Aesthetics and Politics in the Mexican Film Industry [Hardcover]

Evaluating a broad selection of Mexican films produced from the early 1990s to the present, this study examines how production methods, audience demographics, and aesthetic approaches have changed throughout the past two decades and how these changes relate to the country's transitions to a democratic political system and a free-market economy.Una ?poca fatal: An Era of Fatality, Tragic Endings, and New Beginnings PART I: THE POLITICS OF TRANSITION 1. Industry and Policy: Privatizing a National Cinema 2. Audiences and Markets: On Spectatorship and Citizenship 3. Censorship and Sensationalism: Neotremendismo autoritario PART II: THE AESTHETICS OF TRANSITION 4. Hyperrealism and Violence: Fatal Aesthetics 5. Independence and Innovation: Indie Film and the Youth Market 6. Coproduction and Transnationalism: National Culture in a Global Marketplace 7. Between Tragedy and Farce: Mexico and Its Cinema Relive History

This is a major contribution to Mexican film studies. Going well beyond the study of films by internationally recognized auteurs, Misha MacLaird provides us with an indispensable road map to navigate through the discourses of crisis and renaissance that hover over contemporary Mexican cinema. She applies wit and intelligence as well as over 15 years of fieldwork to bear on her study of this critical moment in Mexico's political and cinematic culture. - Sergio de la Mora, University of California, Davis, USA, author of Cinemachismo

Aesthetics and Politics in the Mexican Film Industry draws on Misha MacLaird's extensive knowledge and first-hand research to make a compelling argument for thinking about recent Mexican cinema and its aesthetic and narrative elements including successes like Amores perros, Y tu mam? tambi?n, and El crimen del Padre Amaro as the product of profound political and economic changes. Through analysis of formal elements, industry practices, and legislation, MacLaird skillfully examines the ways in which culturall–