Propaganda piece for Franco's fascism?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — El Cid
enbilal — 17 years ago(January 05, 2009 09:59 AM)
Movies like this always serve the same old nationalistic purpose, no matter what country. Made in (at the time) fascist Spain, El Cid was supposed to be a stand in for Franco.
I prefer Bunuel over El Cid, any time.
The British cinema is made of dullness - F. Truffaut -
roman8 — 17 years ago(January 07, 2009 04:25 AM)
Excuse me? Have you actually paid any attention whatsoever to the story? The part about Muslims and Christians needing to come to terms with one another? And how leaders of men - especially ones with absolute powers like meideval kings - have to be irreproachable or else suffer 'God's wrath' for their arbitrariness and the like?
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syntinen — 17 years ago(February 18, 2009 05:58 AM)
No,
enkibilal
is quite literally correct. It was not only made in Fascist Spain; it was made with backing from the Francoist government, and in Spain it was used quite openly as propaganda for the regime. El Cid is blatantly a stand-in for Franco himself, and the "good Moors" are stand-ins for the colonial Moorish troops that Franco used to invade Spain and overthrow the legitimate government. (Bringing foreign, "black" soldiers to kill Spaniards was an act that horrified many people in Spain, even those who hadn't loved the government - and their atrocities were legendary. So anything that indirectly shed a good light on this bit of Franco's career was worth spending money on.)
BTW, the extras playing the Spanish troops who chant "Cid! Cid! Cid!" were genuine Spanish servicemen, who were detailed for the duty and were drilled for the task by one an officer of Franco's army general staff, and watched by Franco's army minister. And chanting the leader's name like that, though an utterly un-mediaeval thing to do, was of course
de rigueur
in Franco's regime, as in other fascist regimes of the time. No wonder they did it so convincingly.
Edited to add:
Heston had no idea at the time that he was being used in a Francoist propaganda-fest, and seems to have gone into sturdy denial when this was pointed out to him later. All of this is discussed at length in John Aberth's book
A Knight at the Movies
, pages 125-147, much of which you can read in in Google Books, here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jCt2lK9gBWAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=knight+at+the+movies -
Colkitto — 17 years ago(February 22, 2009 05:55 PM)
Interestingly, though, the Francoist presentation of Rodrgio Diaz usually tended to skate over the fact that he'd fought alongside Moors, which is made so much of in the film.
El Cid is one of those pieces of art which can be used to support opposing political viewpoints: as the second poster pointed out, a liberal reading is not only possible but to many people the most obvious one, especially now that the immediate context of the Franco regime is no longer with us.
"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams
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HijodelCid — 17 years ago(March 25, 2009 10:56 AM)
When Eisenstein made his two movies about Ivan the Terrible, he did so at the behest of Stalin, who considered Ivan as his role model. Very appropriate: only a dreadful ogre such as Stalin would have admired someone like Ivan.
El Cid, on the other hand, has been admired by just about everybody, regardless of political identification. Even the Muslims who have written about him as a great enemy have always recognised that he was a worthy enemy.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein) -
Colkitto — 17 years ago(March 29, 2009 04:42 PM)
I believe that El Cid rises above its nationalistic roots. The Francoist references for the domestic Spanish audience won't have been recognised outside Spain even at the time - we know that many of those involved in the film didn't recognise them - and are irrelevant now. There's little or nothing in it which is intrinsically Fascist, and surely that's what matters.
"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams
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Lokisgodhi — 11 years ago(August 03, 2014 06:13 PM)
Then you're an idiot. The Spanish Civil War was a international war, a bloody preamble to WW2, with many volunteers from other nations fighting with either side by virtue of their political beliefs. Fascists, Nationalists and Catholics fighting with Franco. Volunteers from democracies, anarchists and Marxists fought for the Loyalist legitimate Spanish government.
Many of these people were still alive when this film debuted and they knew exactly what it was about. Only morons like Heston and sadly most American audience members did not.
Colkitto wrote: I believe that El Cid rises above its nationalistic roots. The Francoist references for the domestic Spanish audience won't have been recognised outside Spain even at the time - we know that many of those involved in the film didn't recognise them - and are irrelevant now. There's little or nothing in it which is intrinsically Fascist, and surely that's what matters. -
Rueiro — 12 years ago(March 29, 2014 04:44 AM)
It is true that Franco's regime took full advantage of the potential propagandistic message the film contains, and never got tired of promoting it and blessing it. In a way they did with this film the same thing the Nazis did with Wagner's music and with Nietzsche's philosophy: pick up those aspects of the author's work that can fit perfectly into your fascist-racist ideology and use them to achieve your own goals. Equally, Bronston was a clever businessman and could see very well what would make Franco happy as to provide Bronston with all the facilities to make the film. He used dollars to have the dictator eating from his hand, and certainly didn't mind then the regime using the film as political propaganda if that would help to get the film made the way he wanted in the first place. Franco thought he was using Bronston and "El Cid", but not as much as Bronston was using Franco.
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IndianaMcClane — 11 years ago(August 04, 2014 11:21 AM)
I will say this. Everybody who I have known who has seen the film did not get any kind of Pro-Facist vibe/message from the film on its own. With it seeming like you have to hear about the Franco angle from the outside to be able to really figure it out. A great deal film is about such people/leaders having to try and be understanding of others and they themselves humble. Having to "conquer themselves" before they can truly succeed. Not making decions based upon intolerance and petty grudges. While I will not say that the Pro-Franco angle itself isn't completely unfounded, I don't think it is the unavoidable definitive interpretation. Especially not at this point.