Abstract

MARTINEZ ILLAN, Antonio  and  MUNOZ-GARNICA, Miguel. Looking at Madrid: Areta and the Urban Landscape in El Crack Trilogy by José Luis Garci. [online]. , pp.319-337.  Epub Oct 14, 2023. ISSN 1684-0933.  http://dx.doi.org/10.26441/rc22.2-2023-3180.

El crack (1981), El crack dos (1983) and El crack cero (2019) by José Luis Garci make up a trilogy that adapts the genre of American film noir to Madrid’s reality during the Transition, spanning from the months before the death of Francisco Franco until 1982. This article analyzes what we consider to be the main expressive key of the three titles: the visual continuity and complementarity between Germán Areta, the leading detective, and Madrid’s views. We detected two aesthetic patterns sustained throughout the trilogy: the urban landscape shots presented in an internal dialogue with Areta’s gaze and the non-narrative successions of pictures of the city, where there’s no depiction of the protagonist. Both resources allow us to deploy a textual analysis of the films to illustrate how that citycharacter progression is built, typical of classic film noir but much more radical in the hands of Garci.

Keywords : textual analysis; spanish cinema; Madrid in cinema; José Luis Garci; El crack; film noir; spanish transition.

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