Politics of Age and Disability in Contemporary Spanish Film

Matthew J. Marr is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

"Matthew J. Marr's The Politics of Age and Disability in Contemporary Spanish Film is the first comprehenseive study of representations of adolescence, senescence and disability in Spanish cinema. There are no other in-depth book-length studies in English or Spanish on these topics to date." - Tatjana Pavlovic, Tulane University, US"Marr presents fresh interpretations that shed new light on well-known works, offering insights for seasoned scholars of Spanish cultural studies, disability studies, and/or studies of aging, as well as an accessible entry point for non-specialists. The book will be a crucial source for future studies of the six films analyzed, and the individual chapters will also be useful for graduate and advanced undergraduate seminars on Spanish film and disability studies." - Julie Avril Minich, The University of Texas at Austin, USA"Marr's oppositional analysis of film's formal properties is welcome not merely because of his rich engagement with the film as an artistic test, but also because of what it reveals abut the insufficiency of some approaches to disability. That is, I join the critic in highlighting how intellectual disabilities are often overshadowed by physical disabilities in popular culture, public discourse and even, perhaps, within disability studies generally speaking."- Benjamin Fraser, East Carolina University, USA

• Introduction: Framing Cultural Pluralism Anew in Contemporary Spanish Cinema Studies I. Adolescence and Alterity 1.The"Angry Girl" in Mensaka, Páginas de una historia ("Mensaka, Pages from a Story")(Salvador García Ruiz, 1998) 2. A Lad Indeed: Boyhood Friendship and the Politics of Masculinity in El Bola ("Pellet")(Achero Mañas, 2000) II. Senescence and Subjectivity 3.The Black Comedy of Aging in Justino, un asesino de la tercera edad ("Justino, a Senior Citizen Killer")("La Cuadrilla" or Santiago Aguilar & Luis Guridi, 1994) 4.Senescent Seduction in Elsa y Fred ("Elsa and Fred")(Marcos Carnevale, 2004) III. Discourses of Disability 5.The Unseen Inside: Mental Illness as Disability in Mar adentro ("The Sea Inside")(Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) 6. A Pluralistic Vision: On Blindness and the Break with Auteurist "Autocracy" in Los abrazos rotos ("Broken Embraces")(Pedro Almodóvar, 2009)Afterword