Winners and Losers in Cinema and Memoirs: Emilio Martínez Lázaro's Las 13 rosas and Esther Tusquets' Habíamos ganado la guerra

Abstract

This essay closely examines two very different works: Emilio Martínez Lázaro's award-winning feature film Las 13 rosas and Esther Tusquets’ Habíamos ganado la guerra, the first volume of personal memoirs from a major writer, which begins in 1939 when the author was just three. Where Las 13 rosas focuses on the terror, repression, and violence of the early Franco regime, Tusquets’ narrative explores the era from the perspective of a child and adolescent of the Barcelona bourgeoisie to which she belonged. In taking it for granted that artistic representations of the past provide comment on or intervention in the present, the essay proposes, notwithstanding the distinctiveness of their truth claims, the mutuality of history and story, while recognizing the commonality of cognition and emotion, and the intertwining of subjectivity and objectivity in both cinema and memoir. The contribution of these texts to present understandings of that terrible time is closely evaluated.

Key words:

• Las 13 rosas
• Esther Tusquets
• Franco regime
• Barcelona bourgeoisie
• cinema
• memoir

Notes

1 Carlos Fonseca, Trece rosas rojas (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2005).

2 Esther Tusquets, Habíamos ganado la guerra, 3^rd ed. (Barcelona: Bruguera, 2007). Further references are to this edition and are given in the text.

3 Jo Labanyi, ‘History and Hauntology; Or, What Does One Do with the Ghosts of the Past?’, in Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy, ed. Joan Ramon Resina (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), 65–82.

4 Joan Ramon Resina, ‘Short of Memory: The Reclamation of the Past since the Spanish Transition to Democracy’, in Disremembering the Dictatorship, ed. Resina, 83–126.

5 Jesús Ferrero, Las trece rosas (Madrid: Siruela, 2003).

6 Virginia Guarinos, ‘Ramos de rosas rojas. Las trece rosas: memoria audiovisual y género’, Quaderns de Cine, 3 (2008), 91–103, <http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/1358495544568383964424/index.htm> (accessed 26 June 2009).

7 According to official figures, Las 13 rosas (which failed to achieve commercial distribution in foreign territories) was the third biggest grossing Spanish film in its home market with an audience of 786,000, surpassed only by the expert horror films El orfanato and REC (Ministerio de Cultura, ‘Largometrajes españoles con mayor recaudación [1 January to 31 December 2007]’, <http://www.mcu.es/cine/MC/CDC/Anio2007/CinePeliculasEspaniolas.html> (accessed 26 June 2009).

8 Esther Tusquets, ‘La falangista Tusquets' [extract of Habíamos ganado la guerra], El País, 18 November 2007, <http://www.elpais.com/articulo/reportajes/falangista/Tusquets/elpepusocdmg/20071118elpdmgrep_7/Tes> (accessed 26 June 2009).

9 Iury Lech, ‘La Cataluña frenéticamente franquista’ [review of Habíamos ganado la guerra], El País, 29 December 2007, <http://www.elpais.com/articulo/Babelia/Cataluna/freneticamente/franquista/elppor/20071229elpbab_2/Tes> (accessed 26 June 2009).

10 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. P., 1984).

11 Best known for his massively popular sex comedy El otro lado de la cama (2002; sequel 2005), Martínez Lázaro has had a lengthy and consistent, if not wholly distinguished, career in Spanish film. It was telling that the four Goyas his film received were in technical or minor categories (cinematography, costume design, original score and supporting actor), thus lending only qualified distinction to the work. He was perhaps perceived by writer-producer Pedro Costa (who is indeed known for historical projects) as a safe and skilled pair of hands for a cultural property that was already widely known. Guarinos lists no fewer than eight previous versions: two novels, two documentary films, a non-fiction book, a poem, a play and a flamenco dance piece (‘Ramos de rosas rojas’, 92). Her valuable table, charting the differences between the same characters in text and film (‘Ramos de rosas rojas’, 98–99), also reveals how malleable and virtual these female figures are, however anchored they may originally be in historical documents and oral testimony.

12 Carlos Boyero, ‘Tan cierto como endeble’ [review of Las 13 rosas]. El País, 19 October 2007, <http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cine/cierto/endeble/elpepuculcin/20071019elpepicin_4/Tes> (accessed 26 June 2009).

13 Jonathan Holland, Review of 13 Roses. Variety, 30 October 2007, <http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117935265.html?categoryid = 31&cs = 1&p = 0> (accessed 26 June 2009).

14 ‘Foros: Las trece rosas’, Cuore, 24 October to 15 November 2007, <http://www.revistacuore.com/foros/tema.asp?id = 139404> (accessed 26 June 2009).

15 Asociación de psicopedagogía de la UOC, ‘Los psicopedagogos y la educación en valores a través del cine’, <http://www.apuoc.org/node/106> (accessed 26 June 2009); ‘Las 13 rosas: proyecto cine y educación’, <http://www.altafilms.com/las13rosas/descargas/Press_LasTreceRosas.pdf>; ‘Actividades’, <http://www.altafilms.com/las13rosas/descargas/Actividades.pdf> (accessed 26 June 2009).

16 See Alicia Ramos, ‘El mundo de los vencedores en Habíamos ganado la guerra de Esther Tusquets’, Nueva Revista del Pacífico, 53 (2008), 313–21 (p. 313).

17 Juana Vázquez, ‘¿Literatura del yo? ¿Qué yo?’, El País, 17 January 2009, <http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cine/cierto/endeble/elpepuculcin/20071019elpepicin_4/Tes> (accessed 26 June 2009).

18 El País, 30 September 2007, Sunday Supplement, <http://elpais.com/diario/2007/09/30/eps/> (accessed 26 June 2009).