24
the
universit y
of
wisconsin
press
•
F
all
2013
FILM / CULTURAL STUDIES / SPAIN
“
Dark Laughter
provides us with a refreshingly new set of frames for
viewing Spanish dark comedy.”
—Eva Woods Peiro, Vassar College
In
Dark Laughter
, Juan F. Egea provides a remarkable in-depth analysis of the
dark comedy film genre in Spain, as well as a provocative critical engagement
with the idea of national cinema, the visual dimension of cultural specificity, and
the ethics of dark humor.
Egea begins his analysis with General Franco’s dictatorship in the 1960s—a
regime that opened the country to new economic forces while maintaining its
repressive nature—exploring key works by Luis García Berlanga, Marco Ferreri,
Fernando Fernán-Gómez, and Luis Buñuel.
Dark Laughter
then moves to the first
films of Pedro Almodóvar in the early 1980s during the Spanish political transi-
tion to democracy before examining Alex de la Iglesia and the new dark comedies
of the 1990s. Analyzing this younger generation of filmmakers, Egea traces dark
comedy to Spain’s displays of ultramodernity such as the Universal Exposition in
Seville and the Barcelona Olympic Games.
At its core,
Dark Laughter
is a substantial inquiry into the epistemology of
comedy, the intricacies of visual modernity, and the relationship between cinema
and a wider framework of representational practices.
Juan F. Egea
is a professor in the department
of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of
La poesía
del nosotros: Jaime Gil de Biedma y la secuencia
lírica moderna
. He has also published extensively
on Spanish film, poetry, and culture.
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
NOVEMBER
LC: 2013010413 PN
200 PP. 6 × 9 28 B/W PHOTOS
E-BOOK $24.95 S ISBN 978-0-299-29543-1
Wisconsin Film Studies
Patrick McGilligan, Series Editor
“Always insightful and often brilliant,
Dark Laughter
will force scholars to
revisit Spanish cinema in the late
years of the Franco dictatorship
while introducing general audiences
to some of the masterpieces of
Spanish black comic cinema.”
—Marvin D’Lugo, author of
Guide to
Cinema in Spain
Of re l at ed int e re s t
Román Gubern and Paul Hammond
“An indispensable book for the Buñuel
scholar and important to those interested
in the history of Spanish film, the in-
workings of the Surrealist movement,
and the European left-wing political scene
from the late twenties through the Spanish
Civil War.”—Julie Jones, University of
New Orleans
PUBLISHED JANUARY 2012
LC: 2011011630 PN 456 PP. 6 × 9
44 B/W ILLUS.
E-BOOK $19.95 S ISBN 978-0-299-28473-2
Wisconsin Film Studies
