Pudovkin and the Censors: Juan Antonio Bardem's Muerte de un ciclista

Abstract

In the light of Juan Antonio Bardem's appeal for Spanish directors to avail themselves of digital technology to reconstruct a censored Spanish twentieth-century past, this article considers the influence on Bardem of Vsevolod Pudovkin and suggests that, although digital technology allows for an apparently seamless cinematic reconstruction of the past, along the lines of George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck (2005), the Soviet-style disruption used by Bardem in Muerte de un ciclista may appeal just as effectively to the human psyche. It argues that this appeal lies with Pudovkin's point that 'editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the "psychological guidance" of the spectator'. So that for contemporary viewers and film-makers Muerte de un ciclista offers a reminder that dialogue, editing and mise-en-scène can manipulate viewer response with disruptive mechanisms that echo those of the unconscious and that have no need for the innovations of the digital age.