Dolores Tierney
University of Sussex, School of Media, Film and Music, Faculty Member
- Latin American Cinema, Latin-American Film, 'Third Cinema' Theory and Third World Radical Films, Transnational Cinema, Mexican Cinema, Richard Dyer, and 24 moreCine Mexicano, John Ford, Mexican melodrama gender and dance Dyer cabaretera, Emilio Fernandez, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Transnational Filmmaking, Inter American Filmmaking, Race and Ethnicity In the Cinema, Digital Filmmaking, US Spanish Language Television, Digital Cinema, Melodrama, Brazilian Cinema, Exploitation Cinema, Cuban Cinema, Latin American Boom Novelists, Review Cuban Cinema, Latin American Film Cuban Cinema, Cult Cinema, Co productions, Telenovelas, and Damián Szifrónedit
- My research is transnational and transatlantic in its scope, and concerned with the aesthetics and politics of transn... moreMy research is transnational and transatlantic in its scope, and concerned with the aesthetics and politics of transnational filmmaking practices between Latin America, the U.S. and Spain. I've written on transnational filmmaking during the classical era focusing in particular on Mexican director Emilio Fernandez (2007) and subsequently Fernandez's involvement with RKO and its attempts to co-opt the Mexican film industry and its stars in the immediate postwar era (2011)
Within this research on transnationalism in cinema I have focused on both contemporary directors who make deterritorialized cinema (Inarritu)(2009) as well as actors from the classical and contemporary eras (Pedro Armendariz, Gael Garcia Bernal) who make films in Latin America and the US (2012, 2018). In each case my work explores how creative strategies (of acting and filmmaking) may shift or indeed remain constant due to the ideological and commercial imperatives of the Hollywood industry.
I've just published a book about transnationalism across Latin American cinema, (New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinemas) focusing on key directors who have facilitated the recent 'boom' (Inarritu, Del Toro, Cuaron, Meirelles and Salles)but also incorporating smaller, festival and art house cinemas which are, I argue, also impacted by transnational flows of capital and creativity.
I'm currently working on two projects: "Finding (Emilio) Fernandez: Latinx Labour and (In)Visibility in Late Silent/Early Sound Hollywood" and how Mexican actors faired during the period of the Red Scare in Hollywood in the late 1940s/early 1950s.edit
Focuses on six of Latin America's transnational auteurs (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles and Juan José Campanella) Offers a fresh perspective on the hugely successful... more
Focuses on six of Latin America's transnational auteurs (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles and Juan José Campanella)
Offers a fresh perspective on the hugely successful Latin America films of the turn of the twenty-first century and the subsequent deterritorialized films by (some) of the same directors
Examines how different genres function across different cultures
Offers a fresh perspective on the hugely successful Latin America films of the turn of the twenty-first century and the subsequent deterritorialized films by (some) of the same directors
Examines how different genres function across different cultures
This brief blog post from Mediatico examines del Toro's The Shape of Water in light of current debates about diversity in the US film industry. It explores how the film makes a space for Latinx presence in the US and explores the fuction... more
This brief blog post from Mediatico examines del Toro's The Shape of Water in light of current debates about diversity in the US film industry. It explores how the film makes a space for Latinx presence in the US and explores the fuction of Latinness in the US political imaginary.
With Cuba about to celebrate the fiftieth year of its Revolution, it seems appropriate at this juncture to look back on the half century of cinematic production since the founding of its national film institute, ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de... more
With Cuba about to celebrate the fiftieth year of its Revolution, it seems appropriate at this juncture to look back on the half century of cinematic production since the founding of its national film institute, ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte y Industria Cinematográficos) and the ...
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The Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has most recently been in evidence as a young migrant hunted by a murderous anti-immigration vigilante in Jonas Cuarón's Desierto (Desert, 2015), as a love sick husband, trying to win his wife back in... more
The Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has most recently been in evidence as a young migrant hunted by a murderous anti-immigration vigilante in Jonas Cuarón's Desierto (Desert, 2015), as a love sick husband, trying to win his wife back in Roberto Schneider's Me estas matando Susana (You're Killing Me Susana, 2016) and as Rodrigo de Souza, the conductor of the fi ctional New York Symphony in the Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle for which he won a Golden Globe in 2016. Rodrigo is Bernal's most mainstream role to date in a career that has otherwise been characterized by high-profile parts in a newly reinvigorated Latin American and global art cinema. From his film debut in Alejandro González Iñárritu's critically and commercially successful Amores perros (Love's a Bitch, 2000) followed by major roles in three of the region's other highest grossing films -Alfonso Cuarón's
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This chapter analyzes contemporary film stardom in Latin America through three stars who represent not just a gender and geographical sweep of the continent (Brazilian Sonia Braga, Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal, and Argentine Ricardo Darin),... more
This chapter analyzes contemporary film stardom in Latin America through three stars who represent not just a gender and geographical sweep of the continent (Brazilian Sonia Braga, Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal, and Argentine Ricardo Darin), but also the key discourses that define how Latin American stardom currently works. Although this chapter relates these discourses to individual stars and their careers, it also acknowledges that these concepts apply as well to other contemporary Latin American stars (Salma Hayek, Wagner Moura etc.)
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This chapter explores how Gael Garcia Bernal's acting and personal discursive strategies come together in Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles 2004) with the twin aspects of his stardom (Latin sensuality and politics), elements of Salles'... more
This chapter explores how Gael Garcia Bernal's acting and personal discursive strategies come together in Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles 2004) with the twin aspects of his stardom (Latin sensuality and politics), elements of Salles' realist filmmaking style, and the film's mise en scene to create Guevara as a 'ravishing revolutionary"
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This article analyses Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant (2015) as a contemporary western, exploring how it interrogates the overt coloniality and Anglocentrism associated with the western genre and the source story of... more
This article analyses Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant (2015) as a contemporary western, exploring how it interrogates the overt coloniality and Anglocentrism associated with the western genre and the source story of nineteenth-century fur trapper Hugh Glass on which the film is based. Through narrative and textual analysis, the article suggests that the addition of active indigenous characters into Glass' story, as well as the film's focus on the genocidal violence inflicted on native peoples and self-conscious realist strategies, challenge the inherent colonialism of the western. It also points out, however, that the scope of these indigenous narratives is limited and made secondary to the narrative of the White fur trapper and how The Revenant falls back on some of the stereotypical representational norms of the generic western. The article argues that this duality, where the film both challenges and reifies the colonialist norms of the western, is a result of the film's interstitial position in-between the industrial and genre norms of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking and Iñárritu's specific auteurist, postcolonial and ideological vision.
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This article seeks to revise and question the cultural politics through which Third World film criticism has historically constructed Latin American continental and national film canons. To this end it reassesses the highly politicized... more
This article seeks to revise and question the cultural politics through which Third World film criticism has historically constructed Latin American continental and national film canons. To this end it reassesses the highly politicized notion of an “imperfect,” marginal or alternative cinema promoted in the 1960’s by filmmakers like the Brazilian Glauber Rocha and the Cuban Julio García Espinosa by looking at the contemporaneous exploitation cinema of Brazil’s José Mojica Marins. The article suggests that what makes Mojica’s work significant is the fact that it challenges the elitist, high cultural standards on which Brazil’s Cinema Novo is judged the representative of Brazilian cinema of 1960s –by subverting the idea of what a an imperfect/marginal/alternative cinema is.
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Between 1945 and 1947 Emilio Fernandez, the director ofclassics like Maria Candelaria (1943a) and Flor Silvestre (1943b) and Mexico's most significant auteur, made two films with Hollywood studio RKO: La perla/ Pearl (l946a) and The... more
Between 1945 and 1947 Emilio Fernandez, the director ofclassics like Maria Candelaria (1943a) and Flor Silvestre (1943b) and Mexico's most significant auteur, made two films with Hollywood studio RKO: La perla/ Pearl (l946a) and The Fugitive (Ford1948a). Through analysis of these films and their production context,as well as insights gained from the production files, this article will attempt to shed new light on the role Fernandez and these inter-American films played both in Hollywood's postwar mission in the United States, Mexico and Latin America and in Mexico's own national industry.
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In Focus Section of Cinema Journal - containing introduction by the editors and essays by Dolores Tierney, Ana Lopez, Nic Poppe Rielle Navitski
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Exploring the much neglected area of Latin American cinem. this anthology challenges established continental and national histories and canons which often exclude exploitation cinema due to its perceived 'low' cultural... more
Exploring the much neglected area of Latin American cinem. this anthology challenges established continental and national histories and canons which often exclude exploitation cinema due to its perceived 'low' cultural status. It argues that Latin American exploitation cinema makes ...
Abstract Discussions about the digital image’s connection to reality (Cubitt 1999; Stam 2000) provoke a re-evaluation in our theoretical frames for conceptualizing the documentary practices of digitally shot documentary films because,... more
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Discussions about the digital image’s connection to reality (Cubitt 1999; Stam 2000) provoke a re-evaluation in our theoretical frames for conceptualizing the documentary practices of digitally shot documentary films because, quite simply, documentaries rely on a basic notion of reality. Two recent, digitally shot, Latin American films, which make use of the documentary mode, present interesting case studies with respect to rethinking realism in a digital age, because they use the digital medium to engage with the concept of different realities, ones that have a specific cultural resonance in Latin America. This chapter focuses on two of these documentaries; Cuban Fernando Pérez’ Suite Havana (2003) and Franco-Colombian Barbet Schroeder’s Our Lady of the Assassins (2000).
Discussions about the digital image’s connection to reality (Cubitt 1999; Stam 2000) provoke a re-evaluation in our theoretical frames for conceptualizing the documentary practices of digitally shot documentary films because, quite simply, documentaries rely on a basic notion of reality. Two recent, digitally shot, Latin American films, which make use of the documentary mode, present interesting case studies with respect to rethinking realism in a digital age, because they use the digital medium to engage with the concept of different realities, ones that have a specific cultural resonance in Latin America. This chapter focuses on two of these documentaries; Cuban Fernando Pérez’ Suite Havana (2003) and Franco-Colombian Barbet Schroeder’s Our Lady of the Assassins (2000).
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In a 2008 essay, Alexandra Juhasz suggests that the many utopian dreams of radical filmmakers worldwide (and within these we can include those of Cuban filmmaker García Espinosa author of radical manifesto ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’) might... more
In a 2008 essay, Alexandra Juhasz suggests that the many utopian dreams of radical filmmakers worldwide (and within these we can include those of Cuban filmmaker García Espinosa author of radical manifesto ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’) might actually be a foretelling of YouTube. Eduardo del Llano’s ten short films (made over a period of 6 years), and now all uploaded onto YouTube, appear to be part of this dream of a free production of culture. Indeed other than that they are made by personnel trained within Cuba’s film schools (or at ICAIC). As Cristina Venegas (2010) points out, correlations between film culture and the freedoms of digital technology or indeed connectivity which can be made in other countries in the world (though even Juhasz actually has reservations about the accessibility and multivocality of YouTube), are much more complicated in Cuba where access to the internet has been historically much more limited and even controlled (2010: 14, 143)
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Chapter 3 looks at Guillermo del Toro’s horror trilogy Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. Using the frameworks of feminism, Marx and Freud it explores how horror and horrific tropes function in these films on a... more
Chapter 3 looks at Guillermo del Toro’s horror trilogy Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. Using the frameworks of feminism, Marx and Freud it explores how horror and horrific tropes function in these films on a political level to address particular issues relevant to Mexico (the impact of NAFTA) and Spain (the recovery of historical memory of Spanish Civil War repression). It traces how these three films respond to and reproduce a shared Hispanic imaginary, history and politics by adapting and adopting Hollywood horror conventions as these have been read in political terms by Robin Wood (1985), Tanya Modleski (1999) and Barbara Creed (1999). Ultimately, it suggests that Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno (Crimson Peak is analysed in the Epilogue) speak not only to local/national issues but also to transatlantic political concerns enabled by the progressive discourse at the heart of horror cinema.
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This introduction to a Special Issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinema charts the shift in Alejandro González Iñárritu's directorial persona from transnational auteur to mainstream figure over the course of his six... more
This introduction to a Special Issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinema charts the shift in Alejandro González Iñárritu's directorial persona from transnational auteur to mainstream figure over the course of his six feature films and virtual reality installation: Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), The Revenant (2015) and the installation Carne y arena (Virtually Present, Physically invisible) (2017). It argues that this shift into a (predominantly Anglo) mainstream is reflected in the different ways in which his last names (apellidos) are used, abbreviated or even excised altogether, and in the differing approaches to him as auteur employed by the authors of the different articles, but that Iñárritu’s persona and creative collaborators continue to be primarily determined by his Mexican and Latin American identity.
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... Tacones plateados y Melodrama mexicano: Salón México y Danzón. Autores: Dolores Tierney; Localización: Archivos de la filmoteca: Revista de estudios históricos sobre la imagen, ISSN 0214-6606, Nº 31, 1999 , págs. 212-227. Fundación... more
... Tacones plateados y Melodrama mexicano: Salón México y Danzón. Autores: Dolores Tierney; Localización: Archivos de la filmoteca: Revista de estudios históricos sobre la imagen, ISSN 0214-6606, Nº 31, 1999 , págs. 212-227. Fundación Dialnet. ...
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The chapter analyzes contemporary film stardom in Latin America through three stars who represent a gender and geographical sweep of the continent (Mexican Gael García Bernal, Argentine Ricardo Darín, and Brazilian Sônia Braga) and key... more
The chapter analyzes contemporary film stardom in Latin America through three stars who represent a gender and geographical sweep of the continent (Mexican Gael García Bernal, Argentine Ricardo Darín, and Brazilian Sônia Braga) and key discourses that define how Latin American stardom currently works: the abandonment of the local/shift into the global and eventual return, the tension between art house and mainstream cinema, national and international stardom, and ethnic stardom.
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New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinema examines the hugely successful transnational films of the early 2000s (Amores perros, Y tu mamá también, Cidade de Deus, Diarios de motocicleta) and the subsequent wave of often... more
New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinema examines the hugely successful transnational films of the early 2000s (Amores perros, Y tu mamá también, Cidade de Deus, Diarios de motocicleta) and the subsequent wave of often ‘deterritorialised’ films by the same directors (Iñárritu, Cuarón, del Toro, Meirelles, Salles, Campanella). It argues that although undoubtedly commercial and/or partly produced within the parametres of the United States film industry, these films are not necessarily apolitical nor totally divorced from key notions of national or continental identity. Bringing a new perspective to the films of Latin America’s transnational auteurs, this is a major contribution towards understanding how different genres function across different cultures.