ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews what it can be considered both “classic” and “modern” Hispanism to interrogate how revealing their foundational moments and turning points are when literature is no longer the privileged object of study. The chapter pays special attention to the field’s recurrent feelings of crisis and its many realignments in order to ascertain how those critical moments parallel or intersect with the disciplinary study of Spanish film. It concludes with a reflection on arguably the most consequential film in early Spanish cinema, La aldea maldita (Rey, 1930). To be precise, the chapter ends with a critical evaluation of the existing approaches to early Spanish cinema, followed by an appraisal of how one particular film had been invariably chosen as a foundational work in the field, as the “first Spanish film,” in the most radical formulations. This chapter finishes then by taking stock of how discourses of origins have conditioned the establishment of that field of study I am calling Filmspanism.
