Argentine Cinema and National Identity covers the development of
Argentine cinema since the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, a period that
has been understudied. This essential cultural history delves on the
dialect tradition versus modernity that was in place during those years
and also comprises an examination of the political economy of film
production as well as the different laws, including that implementing
censorship that regulated this cultural industry. It also pays
particular attention to two historical film genres: the historical film
genre per se and the gauchesque, a genre based on outlaw gauchos that
was crucial for nation-building in the nineteenth century. This volume
investigates the way Argentine cinema positioned itself when facing the
competition of glossy American films and resorted to the historical and
gauchesque to bridge the stark divisions between the Argentine left and
right in the late 1960s.