Article

The Construction of Popular Taste according to Colombian Filmmakers in the 1940s

Details

Citation

Velez-Serna MA (2008) The Construction of Popular Taste according to Colombian Filmmakers in the 1940s. Participations, 5 (1). http://www.participations.org/Volume%205/Issue%201%20-%20special/5_01_velezserna.htm

Abstract
This paper aims to understand the notion of the “popular” and the “national”, as it was used during the first period of sound films in Colombia (ten feature films made between 1939 and 1945). It argues that filmmakers attempted to create a national cinema merging conventions of Mexican musical comedy with a constructed definition of Colombian folklore, but never achieved commercial success. These films’ failure as popular cinema can be attributed to their contradictory ideological perspective, attempting to collate an elite “national culture” project with the forms and genres of mass media. The paper explores exhibition practices in Bogotá, presenting cinemas as social spaces where the distance between different audiences was inscribed in the codes of ‘good taste’, thus constructing operative definitions and evaluations of the ‘popular’.

Keywords
National cinema; Colombian cinema; 1940s; folklore; popular audiences; cinema-going; exhibition;

Journal
Participations: Volume 5, Issue 1

StatusPublished
Publication date31/05/2008
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/24734
PublisherUniversity of Aberystwyth
Publisher URLhttp://www.participations.org/…1_velezserna.htm
ISSN1749-8716

People (1)

People

Dr Maria Velez Serna

Dr Maria Velez Serna

Lecturer, Communications, Media and Culture