Manuel Villegas López: the Intellectual Father of Nuevo Cine Español

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/aris.88745
Keywords: Manuel Villegas López, Nuevo Cine Español, Official Film School, Francoism, political openness

Abstract

The paper studies the authority on the Nuevo Cine Español exercised by Manuel Villegas López (1906-1980), one of the most important film critics in the Hispanic sphere. To do so, it analyses numerous unpublished texts kept in the Villegas family archive: letters, photographs, preparatory texts for lectures, programmes of film club sessions, etc. In addition, we also refer to his books, especially El nuevo cine Español (1967), the first study of this movement. In doing so, we show his influence in the prefiguration, configuration and refiguration of the NCE. That is to say, in the formation of the filmmakers, in the shaping of the films and in the formation of the audience. Authors who recognise Villegas' authority such as Gubern or García Escudero are mentioned and Villegas' ideas on the concept of modernity, the differentiation between new waves and new cinemas or audience acceptance are confronted with later studies by Losilla, Martínez Torres, Monterde or Zunzunegui. We conclude that Villegas' authority was exercised actively and passively, that is, it was recognised by some (from Summers to Saura), criticised by others (the formalists of the Barcelona School) and even rejected (the defenders of cinema as spectacle).

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Author Biographies

Emeterio Diez Puertas, Universidad Camilo José Cela

PhD in Media Research from the Universidad Carlos III and PhD in Contemporary History from the Universidad Complutense. He holds a degree in Drama from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático and a degree in Philosophy and Arts from the University of Valladolid. He conducts his research in the fields of media history, audiovisual narrative, theatre and gender studies. He has published more than sixty articles on film, radio, television, literature and theatre in journals such as Archivos de la Filmoteca, Historia 16, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Rilce, Signa, Zer and Anales de Literatura Española Contemporánea.

María de Arana Aroca, Universidad San Pablo-CEU, CEU Universities

She finished her Architecture degree at the ETSAM in 1992 and obtained her PhD in 2017. Since completing her studies, she has developed her professional practice with numerous public projects and award-winning competitions, as well as a teaching career at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Universidad San Pablo-CEU. She teaches subjects in the area of Architectural Projects and the History of Art and Architecture.

Her research includes "Emergency housing in refugee camps. Contradictions in the process of inhabiting" and "Through the Looking Glass: Images of the Ordinary World in Oscar-Nominated Spanish Cinema".

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Published
2023-10-06
How to Cite
Diez Puertas E. y de Arana Aroca M. (2023). Manuel Villegas López: the Intellectual Father of Nuevo Cine Español. Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 35(4), 1437-1454. https://doi.org/10.5209/aris.88745
Issue
Vol. 35 No. 4 (2023)
Section
Articles

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