exhorts

his “set designers”: ‘Venga. La Calle del Rocío echádmela más para adelante. Más, más.’ They

simulate the stereotypical bull’s head mounted on the wall of the local café/bar by pushing the head

of a live bull through a hole in a false wall. The mayor asks for the animal to be moved ‘a la

derecha, a la derecha’ before the mount around its head is nailed in place. They even go so far as to

teach themselves flamenco dancing and bullfighting (interestingly, two more forms of performance)

with some of the locals cheerfully making terrible attempts with amusing consequences.

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Performance is referred to explicitly when by order of the mayor a town crier calls for everyone

to present themselves ‘vestidos de andaluces’ for the ‘ensayo’ of the staged welcome. Additionally,

the local hidalgo Don Luis calls his fellow townspeople ‘unos mamarrachos, unas máscaras, unos

peleles’ because they are dressing up to flatter foreigners. Don Luis is the voice of reason that no-

one listens to. Themes of disguise, pretence and role-playing are central in this film when exploring

Spanish national identity, particularly in the construction of the “set.” Marsh Kinder notes: ‘The

townspeople’s reliance on false façades evokes a well known historic incident when Mussolini used

cardboard sets to impress Hitler and his entourage when they were visiting Italy’ (1993: 22). The

humour surrounding this role-playing and disguise subverts this Spanish national stereotype and

points out the incongruity of Andalusian culture being used to represent a Castilian town. This

broadening of Andalusian culture to represent the Spanish nation is a form of synecdoche and, as

part of this performance they, like Franco, conceal the true nature of their region and suppress

difference in order to project a stereotypical image of their nation as a whole. They do this because

Manolo, the manager of the Andalusian singer Carmen Vargas, who is in town performing, lived in

Boston for fifteen years ‘organizando espectáculos internacionales’ (‘organising international

events’) and he informs the mayor that he knows what Americans like and do not like. Having

moved out of the confines of Spanish borders and broadened his horizons Manolo has assimilated an

outsider’s perspective on his own country and subscribes to the exotic myth built up by another

culture around the national identity of another.

Performances also form a crucial part of Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis in portraying the myths

surrounding different regions of France held by the (French) strangers to these parts of the country.

The cultural differences between the far north, in regions such as Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and the far

south, in regions such as Bouches-du-Rhône, as seen in this film are marked. The most important

performance of this film is motivated, once again, by the desire to conceal. The main protagonist,

Philippe Abrams, becomes the director of a staging of the stereotype of the north held by

southerners. The French northern stereotype is outlined most humorously by Philippe’s wife Julie’s

great uncle who bases his description of life there on his mother’s experiences in 1934. The sheer

hyperbole of the description is what renders this scene amusing as he describes how people die

young in that region and temperatures plummet to –40 degrees in winter, not exceeding zero in

summer! It is no wonder that Julie sends her husband north wearing an unnecessarily thick ski jacket

and their son, Raphaël, is convinced his father’s toes will fall off with frostbite! The old man’s

refrain, ‘C’est le Nooord!’ when Philippe seems (understandably) horrified by the way of life

depicted and questions the validity of the statements uttered by the old man, further dramatises the

stereotype and subversively sets it up as something to be ridiculed. This dialogue is presented like a

myth in the sense that the way it is told resembles the telling of a fable or fairy story. The old man, 7

sitting in a chair, emerges dramatically from the shadows to tell his tale of hardship and cold before

receding back into the shadows and closing his eyes.

It is revealed throughout the first scenes in which Philippe is in Bergues, his new home, that the

stereotype extends to a drinking culture and lack of refinement in behaviour and customs, as well as

speech, that goes so far as to be perceived as vulgar by outsiders. Like in ¡Bienvenido Mister

Marshall!, this stereotype is performed in a stage-managed way in a “set”, which is the old mining

village of Bergues. This is most likely the setting for the difficult way of life described by Julie’s

great uncle. It is here that Philippe “stages” this stereotype alongside his new friends from Bergues.

They use costumes and props much in the same way as the inhabitants of Villar del Río. They dress

up in ugly and old-fashioned clothes, drink from numerous cans of beer and ride around in a

battered Post Office van with half its logo missing from the side so that it reads, “La Pote.”

Philippe’s new comrades assist him in spinning this web of deceit using performance which

upholds the myth of their regional identity and culture, using what Philippe calls ‘quelques clichés’

of the north. Unlike how the inhabitants of Villar del Río project an image of themselves that the

Americans desire to see in order to benefit financially, Antoine, Annabelle and others are

altruistically motivated by friendship. Like the Americans having a fixed notion of exotic Spain in

their collective psyche, Julie has a fixed impression of the north as savage and wants to believe that

the stereotype is true. Perhaps, however, she is simply too narrow-minded and blinded by prejudice

instilled in her, presumably, by her great uncle, to see past the false façade of performance.

The exaggerated nature of the performance staged by Philippe, Antoine, Annabelle and others is

amusing because it underlines the absurdity of the myth that has been built up. However, there is

another performance that relies heavily on slapstick as the source of its humour. Philippe pretends to

be disabled in order to get a transfer in his job and orders a wheelchair to use as a prop to stage a

performance for the inspector checking his application. When the inspector arrives unannounced he

asks for him to be stalled for five minutes whilst Philippe hurriedly rushes back to his office to

unwrap the wheelchair. Unable to rip the plastic covering he launches himself crazily over his desk

and grabs a penknife, with which he manages to slash one of the wheelchair’s tyres! The cue for the

beginning of the performance is the inspector’s entrance into Philippe’s office, at which point

Philippe assumes a doleful facial expression and voice and, seated in the wheelchair, has great

difficult wheeling himself to the other side of the desk because of the ruined tyre. Noticing suddenly

the photograph on his desk of himself standing with Julie and Raphaël, he launches himself across

the desk to knock it over and explains his strange behaviour to the inspector by saying he gets

muscle spasms. He continues to humorously demonstrate this with more physical slapstick. The

inspector buys into the performance until the myth of his disability is broken when Philippe stands

up at the end of the interview to shake his hand and the wheelchair automatically folds itself up and 8

falls over! This scene, whilst amusing, informs the viewer that it is common for appearances to be

deceptive and prepares them to be mistrustful later in the film of the stereotypes of region

propounded by southerners such as Philippe about the north.

Jour de fête also uses slapstick as its main form of humour to expose attitudes surrounding

national identity. Jacques Tati himself plays the lead role of François, the local facteur for the real-

life small, rural town of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, some 200km south of Paris. Whereas in the other

two films it is outwards projection of a national or regional identity that is the main concern of the

performances described here, in this film performances occur from exterior projection of American

culture into the French culture and way of life of the inhabitants of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre. In other

words, the assimilation of stereotypes within American national identity and (specifically, film)

culture. In Jour de fête it is specifically myths of American speed and efficiency that emanate from

that country and they are propagated by cinema. François views a film being screened in the town

square on the American postal service. The viewer is aware throughout this footage that this is a

screening of a film because the audience of locals in the film remain at the bottom of the shot

throughout. The film verges on the absurd in its depiction of American postmen delivering three

hundred million letters a day with minimum delay; in helicopters, planes and on motorbikes that

they are able to jump through flaming hoops. Their call of duty even extends to an Oklahoma Mr

Apollo competition! Like all good propaganda, the film presents what is portrayed as absolute

veracity and it is only through consideration of the overtones of absurdity and the sensationalist

style that this is shown not to be the case.

As these postmen are portrayed as action-loving, masculine daredevils it is no wonder that the

bumbling François (representing the French nation), in his traditional facteur’s uniform and

resembling General Charles de Gaulle somewhat, feels either threatened by progress or admiring of

American methods. Cue the slapstick and a performance of physical comedy that unfolds as he

makes an attempt to mirror these methods on his daily round. The viewer is amused as they watch

François go about his work destroying parcels, losing his bike then having to run after it as it careers

down the road and delivering letters in an inappropriate manner (such as leaving one for the

blacksmith under the horse’s tail!). The progressive spirit imbued in François by the film is further

underscored as futile by the telephone he “connects” to his bicycle that cannot be used to

communicate with anyone. Part of the amusing nature of these scenes is that he pretends to be

talking on the telephone as he cycles along.

François’s absurdity and the laughter he provokes in the viewer on this delivery undermine the

myth propagated by Americans themselves that speed and efficiency are something to aspire to in

this town (a microcosm of rural France) because he fails in implementing them. He represents the

gradual French ‘adoption […] d’une attitude productive’ (Guigueno 121) developing at the time, 9

based on the American model. Having faced ridicule and teasing from members of the community,

who call his bike his ‘helicopter’, François is shamed into taking practical action, naïvely taking the

postal service film on face value. With the encouragement of the fair workers who have come into

the town temporarily, François practises mounting and dismounting his bicycle in a more “efficient”

manner, despite saying himself that he will never be able to compete with the Americans. His use of

the similar bicycle that is mounted on the fair workers’ roundabout to practise this only serves to

highlight the artificiality of the imitation. The cyclical nature of the roundabout, too, reinforces how

little progress will be made in the course of the film. At its end, François has achieved nothing in

terms of progress towards the American system and the last the viewer sees of him he is helping

with the traditional, manual work of farming. He hands his satchel containing the rest of his

deliveries to a young boy called Gaston who happily skips off to finish the round. The viewer feels

that he will do it more thoroughly than the postman himself.

The viewer is given to understand by the aforementioned overtones of absurdity and

sensationalist style of the postal service film that it is a self-aggrandising and exaggerated projection

of technological prowess. Tati seems to suggest that this mythical, magical self-projection of

American national identity (which in this film is synonymous with modernity, encompassing speed

and efficiency) cannot extend to rural France, which is embodied in the small town of Sainte-

Sévère-sur-Indre. This is because the town maintains a sense of generic "Frenchness" despite

François’s best efforts to modernise its methods. Tati is critical but, at the same time, affectionate

towards François as he careers around the town causing more complications than he would do

normally, as if more traditional communities such as this one and Villar del Río in ¡Bienvenido

Mister Marshall! cannot be blamed for aspiring to assimilate and hero-worshipping American

culture.

Hero worship of American culture comes through in another scene that directly follows the

announcement from the town crier that there will be shown in the square that evening a ‘une grande

séance de cinéma’ featuring ‘la belle Gloria Parson.’ One of the fair workers “poses” as a cowboy

from this Western when speaking to a pretty local girl. His dungarees and hat are remarkably similar

to the cowboy’s on the film poster and he plays jauntily with a spanner that resembles a pistol. As

the (English) dialogue of the film, which revolves around the cowboy flattering a pretty girl, is

projected out of the tent where the film is to be shown, their body language matches it, as if they

were speaking these words. The use of a shot reverse shot, commonly used when characters are

conversing also conveys this. Abruptly, though, the illusion is shattered when it is stretched too far

by the cowboy pronouncing, ‘Daphne, I love you’, the sound distorted. The film cuts out and the

magic is broken. The characters are reminded of the reality of their situation and the girl is no longer

enchanted by him. This sequence points to the hero-worship of a more sophisticated culture; the 10

implication being that had the fair worker not taken on the dialogue from the film, the girl would not

have been interested as he is not as exotic as a cowboy in a Western film! It is a further performance

with individuals taking on roles foreign to them to promote themselves, just as national and regional

stereotypes can promote the culture of a country for financial or political gain.

The performances in all three films analysed here, often linked to film and the cinema, reinforce

the idea that the projection in both directions of national, regional and personal identity is something

to be sceptical of. This is due to the exaggeration and disguise involved in performance, seen clearly

in the slapstick humour, costumes, theatre flats and props used in all three films. These projections

of identity are, effectively, propaganda and should be treated as such, particularly in cases when

motivated by political or financial gain, as is the case with the townspeople of Villar del Río in their

attempt to attract financial aid from American diplomats. These films point to the idea that a nation,

region or individual cannot project its identity without resorting to exaggeration, however, it is often

uniform versions of identity that are projected. Just as Franco was interested purely in promoting a

unified Spain in which individuals and any opposing views they might have held were swallowed

up, in ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! personal identity is overlooked and a lack of autonomy is

pinpointed. This lack of autonomy is summed up succinctly in a shot in which the camera focuses

on the back of the heads of male villagers in a crowd; the never-ending sea of hats is uniform and

leaves no room for expression of individuality. The Andalusian costumes given to all of the villagers

for the staged welcome also serves to suppress individuality, as they are very similar, if not the

same, for men, women and children respectively. In Jour de fête François, as a representative of

rural France, assimilates foreign culture and tries to imitate its methods. In doing so he rejects his

own culture, thus subscribing to the early stages in the growing trend for globalisation which unifies

and smoothes out differences between nations. Every day countries across the world become more

homogenous, therefore losing to a certain extent what makes their nation autonomous. Bienvenue

chez les Ch’tis is different to these two films in that it shows on the one hand how identity is often

projected using exaggeration. However, on the other hand, its characters make a conscious choice to

subscribe to stereotypes and performances that label them as a collective and assigns characteristics

to them that they do not necessarily possess as individuals. They are offended when Philippe reveals

how he has upheld the northern stereotype for Julie’s benefit and only decide to stage the myth for

his benefit. In this film a lack of autonomy is presented, in fact, in a more positive light as

assimilation and integration of culture and ideas. This is achieved via the crossing of borders and

communication, as the following part will illustrate.

Add in stock types to this section?

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Second section:

Outline how Franco wanted to create ‘Una España una, grande y libre’ so suppressed/eradicated

difference within regions to create a “unified” whole. Having been isolationist in policy, Spain was

starting to realise it desperately needed to open itself up to the rest of the world to survive.

Dichotomy of wanting to be exotic/different/separate but wanting this exactly because of a need to

open ones borders.

Iribarne slogan to entice foreigners during ‘apertura’ which succeeds BMM. It is ironic that,

whilst they, like Iribarne’s slogan, make an attempt to entice foreigners, they do so by subscribing to

the exotic vision of Spain held by outsiders and thus do not prove that there existed versions of

Spain other than this stereotype. Unlike the Americans who will only see what they have already

envisioned, these Spaniards have little idea what to expect of them when they arrive thanks to their

isolation from other countries and the fact that their limited access to American culture is through

film.

Expectations – Spain dresses up to meet expectations of Americans but have no idea what to expect

of them really because they only know them through film. Talk about the reyes magos – could

almost arrive on camels and they wouldn’t think it was that odd!

Eradication of regional and personal at expense of difference homogenisation.

Rural vs modern: stock types, Francoist institutions, stagnant towns, lack of railway/movement =

lack of knowledge of outside world.

Post Office metaphor for border-crossing and transmission of culture. Border-crossing is

fundamental in breaking down barriers built up by myths.

Language barrier broken down acceptance, xenophobia expelled. Language an essential to a

sense of nation and unity (Herder).

Invasion and siege mentality

Idea that you can go and think up to our borders but no further, be content with what you have in

your own country – it is healthy to broaden horizons and break down national stereotypes (BCLC)

but don’t try and compete with America (BMM). It is positive to be open-minded but only to a

certain extent.

OVERALL CONCLUSION: Uniformity does not mean unity (move section about autonomy

written yesterday as conclusion for part 1 into the conclusion of the whole thing?). Do the films

make/uphold/break more myths? COMMUNICATION IS KEY IN DISPELLING MYTHS THAT

LEAD TO XENOPHOBIA AND A REJECTION OF DIFFERENCE BUT IT ALSO LEADS TO

HOMOGENISATION. WE NEED TO BREAK MYTHS, EMBRACE DIFFERENCE AND

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UPHOLD IT IN ORDER TO CREATE UNITY (WHILST AVOIDING

UNIFORMITY/HOMOGENISATION). Multiculturalism.

Difference is embraced more than anything in these films and they illustrate how myths have been

made as a way of breaking them.

Myth breaking shows that we are all autonomous and, despite sharing certain

characteristics/culture/language, people cannot be collectivised easily. At the end of the day we are

all different and it is difficult to suppress difference completely.

Stuff to add in = gutter shot with two flags which led to censorship of film by Americans.

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