>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:15 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:00:21 >> Georgette Dorn: Good afternoon, my name is Georgette Dorn and I'm the director of the Spanish Division Library of Congress. I want to welcome all of you to this library that has the largest collection on Spain in the United States, outside of Spain. And in addition to about three or four million books about Spain and Latin America, we also have 40 million other items among Ridgefair [assumed spelling], lots of motion pictures. So it's a great [inaudible] introduce now that the Hardmon [assumed spelling] and Paris who will introduce our speaker, thank you. ^M00:00:50 [ Applause ] ^M00:00:54 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:00:56 >> Juan Manuel Perez: Ah, good morning. My name is Juan Manuel Perez and I'm a reference specialist in the Hispanic division. And it is a great pleasure to me to introduce to you Fernando Ramos whom I have known for the past six months. He has been coming to the division, to the Hispanic division every single day for the last six months from about 9:30 to about five every. He's currently working as a visiting researcher at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. From 2010 to 2017 he was assistant professor at the Institute for Communication in Media Sciences. At the Leipzig University in Germany where he co-directed the research project Cinefilia [assumed spelling] under the dictatorship film culture between 1955 and 1975 in Spain and a German Democratic Republic. Apart from the Leipzig, he has also taught at the [foreign language spoken], University of Valencia [assumed spelling] and the University of Brannon [assumed spelling]. For the academic year 2015-2016 he was a research fellow at the [inaudible] in Madrid. His main research fields are in film culture, culture of history, [inaudible] theory and cultural studies. He has been writing books and has produced numerous articles in many different academic journals such as The Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Communication of Society or the Hispanic Research Council. I mean Hispanic Research Journal. And just in about 10 days he will start a new position at the [inaudible] University in Madrid. So without further ado, I would like to introduce commander oh, before I forget. Please turn your phones to silent or turn them off, thank you. ^M00:03:49 [ Applause ] ^M00:03:55 >> Fernando Ramos: Well thank you for the kind introduction. It is a pleasure and privilege to be here. I'm especially happy to invited by the Motion Picture Broadcast and Recorded Sound Division and also first of the by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Thank you very much also to the staff at the Hispanic Division, especially to Georgette, Juan Manuel and Catalina who had help to make this talk possible. So, so let me start with an example you may already know. I'm going to show you a little scene from the film from the 1940's its "Skilda [assumed spelling]," film by Sauls Vidir [assumed spelling]. Let me talk a little bit over it. That was a film where [inaudible] directed Charles Vidir [assumed spelling] from 1946. In it Rita Hayworth [assumed spelling], the protagonist sings [inaudible] while she takes off her gloves and throws them white sexy in the audience. ^M00:05:06 [ Background Sounds ] [ Music ] ^M00:05:38 Wow, that's. ^M00:05:40 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:05:44 So, so just after that she's pushed off the stage and she's escorted out of the room. And this story just goes on. You may know it. This is a film noir. However members of the Spanish audiences watching this film as it premiered in 1947 seem to have had a very different impression of it. Apparently they thought that the singing and the taking off the gloves were just the beginning of something more, something more interesting. Was the beginning of a strip tease and that more sensual images, those show when Rita Hayworth [assumed spelling] naked have been cut off the national version of the movie. That of course has never been the case. It was impossible for our Hollywood Studio film from the 1940's to such, to show such explicit nudity. However in the next month some retouched images were sold in some Spanish cities showing bodies of naked women with a face of Hayworth [assumed spelling] on them. They were presented as the copies of this lost scene. So that of course is a fan anecdote, but I think also that this very telling example that helps us illuminate a certain aspect of Spanish film culture under Francoism [assumed spelling]. This is this case of social pathology in the words of Herman Goburn [assumed spelling], helps us understand the long-term, somehow dialectical effects of censorship under dictatorship. For this a story of Froy vision [assumed spelling], of censorship and imperfect film consumption of the misunderstandings due to the vision access to films or to an absolute lack of access since the films were banned altogether. It is also a story of creativity in which cinema and culture and the culture generated around it, provided a large projection screen for the anxieties for the fears and the hopes of millions of movie goers under dictatorship. So this, my talk will focus on these paradox on the characteristic of a rich a complex film culture struggling with its enormous limitations. Although many of the aspects I would talk about apply to the whole dictatorship from 1939 till 1975, I will focus mainly on a period of roughly 20 years that stretches from the beginning of the 1950's till the end of the 1960's. This is an era of complex transformation both for Franco regime and for the cinema history. The dictatorship starts to leave behind the totalitarian policies of the 1940's and develops towards a cruel authoritarian dictatorship opening up just slowly to international developments. And in cinema history, this is the time where and when television kicks in and European/Latin American new cinemas start to question Hollywood dominance. I will focus in the periods until, I will focus first on the period until the late 1950's and I will try to eliminate the historical and political context where this phenomena took place. I will concentrate mainly on the effects and censorship of censorship sorry, on popular forms of cinema consumption spans since the end of the Civil War. My argument or my main argument here is that apart from the [inaudible] vision of certain films or scenes, censorship introduced through the modification of the works, an element of insecurity and speculation in the reception process in the way films were watched and understood. In the second part of my talk, I would like to concentrate mainly on some phenomena characteristics sorry, of a later period and other forms of consumption. Specialized film culture was gaining a strong foothold in Spain during the 1960's. The focus will lay on the alternative or alternatives articulated through a [inaudible] firm of film consumption or as I call it films watched on paper. These are examples I have been gathering as part of an ongoing research project, Juan Manuel already mention. A film, a research project on film cultures in dictatorial regimes, I have been working on for the last six years. ^M00:10:01 It's a project, comparative project that focuses on the emergence of cinematic sub-cultures in both in Spain and German Democratic Republic during the 1950's and 1960's. And I think this the examples I'm going to talk about now function in my opinion are symptoms, a symptoms like symptoms of an illness and symptoms of in this case of two illnesses. One political illness like the dictatorship, but sometimes also a symptoms of a more benign illness, which is this fascination, this obsession to the point of obsession for cinema. So talking about the 1940's and 1950's in Spain is focusing on a golden age of cinema going. Cinema was still seen under the so under the introduction of television at the end of the 1950's, as the main favorite pastime for the majority of the national population. Firmly rooted as a form of entertainment, especially among the popular cases, sorry, classes. It was something you used to do with your family, but it was also a special form of entertainment for women and youth. And it was like in other European countries, mainly an urban pastime. Spectators in big and richer cities where, went more often to the movies. For instance in 1948 each citizen of Madrid went four to five times to the movies. Means almost once a week and she or he had 117 theaters to choose from. So they could rely on a dense network of film theaters. Spend half of the late 40's, the highest number of film theaters per capita in whole Europe. So cinema was a mass phenomenon, a cultural practice that was just everywhere. A central part of everyday life. As commanded by the film critic Miguel Marias [assumed spelling] and I quote: "It was the cheapest and most popular form of entertainment and recreation. The fastest way to leave and satisfy in social and vital environment. The shelter for couples escaping the atmospheric [inaudible], a spectacle for the whole family." End of quote. So how does this situation relate to censorship? Censorship under Francoism started to be applied already during the Spanish Civil War, so before the regime kicked in in 1939 and could survive the dictator itself. So existed until 1978. In these 40 years censorship, these positions could obviously reflect the certain transformation that ran parallel to the power struggles in the regime. The fastest party [inaudible], the Catholic Church and the army, which were the three main pillars of the regime could influence the evolution of the national censorship organs. Roughly one can for instance assert that's the fastest principle of the [inaudible] and military were more permanent in the early years where censorship focused on implementation of specific political world view. While in the following decades some of these in these aspirations were set aside as Francoism partially reshaped its iconological principles around an ultra-conservative national Catholicism. In all 4 years films were censor on both political and moral principles. There was thus a transformation in time, but it was also an insecurity caused by the different parties involved in this process. Far from being a monolithic phenomenon following clear rules, they control exercise over the images and sounds took place in different forms and was executed by different actors. Both the state and the church were allowed to impose their principles through their own censorship images, but censorship included also certain distribution companies prone to make some cuts in the films as they believed this could secure them better chances by the censorship authorities. Movie theaters, as well as particular circumstances in alternative projection spaces, such as film clubs or church cinemas. And third, a third point I would also like to emphasize, I think it's also essential to consider the discretional and arbitrary character of national censorship. While the state could implement for the first time a code, the censorship code in 1963. So up until then film censor had to, censors had to act along a loose pledge of allegiance to the regime and the Catholic Church. And focus on such vague attributes as morality, good manners or decency. This strange indefinable legal frame influences not only the work of filmmakers for almost 25 years, but also it also made it position of distributers, exhibitors and audiences very difficult as this of victims of this lack of coherence, sorry. In the criteria. Audiences were in many occasions unable to answer such simple question as how is the message of the film being manipulated? Is there, was there originally a hidden [inaudible] I am now missing or which part of the original text has been cut out? At this point it is clear that I am not referring only to the, to when I talking about censorship, I'm not only referring to certain, the prohibition of certain works of specific scenes, which is a phenomenon that has already been studied and can be easily understood along the emergent of the legal frame. I find more interesting to think about its long-term consequences in the field of film reception about the censorship effects on individual cinema goers. Well it is relevant to point out censorship meant of course the prohibition of certain works, but also and this is an interesting aspect in this case. The editing of scenes in a new way or the modification of its meaning. When audio tracks were changed in order to transform the original message of the film. So that in for instance was of international people titles was for instance obliged from 1941 till 1947 and lasted de facto until 1967. A good example of this practice can be found in the final scene of "Bicycle Thief." The 1948 new realist masterpiece by Victoria De Sica [assumed spelling], which premiered in Madrid in the 1950's which was usually screened at the national film clubs throughout the decade. Antonio who is the well the main character in this film, is a small worker in post-World War II Rome who is completely dependable on his bicycle, which had been stolen from him at the beginning of the film. He and his son Bruno try in various occasions to get it back. In the last part of the film Antonia even tries to steal another bicycle, but he's caught and Bruno sees what happens to his father. So this is quite a hopeless situation, very sad, it's very bleak ending. Too sad apparently for the eyes of the Spanish censors or for yeah or for their opinion on the Spanish audiences. So in the last scene as Antonia and Bruno are walking hand in hand and disappear in the crowd, a new voiceover was added to the film. So it provided a certain comfort, but also oh sorry, a Catholic reinterpretation of the message of the film. So let me show it to you. Sorry for the quality of the film, but you may have an idea. Okay I'm going to introduce what's what this voiceover's now telling. The morning, the new morning seem full of anxieties for this man, but he wasn't alone anymore. He hold Bruno's warm little hand in his own hand and his hand told him about faith and hope in a better world. In a world where men would understand them self and love each other. And achieve the generous idea of Christian solidarity. So that is the message which was completely missing from the original film. ^M00:18:31 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:18:48 Well this wasn't an exception of course. Sometimes there were just some words as for example in "Casablanca" where the main character Rick mentioned that he had fought for the Republic in Spain. That was of course cut it off. In all the cases it went even farther. In [inaudible] by [inaudible] from 1965. The film's distributers added a prolog also in form of the voiceover in order to warn the audiences about the revolutionary character of this film. "Mogambo" [assumed spelling] by John Ford [assumed spelling] was screened in Madrid in the early 1950's. However the film came with a serious modification of its original message through dubbing of the dialog. Apparently in this case it was the distribution company who was afraid of possible conflicts with censorship. So Grace Kelly and Donald Sinden which are two of the protagonist of the film, were originally wife and husband in the film, in the original version. But they were transform in sister and brother through dubbing. So instead of showing something so morally wrong as adultery, the film was now endorsing the incest between the protagonists. ^M00:20:00 So similar effects can be observed also in the "Barefoot Contessa" by Joseph Mankiewicz from 1954. Well this and all the practices however different in their origins have a similar effect. Once known to introduce an element of insecurity in the reception based on a possible shift of the meaning or the message of the original text of the work as originally conceived. The instability of the texts censored in such spectacular ways provided also perfect basis for the speculation among the audiences. In such cases it seems to be impossible to find a clear closed meaning that could give the content of the film a certain coherency. Therefore the censorship is reading with exerting certain works. Its long-term effects are to be found in the gaze of an audience that this causes, speculates, supposes even imagines certain original texts even in the cases when the film they are watching hasn't been censored at all. So until now have been referring mentally to the films, but it this also interesting to consider the way audiences reflected on their film watching experiences. So Loge Lecho Lavange [assumed spelling] from NYE commented on the research project and popular audience response to cinema in the early Franco dictatorship and I quote, "Almost all of our interviewees were aware, sorry, of the existence of film censorship. Since those scenes were often met with boos and hisses, several also said that the censorship heightened desire as you always imagine something more exciting that what's, that what had been cut. Several talk of their disappointment on seeing certain films and censor later." End of quote. This an important point for it makes clear that film audiences in the 1940's and 1950's know when that films were, knowing that the films they were watching were censored, were more active than usually assumed. The censored parts which were often visible since the image could jump or briefly go blank. Provided a gap in the text, which the viewers could fill in with their own imagination. Reinforcing the distance between the images on the screens and the images in their heads. So here's where the former example of Gilda would fit in. In this regard it is relevant to highlight the importance of American Hollywood pictures in the country. Spain represented in those years the second highest [inaudible] for Hollywood movies, which were central in the local film diet and also a canvas to predict the [inaudible] of a nation if you like. America as seen through the images of Hollywood, represented and was read as stronghold for cosmopolitanism, sophistication, the femme fetal, sexiness, the political divergence, sorry and modernity. Well for those things and values lacking in the local film culture. In this regard and the part from usual comments on the immersive attraction excerpted by these films, there was also usually a recognition of the capacity to open up to all the realities. These are some quotes from the research project already mentioned. You enter the movie theater and you start to leave, to leave sorry. All this made you live something, make you live something you didn't have. But I found especially interesting this third one, this idea of cinema's a way of dreaming, as a way of projecting yourself into the movies so to speak. Another variation of this motive both emergent and projection in the screen is provided by the writer Derency Moykes [assumed spelling], a caton [phonetic] writer who belonged to Cinefa [assumed spelling] generation that could influence the Spanish literature in the following decades and often go back to cinematic memories looking for inspiration and subjects. Well first to our book covers, the third one is of course a movie, movie poster. Apart from Mike's, this generation included Juan Marce [assumed spelling], which is a representative through the first book cover. And Ricka Vilamatas [assumed spelling] Per Inferer [assumed spelling] even be [inaudible] enough for x many of them. Forming at these writers started these, sorry, their careers writing criticism for specialized magazines. Well Mike's in the first volume of his autobiography mentions the first Spanish screenings of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." A film by Richard Brooks from 1958, which is the film showed at the right part of the screen. Mike thought that explicit homosexual elements of this melodrama had been cut out by the censors. The local audiences, victims of the nation of Catholic censorship were not allowed to watch or hear them so it was his way of thinking. This homosexual subtext which was of course part of the original playwright by Tennessee Williams, was however not really present in the original version of the film. It would have been inconceivable being the title was produced under the conservative climate of the U.S.A. in the 1950's where film students were still attached to the rules of the production code the from the 1930's to the 1960's controlled the possible moral and ideological subversion of studio productions, sorry. So around 1960 I would say or during the yeah, in the late 1950's or 1960's alternative specialized forms of film consumption will or would win momentum in Spain. Sorry, well this wasn't used to a Spanish phenomenon, this was something which that was happening other European countries at the time. In this sense, this social pathology mention on the, at the beginning of the talk regarding the case of Gilda would transform itself around different reception practices. For instance in film clips around another cultural practices like for instance the [inaudible] and discussion of film screen written of specialized criticism on around other references. European cinema modernity was starting to be in the center of the discussions instead of Hollywood cinema. But it won't disappear, the social pathology won't disappear. A new cinema increasingly consumed as high culture in spaces and rituals that remind us of our religion, could have its own forms of speculation born out of enthusiasm, misinformation and censorship. So the movie theater was packed comment for instance I was told Torres [assumed spelling] on a screening in the film club from Madrid in 1963. Torres [assumed spelling] was a film critic at the time. The film screened in this occasion was a little a title by the Shred This Altar Ingmar Bergman [assumed spelling] who was an apostle of the modernity of new way of making movies and thinking about them. Who was during those years very admiring Spain, but also rarely known. Torres [assumed spelling] continues his description with the following words. The lights went out, the projection started and a stony sorry, stony silence settled in. Nobody understood a word from the dialogs, but no one said a word. No one commented the scenes as if we were in a [inaudible] mess and to some laughs could be heard. These were rapidly silenced by the rest of the audience, but someone kept laughing causing a growing public outrage. Well the funny part is the next one. So it was only sometime later that I watched this film with subtitles, then I understood that Smiles Was Summer Night was one of Bergman's best comedies and that the ones laughing in the movie theater were the only Swedish people or Swedish speaking people in the room. So this may be a very striking example, but was surely not an exception in 1964 as the film club starting importing new films and the new censorship rules. The titles included "The Criminal" by Joseph Losey of [inaudible] by Jean Luco Dark [assumed spelling] as well as the Polish film, "Like Siberian Lady Macbeth" by Fida [assumed spelling] or "Posiac" [phonetic] by [inaudible]. All these films circulated through the film club network in the next years. However and considering the experience described by Torres [assumed spelling], it's worth questioning how these titles were received or if they were even understood. The bridges in the French film were screened in original versions without subtitles. "Siberian Lady Macbeth" came with English subtitles. "Posiac" [assumed spelling] remind you was a Polish film with French subtitles and the part from "Smile of the Summer Night" previously mentioned in description by Torres [assumed spelling], another of Bergman's [assumed spelling] film "Summer Interlude" was also seen in the Spanish film clubs in a confusing way. Both titles were shown in original Swedish version without subtitles. So Bergman [assumed spelling] in this case also symptomatic, it talked [inaudible] function as touched on for different film critical approaches of the beginning of the 1960's. Those were on one side. A new criticism around new [inaudible] interested in more than this to persistent cinema. And on the other side the representatives of the cultural establishment who control some of the old strongholds of debate and we're still trying to present a certain profile of the Swedish author or director. ^M00:30:02 More defined the message of his films through the dubbing and editing. So from the perspective of the new critique and especially among new alternative magazines such as [inaudible] or [inaudible]. People would react in rage against this interested modification. So [inaudible] who was a left wing critic commented this situation in article published for the magazine [inaudible] in 1963 with some irony. He noted there is a Bergman [assumed spelling] Spanish style. Where does this such, where does such a phenomenon come from? From where they say that nothing has been cut off, but it has been. Why they say the Bergman [assumed spelling] is a religious film maker and sometimes a Catholic one. And to prove the point dialogs are changed and important parts just vanish. So this curious to see how the work of international well-known film makers like Michelangelo Antione [assumed spelling], Ingmar Bergman [assumed spelling], Francois Duforg [assumed spelling] and Luco Dark [assumed spelling], et cetera et cetera et cetera. Is thoroughly sorry analyzed in the news, specialized magazines. Even when most of these films couldn't be seen by the readers of the publications. This paradox doesn't escape the authors writing for these film, writing about these filmmakers sorry. In an anonymous text for film [inaudible] published in the 1959 and the usual [inaudible] known. Caulfield [assumed spelling] [inaudible], Ingmar Bergman [assumed spelling] or Robert Aldridge [assumed spelling] are mentioned before the author explains the maybe so good as the book tells. Maybe this opinion we may never have the chance to verify it. In these small specialized publications the debate benefited from a censorship that was more permissive with magazines than with the films, which were supposed to reach broader audiences aware there for consider more dangerous in the eyes of the state. Well we think to consider censorship dispositions as monolithic, in fact they were also adaptable or were continually been adopted to the potential audiences both in quantitative and also in a qualitative way. Specialized smaller groups like for instance readers of magazines, people at film festivals and film clubs were in fact much better off than the mass audiences in the commercial movie theaters. Beyond this confusion and these cautions, once the effects of this mixture of fascination and censorship was the emergence of a film culture which was more focused on the written text, a cinema on paper that was particularly partially accessible than in the cinematographic text usually missing, particularly for a vast majority of spectators unable to go abroad, visit film festivals or enjoy the titles in the most selected film clubs. On the basis of these differences debate was being encouraged, that was by necessity, speculative [assumed spelling] discussion more based on the written word than on the images interested not only in recovering the fleeting images in the movie's theater, but also in drawing attention at you those works this that due to the censorship could not have or could not be seen on the national screens or only in selected circles. Noest Cocina [assumed spelling] could complain it in a editorial from 1967 where the Madison [assumed spelling] looked back at his work for almost seven years and reflected on the implications of hardness spread discourse on films, on the film criticism on cultural life which was becoming less and less significant for most of its readers. For its references, the references of the discourse, had nothing to do with the films they, I mean the readers usually watch in the theaters. Jesus Cathia Luenas [assumed spelling] who was one of these bookish cinefiles [assumes spelling] dependent on the magazines who was student of the state film schools in the since the beginning of the 1960's and also contributed to journals such as Nuestrafine [assumed spelling], commented his personal experience in following terms. Our cinematic education was more based on books than on films. I will give you very graphic sample. Back then Strohan [assumed spelling] was my favorite director, but I hadn't seen any of his films. My knowledge of his films was limited to what I had read on him and to this or over him unto the scripts published in Lavan Scenes Cinema [assumed spelling], which I devoured. This form of cultural consumption, reading films instead of watching them, was not only possible through the reading of international magazines, Spanish most wrote on titles like the aforementioned cinema, Universitadio [assumed spelling], Film Medial [assumed spelling], Nuestra Fina [assumed spelling] or Cine Studio [assumed spelling]. Those were all new Madisons [assumed spelling] who started their careers at the beginning of the 1960's, would quite often publish scripts or transcriptions for dialogs as well as the verse forms of literary adaptations. This [inaudible] didn't work always without problems however. The publication of scripts was also censored so this happened for instance as Nuestra Fine [assumed spelling] planned to publish the script of Jewel a Jim [assumed spelling] by Drufo [assumed spelling] in 1962, which was banned by the censorship based on moral consideration. So the lack of the direct references could have very picturesque effects even among these selected more specialized circles, which were the come first between a theoretical discourse with certain level of elaboration and the lack of films was even bigger. Just imagine the absurdity of studying in Spain the work of Doschenko [assumed spelling], Eizenstein [assumed spelling] or Digavert of said Cadorsabra [assumed spelling]. We watched none of the films of these guys and we knew their theories by heart. It was complete nonsense commented Sarah who was at the time was teacher of the, who was first student and then teacher at the Spanish film school at the end of the 1950's and 1960's as he was starting his own film career. He also added to that. Occasionally that he also added that and then it happened to me that I watched Eisenston's [assumed spelling] films and I was completely disappointed so. So, well sometimes it's the prohibited fruit is tastier than the real one. So the debate generated in the magazines could be reached certain points capable of generating [inaudible] and discussions, but was also damaged in its core. It was a discourse without references usually based on versions that had to be mutilated or [inaudible] up and that couldn't disguise the lack of knowledge and basic information. Even the good or the history of study of the Fine by Roman Gubern [assumed spelling], which is one of the first serious enterprises of this kind in Spain and which was republished in 1969. Even this book I say we still find a lot of films with that are wrongly summed up. So it's clear that they are writing about films they have nevers have the chance to see. The reality was that despite the bookish consumption I quote for these or other reasons this cinema fan in Spain doesn't know the French novel Bach [assumed spelling], the British free cinema the American new wave, the renaissance of Italian cinema, the new schools coming from Poland or Czechoslovakia [assumed spelling]. That is to say they do not know the main movements, the half shaped contemporary cinema. Lamented Garcia Duenos [assumed spelling] in their article for the magazine [inaudible] in 1967. In this regard Rosary Squarner [assumed spelling] who was a cinefa [assumed spelling] member of different film clubs writer in magazines. Even focus on this dialectical, on this dialect dialectical effect of the situation and ask himself if the critical activity during the 1960's concentrated increasingly, an increasingly smaller circles and therefore quite different from those early forms of popular film consumption already commented at the beginning, was not the consequence of the fact that because there was no films, we have to that invent them in writing. Without being aware of it, a [inaudible] peril of universe was being created. The outcome of this [inaudible] in a period of cultural restrictions was in many cases cinefas [assumed spelling] without films, cultivated without culture, marked by a kind of knowledge of free and by the will and not the fact as commented by his colleague Joels Oliver [assumed spelling] while talking about the way Roberto Rosalini [assumed spelling] was unknown by Spanish cinefile, in Spanish cinefile quarters up until the late 1960's. So given our time constraints I'm going to stop here. I think I have already prove my point. In spite of the limitations due to censorship, the modifications of some of the great works of international cinema or the errors and omissions in the discourses, both film consumption and specialized film culture enjoyed up until the end of the 1960's, considerable vitality and that reflect the [inaudible] transformation of the country and the media. Some of this observation may also apply to other countries. Spain was truly not the only place where active censorship words were doing their job in the in this years. But this particular case presented an intense example that served to illuminate the cultural life of the country for almost 20 years to show that censorship usually goes beyond the simple provision that if all is activated alternative forms of reception which were surly no intended in the first place. And that spectators were usually involved in forms of decoding much more complex and active as usually accepted. And that apart from a mere history of films, film history can also provide an interesting timely analysis of some unexpected corners of cultural life. Thank you very much for [inaudible]. >> This has been a presentation of The Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.