From the Archive to the City: (Re)Constructing Madrid’s Past in Basilio Martín Patino’s Madrid (1987)

• Autores: Enrique Téllez Espiga
• Localización: Bulletin of Contemporary Hispanic Studies, ISSN-e 2516-8037, ISSN 2516-8029, Vol. 1, Nº. 1, 2019, págs. 75-92
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article examines the role that urban space and people’s experience of it play in the transmission and maintenance of the past, and how memories contribute to understanding and experiencing the city, in Basilio Martín Patino’s mixed-genre film Madrid (1987). I introduce the concept of the ‘mnemonic collective map’ to analyse the reciprocal relationship between collective memories and urban space. A mnemonic collective map stresses the reciprocal processes by which an experience of the city constructs or reinterprets memories, while the transmission of memories generates an image of urban space that influences how the city is experienced. In an analysis of Madrid, I argue that Hans, the protagonist, starts his documentary film on the city of Madrid with a historiographical approach, but later adopts a methodology that highlights the relevance of collective memories in the reconstruction of what the city has been and is, thus developing a mnemonic collective map as a result of his affective relationship to the city and its inhabitants. As he experiences the urban milieu, its collective past becomes more comprehensible; as he comprehends the past of the city, he is able to understand better the idiosyncrasies of present-day Madrid.