A history of Spanish film : cinema and society, 1910-2010 / Sally Faulkner.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-299) and index.

Introduction: Cinema and society 1910-2010 -- Questions of class and questions of art in early cinema -- Social mobility and cinema of the 1940s and 1950s : consolation and condemnation -- Charting upward social mobility : 1960s films about the middle classes and the middlebrow -- The "third way" and the Spanish middlebrow film in the 1970s -- Mirâo films and middlebrow cinema in the 1980s -- Middlebrow cinema of the 1990s : from Mirâo to cine social -- From cine social to heritage cinema in films of the 2000s.

"A History of Spanish Film explores Spanish film from the beginnings of the industry to the present day by combining some of the most exciting work taking place in film studies with some of the most urgent questions that have preoccupied twentieth-century Spain. It addresses new questions in film studies, like 'prestige film' and 'middlebrow cinema', and places these in the context of a country defined by social mobility, including the 1920s industrial boom, the 1940s post-Civil War depression, and the mass movement into the middle classes from the 1960s onwards. Close textual analysis of some 42 films from 1910-2010 provides an especially useful avenue into the study of this cinema for the student. [the book]: uniquely offers extensive close readings of 42 films, which are especially useful to students and teachers of Spanish cinema; analyses Spanish silent cinema and films of the Franco era as well as contemporary examples; interrogates film's relations with other media, including literature, pictorial art and television; explores both 'auteur' and 'popular' cinemas; establishes 'prestige' and the 'middlebrow' as crucial new terms in Spanish cinema studies; considers the transnationality of Spanish cinema throughout its century of existence. Contemporary directors covered in this book include Almodóvar, Bollaín, Díaz Yanes and more."--Publisher's description.