Reflective essay: My “experience” and beginnings with Latin American and Spanish CINE

Reflective essay: My “experience”

Studying Spanish while abroad in Salamanca, Castilla y León, España, allowed me to grow both as a person and a foreign languages student in immeasurable ways. Perhaps the most important realization that I came to as a result of my “experience”, however, was that I have a passion for the study of Spanish and Latin American Cinema, a passion that I overlooked for the first three years of my undergraduate career.

I took Latin American Cinema at UMass with my beloved advisor and professor Jose Ornelas in the spring of 2013, more or less right before I studied in Salamanca. I enrolled in the class as an “Upper-level elective” course component for my Spanish major, and simply expected that because the majority of our sources were films, it would be one of my easier courses for the semester. I was completely wrong however, and actually struggled with Latin American Cinema in its beginnings, because prior to my participation in that class I had never studied film.

I had no knowledge of the world of “Third Cinema”, or the use of cinematic productions to depict the social, political, and cultural realities of the “Third World”. I also knew nothing about the complexities involved in writing narratives whose underlying contexts portray these societies, nor of how directors/producers are able to transfer these narratives creatively from print to screen.  After a few weeks in the film class, I quickly began to see Third Cinema as an extraordinary form of art, and perhaps the cleverest way possible to question structures of power and oppression. Yet I would not realize to what profound degree I was fascinated and impressed by the works of writers, directors, and producers of Latin American films until my “experience” in Salamanca, when I enrolled in Spanish Cinema and Spanish Culture as my two 400+ elective courses for the program.

Studying Spanish Cinema and Culture simultaneously was an extremely beneficial and informative experience for me as a student because we studied events, traditions, and famous people inherent to Spanish History in our Culture course that later became the central focus of films in the Cinema course. By taking these two courses, I became engrossed by the events of 20th century to present day Spain and I decided that I wanted to use the knowledge that I had gained in the pursuit of a degree in Spanish to create my own fictional narratives one day. I became interested in the idea of creating narratives that take place in the backdrop of actual events of 20th century Spain, for example the Second Republic, the Civil War, the dictatorship and reign of Francisco Franco, transition to democracy, cultural revival, and post-Franco Spain.

My ultimate inspiration to transfer my narratives from print to screen would explode as soon as I got my first taste of the cinematic genius of Pedro Almodóvar in that Cinema class in Salamanca. We analyzed Todo sobre mi madre (1999), an Almodóvar film created as a tribute to the post-Franco Spanish cultural revival known as la movida. I admired Almodóvar’s work because it was apparent that he was not afraid to push the boundaries of conventional cinema and to address controversial, sometimes provocative issues that generally people are afraid to talk about. It was the final motivation and sign that I needed to lead me to apply for graduate study in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures after graduation.

I knew before I traveled to Salamanca that I wasn’t ready to leave UMass SpanPort behind and wanted to continue studying Hispanic and Latin American Literatures and Cultures at the graduate level, yet for a long time I was not sure what exactly I wanted to focus my future research interests on. My “experience” studying Cinema and Culture in Spain as well as the Latin American Cinema course I took at UMass made it clear to me that my objective for enrolling in this Graduate School is to develop a deeper understanding of the people and events that have shaped the political, social, and cultural climate of Spain throughout the 20th century. Therefore in the fall of 2014, I hope to begin pursuing a Master of Arts degree at UMass in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures, as preparation for a future career as a writer of original narratives that address issues characteristic of 20th century Spanish societies in their underlying contexts, as well as a director of their cinematic adaptations. Without integrating all that I learned during my “experience” in Salamanca with some of the Spanish courses that I have taken at UMass, I am not sure if I would have ever come to this realization.

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