Issue 11
Vanishing Points

Jesus Franco: genre as dissent.

  • Rubén Higueras
Rubén Higueras
Universitat de València
Bio

Published 2011-01-01

Keywords

  • Spanish cinema,
  • cult,
  • eroticism,
  • femininity,
  • gender,
  • modernity,
  • voyeurism
    • ...More
    Less
Copyright Notice

Abstract

The work of Jesus Franco is positioned somewhere between industry and authorship, between generic production and cinematic modernity. Based on patterns of genre cinema, Franco builds his authorial discourse. This is a lucid mise en abîme where each movie takes up aspects of previous works while outlines the next ones. A consistent self-reference in the recycling of stories, subgenera, scenes and actors resulting in a complicated game between the filmmaker and his audience, which has enabled that, while his figure was doomed to marginalization within the industry and the circles of film experts, he has become a key personality in European film genre and a cult filmmaker.

References

AGUILAR, Carlos (1998). Miss Muerte. En J. PÉREZ PERUCHA, Antología crítica del cine español. Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española.

— (1999). Jess Franco. El sexo del horror. Florencia: Glittering Images Edozioni.

COMPANY, Juan M. (1974). El rito y la sangre (Aproximaciones al subterror hispano). En EQUIPO “CARTELERA TURIA”, Cine español, cine de subgéneros. Valencia: Fernando Torres Editor.

TOHILL, Cathal y TOMBS, Pete (1995). Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

GUBERN, Román (1971). Minihistoria informal del cine español de terror. Fotogramas, n. 1173.

LOSILLA, Carlos (1998). Drácula contra Frankenstein. En J. PÉREZ PERUCHA, Antología crítica del cine español. Madrid: Cátedra/Filmoteca Española.