Representación del periodista en las newspaper films de Samuel Fuller: La voz de la primera plana (1952), Corredor sin retorno (1963) y Tinikling ou ‘La madonne et le dragon’ (1990)

Abstract

The representation of journalism on the big screen, the origins of which are to be found in the very birth of cinema, has evolved along with the medium itself, giving rise to very different portrayals of journalists both in those films that give an indisputable centrality to journalism and in others where journalists’ work figures merely as a backdrop. Regarding the former, termed ‘newspaper films’, these are movies which, despite their relationship with other genres, allow a closer and supposedly detailed look at the journalistic genre. This paper examines the three films about journalism that, in the extensive filmography of the American filmmaker Samuel Fuller, have the fourth estate and its practitioners at the heart of their plots: Park Row (1952), Shock Corridor (1963), and The Madonna and the Dragon (1990). Starting from the hypothesis that there is a heterogeneous representation of the journalists who embody the lead roles, the aim is to analyse the journalistic profiles represented therein, as well as the values, antivalues and ethical codes which determine these profiles.