{"id":1493,"date":"2016-06-20T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T07:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=1493"},"modified":"2016-06-20T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T13:26:11","slug":"recordings-from-symposium-on-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2016\/06\/20\/recordings-from-symposium-on-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu\/","title":{"rendered":"Recordings from 9th Annual Contemporary Directors Symposium on Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medi\u00e1tico is thrilled to present recordings of the five excellent papers given at the recent 9th Annual Contemporary Directors Symposium. This symposium this year focused on the work of Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu director of\u00a0<\/em>Amores perros\u00a0(2000),\u00a0<\/em>21 Grams\u00a0(2002),\u00a0<\/em><\/em>Babel\u00a0(2006),\u00a0<\/em><\/em>Biutiful (2010),\u00a0<\/em><\/em>Birdman (2014) and\u00a0<\/em>The Revenant (2015). The event was organised by\u00a0Medi\u00e1tico’s co-editor Dr Dolores Tierney and\u00a0<\/em>sponsored by the\u00a0School of Media, Film and Music and the Sussex Centre for the Visual at the University of Sussex. It took place on<\/em>\u00a0May 23, 2016, at the<\/em>\u00a0Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction to the event by Organiser Dr Dolores Tierney (University of Sussex)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Welcome to the 9th<\/sup> Contemporary Directors Symposium.\u00a0I\u2019d like to thank the School of Media, Film and Music and the Sussex Centre for the Visual for their generous sponsorship of this event and also thank my colleague Michael Lawrence for his\u00a0help in putting on this conference today and Catherine\u00a0Grant for agreeing to be part of its line up, for recording the event and for her support in general. It\u2019s also wonderful to have such a stellar group of attendees who I hope will be asking questions and offering lively commentary throughout the day.<\/p>\n

When I first volunteered Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu to be the director of focus for the 2016 Contemporary Directors Symposium it was before The Revenant <\/em>and before even Birdman<\/em>. In the Autumn of 2014, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu was still an auteur of what were classed in industry terms as \u201csmaller budget art films\u201d (Cook 2010:25) like Amores perros<\/em>, 21 Grams<\/em>, Babel <\/em>and Biutiful<\/em>. He was what Pam Cook would define as a\u00a0non mainstream, stylistically innovative filmmaker exploring [clearly] alternative ideologies \u00a0(2010:25). In the Autumn of 2014 I\u00f1\u00e1rritu was still making deterritorialized productions and brining his early collaborators and largely Mexican and Latin American creative team (Rodrigo Prieto, Brigitte Broch, Gustavo Santoalalla and Guillermo Arriaga \u2013 well up to Babel<\/em>,) with him. But with Birdman<\/em> \u2013which still had key Latin American collaborators (Argentine screenwriters Armando Bo and Nicolas Giacobone, Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez and of course cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki \u2013 with an auteur status to match that of I\u00f1\u00e1rritu) there was a shift, he became a director of films that although still classed as still arty were more \u00a0\u201cpopular art films\u201d (Cook 2010:25) and although still alternative in its ideologies (throwing playful scorn on Hollywood superhero franchises, but also on the vanity of the Hollywood star \u2013thinking he can gain artistic credibility by putting on a Raymond Carver play) \u2013the perspective was definitely much less geographically aligned with Mexico and the Global South. With The Revenant <\/em>a studio production with 20th<\/sup> Century Fox, costing $135 million and released as a tentpole production at almost 4000 theatres across the US (not unlike many superhero franchises) there has been a shift again. Without wanting to present Hollywood as a straightforwardly bad object because it never is, the terms on which we write about I\u00f1\u00e1rritu are changing. How much the way we conceive of him may change and any new terms we need to address whilst writing about him is something we may discuss today.<\/p>\n

We have 5 super presentations for you today from renowned scholars of Mexican and Latin American cinemas drawn from across the world. We begin with Paul Julian Smith\u2019s keynote.<\/p>\n

It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you our keynote speaker: Professor Paul Julian Smith. Paul Julian Smith is Distinguished Professor of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.<\/p>\n

Professor Smith<\/strong> is a leading authority on the visual culture of Spain and Latin America and on the cinema of Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu. He is the author of over 17 books including the BFI Classic on Amores perros <\/em><\/a>(2003) and Mexican Screen Fiction: Between Cinema and Television <\/em><\/a>(2014) which has a section on I\u00f1\u00e1rritu. He is also a columnist for Film Quarterly<\/em> and a contributor to Sight & Sound <\/em>\u2013including a piece on I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s Birdman<\/em>. He was Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in Cambridge from 1993 to 2010.<\/p>\n

It was as an undergraduate that I first heard him speak, when not just those studying Spanish, but also those studying English flocked to the Modern and Medieval Languages building to attend his seminars and lectures on Pedro Almod\u00f3var. They were lively and electrifying events particularly for many of the students who had until that point led pretty sheltered lives. After I left university, Professor Smith came with me \u2013 in the first edition of his book on Almod\u00f3var Desire Unlimited<\/em> (now in its third expanded edition) which I carried and read on the London underground \u2013 drawing more than a few curious glances from those who read its title. Professor Smith has of course come with me in my academic career. His work is a joy to read, to assign to students and to use for research. He\u2019s been hugely influential in my choice of career and I\u2019m delighted that he has come here today to speak at Sussex University.<\/p>\n

His talk is tantalizing entitled \u201cBehind the Money: I\u00f1\u00e1rritu as Career Auteur\u201d. There will be time for questions afterwards. Please join me in welcoming Professor Paul Julian Smith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

KEYNOTE\u00a0–\u00a0Professor Paul Julian Smith (Graduate School, CUNY): \u201cBehind the Money: I\u00f1\u00e1rritu as Career Director\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n