The 1992 and 2000 quincentenaries of the arrival of the Spanish and the Portuguese in America prompted an explosion of rewritings and cinematic renditions of texts and figures from colonial Latin America. However, such negotiations with the colonial past are not simply a recent phenomenon in Latin America. "Cannibalizing the Colony" analyzes a crucial way that Latin American historical films, since the beginning of sound cinema, have grappled with the legacy of colonialism. It studies how and why filmmakers in Brazil and Mexico - the countries that have produced most films about the colonial period in Latin America - appropriate and transform colonial narratives of European and indigenous contact into commentaries on national identity. The book focuses on the dynamics of cinematic adaptation and examines the processes through which filmmakers 'devour' and 'digest' artifacts from the colonial period. In other words, it looks at how they attempt to reconfigure history and culture and incorporate it into present-day understandings of the nation.
The book additionally considers the motivations and implications for these filmic dialogues with the past and how the directors attempt to control the way that spectators understand the complex and contentious roots of identity in Mexico and Brazil.
- ISBN13 9781557535207
- Publish Date 31 July 2008
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 9 August 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Purdue University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 135
- Language English