Why love hurts? With live music by Mursego

Presentation by the researcher Sonia García López: Why love hurts?

Aquella primavera, Ángela Asensio y de Merlo, 1958, 7’ (sin sonido)

El telegrama, Elena Lumbreras, 1961, 7’ (sin sonido)

Novios en el parque, Kathlyn Waldo, 1960, 5’(sin sonido)

Carmen de Carabanchel, Cecilia Bartolomé, 1965, 16’

Encuentro, Kathlyn Waldo, 1964, 17’

La otra soledad, Josefina Molina, 1966, 16’  

Why does love hurt? Women at the Official Film School

Between 1947 and 1969, more than ten women studied the Directing speciality at the Official Film School (Spanish acronym EOC), originally called the Institute for Film Research and Experiences (IIEC). Josefina Molina and Cecilia Bartolomé were the only two to graduate as film directors, both of them in 1969 more than two decades after the school first opened its doors. Both Molina and Bartolomé are now considered pioneers of film about the Spanish transition to democracy and hold a notable place (albeit without all the recognition they deserve) in the recent history of film produced on Spanish soil. The other women on the Directing speciality (with the exception of Helena Lumbreras) remain in obscurity; the official history of film is constructed around industry and artistic criteria, and rarely cultural ones. However, their contribution to the culture of motion pictures, at a time when it was incredibly difficult for women to break into the directing world, is crucial to understanding an untold part of the history of our cinema and to providing exemplars that facilitate a connection with present-day battles.

Despite the backing of some of the school's professors, such as Carlos Saura, Luis García Berlanga and José Luis Borau, female directing students at the EOC had to prove themselves in a deeply sexist and nationalist context. In her entrance exam, Manuela González-Haba was asked how she would feel, as a woman, having to direct large teams mainly comprising men. Ángela Asensio said she felt first hand the ‘discrimination [on the basis of sex] practiced by the teachers at the IIEC’. And Kathryn Waldo, an American who exhausted all possibilities for renewing her matriculation on the Directing speciality, was advised to study the Production speciality because they would never allow the first directing graduate to be from beyond Spain's borders. Despite the challenges they faced, these women used the film practicals and exercises they completed in the school to demonstrate their passion for film, their knowledge of the techniques and know-how in the film sector, and their commitment to directing. Their EOC pieces are now stored in the Spanish Film Library and give us a glimpse into their approach to making film and their way of thinking about the world and about human relationships, whether in terms of social class, a generational perspective, or the relationships between the sexes.

This section, titled Why does love hurt?, is named after the eponymous novel by Eva Illouz (2012). It is an invitation to reflect on the various ways in which these students used film to express their desires, their worries or their unease with respect to the prevailing social and sexual order. I present a thematic journey that sits in dialogue with feminist writing and aims to shine a light on how the female directing students of the EOC showcased their unease and their rebellion against the romantic praxis of the time.

Autonomy and recognition: Aquella primavera and El telegrama

‘Contrary to the Hegelian dialectic on the master and the slave, in which the first can only be duly recognised by an autonomous slave, men need female recognition to a lesser degree than women need male recognition. This is the case because men and women alike need male recognition’.

Eva Illouz, Why does love hurt?

These two short films by Ángela Asensio and Elena Lumbreras* each present a female character whose desire to please the man with whom she is in love results in her changing how she dresses and adopting a role divorced from who she really is. The adolescent girl in Aquella primavera (Ángela Asensio, 1958) falls innocently in love with a much older acquaintance of her father. To win his favour, she takes on the appearance and mannerisms of the archetypal femme fatal. The protagonist of El telegrama (Elena Lumbreras, 1961), a bohemian woman who defies convention by living alone and unmarried, transforms into a sophisticated and attentive woman to please her lover. Neither woman’s desires will be met.

Romantic readings: Encuentro and La otra soledad

‘Then she recalled the heroines of the books that she had read (…). She became herself, as it were, an actual part of these imaginings, and realised the love-dream of her youth as she saw herself in this type of amorous women whom she had so envied. […] But now she triumphed, and the love so long pent up burst forth in full joyous bubblings.’

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Two young women with no experience of romantic relationships are the stars of Encuentro (Kathryn Waldo, 1964) and La otra soledad (Josefina Molina, 1966). Both are avid readers of serialised novels and we suspect that it is in their uncontrolled imagination, nourished by popular romantic literature, where they conceive their most burning desires towards the male protagonists. The latter, too, are young, though experienced in life and love and worlds apart from the characters in the novels. The protagonist of La otra soledad is also a fan of Hollywood movies – that dream factory from which idealised love receives its secular blessing. ‘Know what?’, a friend says to another when she cannot console her. ‘I have the impression that this business of being a woman is nothing but a nuisance’.

The traps of marriage: Novios en el parque and Carmen de Carabanchel

‘One of the greatest joys in a marriage is the absence of the husband. You cannot know this unless you've experienced it’.

‘You see marriage the way a saint would see a couple of handguns. Why did you do it?’

‘I don’t really remember (...). I think it's like an electric shock. This morning I woke up dressed for strict mourning; too late, decision made’.

Christiane Rochefort, Les stances à Sophie

The short films Novios en el parque (Kathryn Waldo, 1960) and Carmen de Carabanchel (Cecilia Bartolomé, 1965) introduce an ironic, if not openly sarcastic note with respect to the themes of the other pieces in the session. In these practicals from Kathryn Waldo and Cecilia Bartolomé, the romantic ideals that feed into the idealisation of marriage and reproductive love in bourgeois society fall apart once the protagonists have walked down the aisle... more so when the couple create their offspring. No doubt we’ll smile a few faint (bitter, of course) smiles when we see how the traps of marriage are treated here; how the female protagonists feel trapped between absent husbands (literally or metaphorically) and demanding children.

Sonia García López, session curator

* This project is created on a collaboration between Filmoteca Española and la Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona. The music was asked to Mursego by Filmoteca española.