Relative Pioneering and Shared Authorship. Myth versus History of the Spanish Cinema

Abstract

The modern historiography of the Spanish movies has tended to divide into lots, in terms of methodological and ideological options. In like manner, anti-empiricist and anti-positivist slogans have had perverse effects for an authentic knowledge of the vicissitude of our cinematography, in particular for its industry and the paper of the subjects in the evolution of the same. The present work aspires to arbitrate this debate, and to contribute a proposal of encounter, reasoned, critical, constructive and concrete. Three Spanish classical films – namely: Goyescas (Benito Perojo, 1942), La calle sin sol (Rafael Gil, 1948) and Los peces rojos (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1955)– are used to contribute, respectively, data about the genesis of the first; the second’s technical new thing; and the authorship of the third one. With these three examples, the author indicates which is the nature of the historiographical lagoons that are, to his judgment, more urgent; reorganizes priorities; arguments the strategies that may be considered best-suited to cover those holes; and illustrates the performance that can be obtained of a well-balanced and not excluding use of the techniques and the traditional and contemporaries technologies, for a most systematic understanding of the object of study.