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Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 61

Legenda

  27 June 2025  •  428pp

ISBN: 978-1-839542-32-9 (hardback)  •  RRP £95, $120, €120

ISBN: 978-1-839542-93-0 (paperback, forthcoming)

ISBN: 978-1-839542-94-7 (JSTOR ebook)

Access online: Books@JSTOR

ContemporarySpanishFilm

What’s so funny about Spanish cinema? Throughout the past half-century, film comedies have flourished across Spain, breaking box-office records by reflecting, praising, or scoffing at the fragile transition from Francoist dictatorship to present-day democracy. But how, exactly, does the nation find itself funny onscreen? And, in this cathartic, self-deprecating humour, what ghosts are exorcised, what anxieties released? In this wide-ranging and lively study, Matthew Hilborn reclaims comedy as politically influential, showing how filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar, Bigas Luna, Santiago Segura, Álex de la Iglesia, Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, and Javier Ruiz Caldera continually reimagine ‘Spanishness’ amid political contradiction and compromise. How Spain sniggers becomes a vital sign of change, exposing what’s really tickling the nation’s fancy – or getting under its skin – at key turning-points in recent history.

Matthew Hilborn is Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Spanish Studies and Film Studies at University College Dublin.

For a contents listing, see this volume at JSTOR.

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www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Film-Comedy-Spain
www.mhra.org.uk/publications/shlc-61