Les Espagnols dans le cinéma français (1945-1965)

In: Revue européenne des migrations internationales: REMI, Volume 14, Issue 1, p. 221-252

Abstract

Spaniards in French Cinema (1945-1965)
Aline ANGOUSTURES
Spaniards, like all strangers, are rarely presents in the French cinema of that period. Encounters between French and Spaniards are both rare and difficult, even if historical conflicts tend to be avoided. Presentation of Spaniards reveal, at first, a complete opposition with French people. Spaniards are warriors and their society is in conflict while French are lovers and their society is peaceful. That image of Spain and of bilateral relations between the two countries is traditional in France and reflects the impact of Spanish civil war. Love relations between French and Spaniards in those movies show however that Spaniards embody the contradiction between love and sexual passion which is central in occidental fiction. Before 1958 it tends to bring the two societies closer together while, after 1958, it identifies Spaniards with a moral order hoped to be part of the past.