Dark Laughter: Spanish Film, Comedy, and the Nation

by Juan F. Egea

In Dark Laughter, Juan F. Egea provides a remarkable in-depth analysis of the dark comedy film genre in Spain, as well as a provocative critical engagement with the idea of national cinema, the visual dimension of cultural specificity, and the ethics of dark humor.Egea begins his analysis with General Franco's dictatorship in the 1960s—a regime that opened the country to new economic forces while maintaining its repressive nature—exploring key works by Luis García Berlanga, Marco Ferreri, Fernando Fernán-Gómez, and Luis Buñuel. Dark Laughter then moves to the first films of Pedro Almodóvar in the early 1980s during the Spanish political transition to democracy before examining Alex de la Iglesia and the new dark comedies of the 1990s. Analyzing this younger generation of filmmakers, Egea traces dark comedy to Spain's displays of ultramodernity such as the Universal Exposition in Seville and the Barcelona Olympic Games.At its core, Dark Laughter is a substantial inquiry into the epistemology of comedy, the intricacies of visual modernity, and the relationship between cinema and a wider framework of representational practices.

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2014

Reviews

[Juan Camilo Velandia Quijano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deep analysis of the mise-en-scène of a group of classic Spanish movies considered as "dark comedies". It's a very well written and supported book about the elements and their meaning in the Franco's dictatorship era in Spain. It wasn't what I was looking for in my investigation, but it is definitely a wonderful piece in the history of those Spanish films that changed the way of seeing the country, and even their humor.