Film Culture and Family Memory: “Las Bardem”

Luis Cemillán Casis (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

2021 was named the “Berlanga year” after the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the filmmaker Luis García Berlanga. Also, although unduly relegated to second place, it was the turn of Fernando Fernán Gómez’s centenary. 2022 commemorated the year of Bardem, following the centenary of the renowned filmmaker Juan Antonio Bardem. And 2023 celebrates the centenary of a universal icon such as Lola Flores. The fact that these names and surnames are in the collective gaze responds to a double exercise: to be the object of memory, that is, to act as historical personalities, and to reveal the mechanisms of remembrance, that is, to reveal the institutional, public and also private interests that decide to commemorate some personalities and not others. “Film culture and family memory: Las Bardem” aims to draw a discursive line between the concepts of film heritage and family memory, as well as to identify family sagas as active agents in the accumulation and management of a certain symbolic capital. Perhaps, given that cinema is one of the newest cultural objects (compared to other forms such as literature or painting), it is still difficult to conceptualize it in terms of heritage, legitimations, or commemorations. But the great names that survive history depend, in any case, on the efforts of institutions (official, public, private…) that activate the processes of memory. On the occasion of Juan Antonio Bardem’s centenary (2022), this audiovisual essay aims to focus not only on the figure of the renowned director, patriarch of a saga that dates back to the theater scene of the 19th century, but also on the role played by personalities such as Matilde Muñoz Sampedro (“cómica”), Pilar (actress), Mónica (actress and restaurateur) or María Bardem (script). All of them stand as indisputable references in their professions and they all have played a key role in the legitimization or memory of Juan Antonio himself and of the Bardem surname.

The analysis is based on the studies on family memory by Anne Muxel (2012), who establishes up to four types of family memory that she conceptualizes in the form of container circles. Each stratum or type of memory moves between the poles privacy-public and individual-collective, and encompasses the previous one. Thus, the first, more intimate circle of family memory will have to do with sensory issues that only those belonging to the group are capable of dismembering, while the last types of family memory refer to the narratives, meanings or stories that the family negotiates with third parties.

On the other hand, it is essential to mention the idea of “mnemonic artefacts” (Shore and Kauko, 2018) that activate memory. By analyzing objects of various nature, both material and immaterial, such as autobiographies, recipe books, photo albums, interviews or specific places, the main mechanisms of objectification of family memory and their role in the processes of memory signification will also be addressed. Finally, the role played by the family in negotiating or altering a group’s memory that must necessarily be legitimized by other institutions -such as the public or the critics- will be discussed. All the above highlight the value of the family sagas in show business and their ability to generate collective memory as a way of managing and negotiating a cultural legacy.

Bibliography

• Bardem, P. (2005). La Bardem. Mis memorias. Plaza y Janes.
• Bardem, M. (1999). Pimientos rojos rellenos y otros cuentos de cocina. Martínez Roca.
• Brockmeier, J. (2018). From Memory as Archive to Remembering as Conversation. En B.
• Wagoner (Ed.), Handbook of Culture and Memory (pp. 41-65). Oxford University Press.
• Gil Vázquez, A. (2021). Personajes femeninos de reparto en el cine español. Mujeres excéntricas y de armas tomar. Vía Láctea/Instituto Universitario del Cine Español.
• Halbwachs, M. (2004). La memoria colectiva. Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
• Muxel, A. (2014). The Functions of Familial Memory and Processes of Identity. En E. Boesen, F. Lentz, M. Margue, D. Scuto y R. Wagener (Eds.), Peripheral Memories: Public and Private Forms of Experiencing and Narrating the Past (pp. 21-32). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
• Shore, B. y Kauko, S. (2018). The Landscape of Family Memory. En B. Wagoner (Ed.), Handbook of Culture and Memory (pp. 85-117). Oxford University Press.