Gwynne Edwards

The political turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, together with the attendant cultural isolationism which Franco's repressive regime imposed upon the Spanish people has ironically fostered a strong tradition of subversive film makers dedicated to challenging the assumed realities of the status quo. Intent upon the ruthless exposure of hypocrisy and repression, the four Spanish directors, Bunuel, Saura, Erice and Almodovar have created a unique and distinctive body of work. Gwynne Edwards' Indecent Exposures gives the reader a first-class introduction to ten of their films, depicting a world where bourgeois values have collapsed, and the facades of good manners, political expediency and social propriety have all been thrown aside. Such cinema classics as Bunuel's Viridiana, Saura's Raise Ravens, Erice's Spirit of the Beehive and Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are all analyzed in great depth, their major and minor themes discussed and set against both the social and political contexts of the time and the concerns reflected in the directors' own lives. Indecent Exposures is essential reading for anyone interested in Spanish cinema; perhaps one of the most vibrant and iconoclastic contributions to this twentieth-century medium.

Buñuel, Saura, Erice & Almodóvar

Indecent Exposures

Federico Garcia Lorca

Blood Wedding is set in a village community in Lorca's Andalusia, and tells the story of a couple drawn irresistibly together in the face of an arranged marriage. This tragic and poetic play is the work on which his international reputation was founded. Like many of Lorca's passionate and intensely lyrical plays that focus on peasant life and the forces of nature, Blood Wedding combines innovatory dramatic technique with Spanish popular tradition. Methuen Drama Student Editions are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. As well as the complete text of the play itself, the volume contains a chronology of the playwright's life and work; an introduction giving the background to the play; a discussion of the various interpretations; notes on individual words and phrases in the text; and questions for further study.

Blood Wedding

Lope De Vega

Roja Zorrila

Three classic Spanish plays, made famous by Shakespeare and Webster Two of the most famous and successful playwrights of Spain's Golden Age of playwriting were Lope de Vega (1562-1635) and Rojas Zorrilla (1607-48). From their prodigious output, the three plays in this volume, based on similar sources to Shakespeare's and Webster's versions, provide a fascinating comparison with their Jacobean counterparts. Lope's The Duchess of Amalfi's Steward, in contrast to Webster's play, focuses on the nobility of love, with characters who are complex and appealing. His Romeo-and-Juliet story, The Capulets and Montagues, is a fast-moving mixture of serious and comic, with an ending that will surprise and entertain. Rojas' treatment of Cleopatra, with its rich imagery, emphasises the love theme, held within a knot of jealous relationships. A full introduction by Gwynne Edwards sets the plays in context and provides a thorough study of the individual works.

The Duchess of Amalfi's Steward; The Capulets and Montagues; Cleopatra

Three Spanish Golden Age Plays

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar has produced more than a dozen highly original films. This extraordinarily creative and imaginative film-maker deals with passion and desire in all its forms: from the 'pop' world of Pepi, Luci, Bom and All the Girls on the Heap through to the unconventional nuns of Dark Habits, the serial killer lovers of Matador, the frantic women of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the obsessive passions of Live Flesh and the moving tragi-comic world of All About My Mother. He has created a body of work which, with its intriguing characters, dramatic situations, powerful emotions, labyrinthine plots, brilliant use of colour and evocative music, has all the complexity and fascination of life itself. This important new study will appeal to Almodovar's devotees and to film students alike, with its chronological examination of the director's career. It sheds light on each individual film, demonstrates the connections between one movie and another and examines the director's progression in terms of genre, style and cinematic technique to reveal Almodovar's growing mastery of his art.

Labyrinths of Passion

Almodóvar

Studies in Calderonian Tragedy

The Prison and the Labyrinth

Luis Buñuel was one of the great film-makers of the twentieth century. Gwynne Edwards analyses his work in the context of Buñuel's personal obsessions - sex, bourgeois values and religion.

A Companion to Luis Buñuel

Lorca, Bunuel and Dali were, in their respective fields of poetry and theatre, cinema, and painting, three of the most imaginative creative artists of the twentieth century; their impact was felt far beyond the boundaries of their native Spain. But if individually they have been examined by many, their connected lives have rarely been considered. It is these, the ties that bind them, that constitute the subject of this illuminating book. They were born within six years of each other and, as Gwynne Edwards reveals, their childhood circumstances were very similar. Each was affected by a narrow-minded society and an intolerant religious background which equated sex with sin and led all three to experience sexual problems of different kinds: Lorca the guilt and anguish associated with his homosexuality; Bunuel feelings of sexual inhibition; and, Dali virtual impotence. Having met during the 1920s at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, they developed intense personal relationships and channelled their respective obsessions into the cultural forms then prevalent in Europe, in particular Surrealism. Rooted in emotional turmoil, their work - from Lorca's dramatic characters in search of sexual fulfilment, to Bunuel's frustrated men and women, and Dali's potent images of shame and guilt - is highly autobiographical. Their left-wing outrage directed at bourgeois values and the Catholic Church was strongly felt, and in the case of Lorca in particular, was sharpened by the catastrophic Civil War of 1936-9, during the first months of which he was murdered by Franco's fascists. The war hastened Bunuel's departure to France and Mexico and Dali's to New York. Edwards describes how, for the rest of his life, Bunuel clung to his left-wing ideals and made outstanding films, while the increasingly eccentric and money-obsessed Dali embraced Fascism and the Catholic Church, and saw his art go into rapid decline.

Lorca, Buñuel, Dalí

Forbidden Pleasures and Connected Lives

Rolf Hochhuth

Wars do not break out, they are not brokered or declared as is always written. They are brought about by those who desire them.' In June 1914, Europe was enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity. Little over a month later, the world was at war – and only a handful of people knew it was happening. Inspired by the medieval mystery plays, Sommer 14: A Dance of Death is an epic telling from a German and European perspective of the world's descent into war. Employing the character of Death as a guide, the play uses the classic Danse Macabre structure of a series of searing vignettes to illuminate the people and the events that led up to the outbreak of the First World War. 'The dead are amongst us, they are inside us. They demand of us that we answer for our crimes.' Sommer 14: A Dance of Death is a hugely ambitious epic vision of the Great War from one of Europe's most acclaimed – and most controversial – dramatists, published to coincide with the UK premiere and the English world premiere at the Finborough Theatre in a brand-new translation by Gwynne Edwards.

Gwynne Edwards

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