The war that wont die charts the changing nature of cinematic depictions of the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, a significant number of artists, filmmakers and writers from George Orwell and Pablo Picasso to Joris Ivens and Joan Miró rallied to support the countrys democratically-elected Republican government. The arts have played an important role in shaping popular understandings of the Spanish Civil War and this book examines the specific role cinema has played in this process. The books focus is on fictional feature films produced within Spain and beyond its borders between the 1940s and the early years of the twenty-first century including Hollywood blockbusters, East European films, the work of the avant garde in Paris and films produced under Francos censorial dictatorship. The book will appeal to scholars and students of Film, Media and Hispanic Studies, but also to historians and, indeed, anyone interested in why the Spanish Civil War remains such a contested political topic.

David Archibald is Lecturer in Theatre Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow

AcknowledgmentsList of illustrationsIntroduction: film, history and the Spanish Civil War1. Hollywood and the Spanish Civil War: For Whom the Bell Tolls2. The Spanish Civil War in East German Cinema: Fünf Patronenhülsen/Five Cartridges 3. Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War in cinema: ¡Viva La Muerte!/Long Live Death and L' arbre de Guernica/The Tree of Guernica4. Film under Franco: La caza/The Hunt and El jardín de las delicias/The Garden of Delights5. Re-cycling Basque history: patterns of the past in Vacas/Cows6. No laughing matter? Comedy and the Spanish Civil War in cinema 7. Ghosts of the past: El espinazo del Diablo/The Devils Backbone8. A story from the Spanish revolution: Land and Freedom/Tierra y Libertad9. The search for truth in Soldados de Salamina/Soldiers of SalaminaConclusionFilmographyBibliographyIndex