Mexican Screen Fiction

Paul Julian Smith is Distinguished Professor in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Program at the Graduate Center in City University of New York.

''Combining insightful readings of key films with social science approaches to issues of production, distribution, exhibition and audience response, Paul Julian Smith’s Mexican Screen Fiction ventures beyond the boundaries of traditional film studies to offer a probing and wide ranging study of Mexico’s dynamic audiovisual sector.''Kathleen Vernon, Stony Brook University''With his latest book, Paul Julian Smith not only offers valuable insights into contemporary Mexican screen fiction, bringing together both film and TV, which are located in their industrial, critical, cultural and historical contexts. Researched and written with evident pleasure, he provides us with an innovative paradigm for thinking about screen media in the twenty-first century.''Andrea Noble, Durham University

• Figures viiPreface viiiIntroduction: Mexican Screen Fiction 1Jump Cut 1: Y tu mamá también 7PART I SETTING SCENES 131 Revising Mexican Cinema 152 Following Festivals 30Jump Cut 2: Perfume de violetas, Frida 47PART II AUTEURS AND GENRES 533 A Case Study in Transnational Gay Auteurism: Julián Hernández’s A Thousand Clouds of Peace Encircle the Sky, Love, Your Being Love Will Never End 554 A Case Study in Genre and Nationality: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth 64Jump Cut 3: 21 Grams, Battle in Heaven, KM 31 78PART III MARGINAL SUBJECTS 875 Youth Culture in Mexico: Rebel, I’m Gonna Explode 896 Lady Killers in TV Fiction: Women Murderers, The Aparicio Women 120Jump Cut 4: We Are What We Are, Leap Year 152PART IV TALES OF INSECURITY 1597 Film Fictions of Violence: Hell, Saving PrivatePérez, Miss Bala 1618 TV Histories of Violence: In the Sewers, Cries of Death and Freedom 191Jump Cut 5: The Prize, Windows to the Sea 220Conclusion: Between Cinema and Television 224Appendix: Interviews with Five Media Professionals(Jesús Mario Lozano, Daniela Michel, Alejandro Ramírez, Roberto Fiesco, Leticia López Margalli) 227Bibliography 256Index 266