Screening Neoliberalism

Transforming Mexican Cinema, 1988-2012

Ignacio Sanchez Prado

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780826519658
• eBook ISBN: 9780826519672
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia mexicana

Cavernous, often cold, always dark, with the lingering smell of popcorn in the air: the experience of movie-going is universal. The cinematic experience in Mexico is no less profound, and has evolved in complex ways in recent years. Films like Y Tu Mama Tambien, El Mariachi, Amores Perros, and the work of icons like Guillermo del Toro and Salma Hayek represent much more than resurgent interest in the cinema of Mexico. In Screening Neoliberalism, Ignacio Sanchez Prado explores precisely what happened to Mexico's film industry in recent decades. Far from just a history of the period, Screening Neoliberalism explores four deep transformations in the Mexican film industry: the decline of nationalism, the new focus on middle-class audiences, the redefinition of political cinema, and the impact of globalization. This analysis considers the directors and films that have found international notoriety as well as those that have been instrumental in building a domestic market. Screening Neoliberalism exposes the consequences of a film industry forced to find new audiences in Mexico's middle-class in order to achieve economic and cultural viability.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Reinvention of Mexican Cinema
• 1. Nationalism Eroded: Mexican Cinema in Times of Crisis
• 2. Publicists in Love: Romantic Comedy, Cinema Privatization, and the Aesthetics of the Middle Class
• 3. The Neoliberal Gaze: Reframing Politics in the “Democratic Transition”
• 4. The Three Amigos and the Lone Ranger: Mexican “Global Auteurs” on the National Stage
• Conclusion: Mexican Cinema after Neoliberalism
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index