Una epoca fatal: Mexican cinema's death and rebirth, 1994-2006
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Description
This dissertation examines the years leading up to and just beyond Mexico's election in 2000 of President Vicente Fox and the National Action Party---the end of 71 years of dominance by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. My principal hypothesis is that the films produced during these two transitional presidential terms (1994-2000 and 2000-2006), while attempting to tell the story of the nation's changing realities, did so using a number of aesthetic and narrative elements that are themselves a result of political and economic changes of that era, and furthermore, that the resulting productions are best understood in the context of this transformational moment. It considers cultural policy during this period as an intrinsic element in the industry's shifts, beginning with NAFTA and ending with the first legislation to allow income-tax reductions through investment in film productions The title of this dissertation first refers to the notion that Mexican cinema 'died' decades ago, and was 'reborn' in recent years, but also considers that thematic recurrence of Death in contemporary Mexican cinema reflects at once classical Western narratives and specific cultural trends. While Chapter One focuses on the supposed death and rebirth of the film industry over the past two decades in the face of trade liberalization, Chapter Two looks at fatality and the fatalism of tragic endings in terms of ideological implications linked to a new wave of aestheticized social realism, to neoliberal policy, and to Mexico's political transition. The subsequent chapters explore how other film policies, formal and informal, have contributed to the industry's or to individual films' demise and/or resurrection Framing the research in this time period presents historically the 'before' and 'after' of Mexico's official (albeit incomplete) democratic transition, one which coincides with the aforementioned cinematic renaissance. In shaping the themes of each chapter, the idea of ambivalence continually resurfaced in different forms. I read this ambivalence as an embodiment of transition, its tensions, and the attempts by individuals to reconcile recent changes, exploring the ambivalence inherent to the primary themes of each chapter: trade liberalization, violence and justice, censorship, and artistic innovation