Abstract
This book is a first in many respects. It is the first to devote itself to the idea of the representation of landscape in Spanish film; it is the first book in English to examine the career of the Spanish film producer Elías Querejeta; more egregiously, it is possibly the first to examine the career of any European film producer. Herein lies the difficulty. While cinéastes are more than willing to sate their appetites on yet another book, whether hagiography or immaculate disquisition, on the work of a film director, the idea of scrutinizing the career of a film producer tends to stick in the craw. What is the producer after all, we argue, other than project manager for the director’s creation? Another qualm, after a cursory glance at the book, is the dreaded term auteur, i.e. the elevation of film director to the role of creative artist with a singular vision, rather than merely being a proficient metteur-en-scène. The word auteur is problematic generally in film culture – invoking memories of the most indulgent excesses of Godardisme – because it neglects the intense teamwork and varied origins inherent in the production of any cinematic image. But the idea of producer as auteur?
Fortunately, Whittaker’s book on Querejeta firmly quashes initial qualms on the subject. There is an obvious potential danger of overrating the influence of a producer, yet Whittaker makes an exemplary case for giving Querejeta a not-insignificant place in the history of Spanish film as an auteur–producer. Simultaneously Whitaker advances the idea of the importance of landscape in Querejeta films and the imbrication of space in his films with political resistance.
For those not immersed in the field of Hispanic culture, Elías Querejeta may need an introduction. Nevertheless, even the most disengaged will have heard of Victor Erice’s film of 1973, El espíritu de la colmena (‘The Spirit of the Beehive’), which is generally regarded as the zenith of all Spanish cinema, and which is just one of the 59 feature-length films that have emerged from what is known as La factoría Querejeta. Querejeta’s status as film luminary in Spain is assured – he was at the forefront of cultural resistance under Franco. Despite the fact that his work and life was the subject of a documentary film, El productor (Fernando Méndez Leite, 2006), and Britain accorded him a retrospective at the British Film Institute as early as 1985, the name Querejeta generally provokes a blank response abroad. Strangely, he is not mentioned at all in Evans’ important book Spanish Film (1999); yet he has a whole chapter conferred on him in Stones’ Spanish Cinema (2002). According to Whittaker, in Spain the name Querejeta automatically serves as imprimatur, as well as commercial endorsement; the Querejeta name, in common with most auteurs, also anticipates a measure of critical expectation, however.
In his introduction, Whittaker teases out the inherent paradox of the Querejeta approach: ‘while on the one hand, he has gained the unique status of a “producer–auteur”, his production company has been pivotal to the discovery and promotion of Spain’s most important and visually distinctive film directors’ (p. 4). The very name Querejeta ‘is promoted as an overarching source of meaning’ (p. 4). In his book Whittaker takes us by the hand and guides us assuredly through its manifold textures. The reviewer can handily encapsulate this by noting that a Querejeta film invariably signifies a collaborative team approach; it signifies a film as a tool for political and social change; it signifies a film where the exploration of landscape is integral and where space, whether urban or rural, is privileged within the frame. The result is a film with very high production values but also one that yields a distinctive visual Querejeta style. Ethics and aesthetics are inextricably linked in a Querejeta film.
The sub-title of the book indicates Whittaker’s thesis that space, especially the Spanish rural landscape, unifies Querejeta’s work and that the emphasis on landscape provides a recurrent site of political struggle, whether against Franco or neo-liberal capitalism. As Whittaker demonstrates in his fine introduction, the book successfully combines the ‘discourse’ of cultural studies with lucid prose to explicate his thesis. He employs insights from the usual poststructuralist suspects – Deleuze, Lefebre, Foucault, Bhabha et al. – to elaborate his premise that the Querejeta corpus can be viewed as a narrative of the geographical and spatial transformations of Spanish society.
The six chapters are arranged chronologically, which serendipitously chime with the thematic. The author seamlessly weaves the socio-political with the cinematic. The first two chapters ground Querejeta films within the early miracle years of modernization, known as desarrollismo (1959–73), a period during which Spain underwent three spatial changes – a tourism boom, an exodus of the rural population and subsequent urbanization, all set against a backdrop of stagnant Francoism. Chapters 3 and 4 examine films produced during the period of recession to the formation of its autonomous regions (1973–84), an era characterized by a decline in rural to urban migration, the demise of rural life and the rise of environmentalism, set within post-Franco modernization. Chapters 5 and 6 analyse films produced during the period from the 1980s to the present and investigate the fallout of the post-miracle years and globalization. Querejeta’s projects are still concerned with the marginalized and the dispossessed, albeit now they focus on the effect of the global on the local.
The book’s target audience is broad. To trace the history of Querejeta’s productions is to trace the history of the modernization of Spain. To quote Whittaker in his conclusion: ‘if the films of Elías Querejeta provide a history of modern Spanish space, they can equally be seen as a spatialization of modern Spanish history’ (p. 147). The book is an excellent addition to the field of Spanish film studies, and it will also appeal to anyone interested in the politics, history, social and cultural geography of Spain. To downplay the role of director and emphasize the role of producer is a novel and provocative stance to take, and it is one that bears valued fruit.