Abstract
Ricardo Darín has become the somewhat unlikely middle-aged poster boy of Argentine cinema of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. In the Argentine context, this same period is marked by the economic crisis of 2001 and the celebrations of the country’s bicentenary in 2010, both of which raise important questions about national identity. This article will examine the films Darín made with Juan José Campanella and Pablo Trapero in order to consider the ways in which his star status is used as a way to reflect or comment upon certain questions that seem to occupy the national psyche and to engage with forms of masculinity, whether that be to represent them, reify them, or indeed do both simultaneously. In the four films he made with Campanella, Darín plays an affable middle-class man who is somehow an outsider. The fact that by the end of the films all four characters have found some closure and experience a sense of a new beginning attests to the strength of middle-class masculinity as an identity category. Both his characters die at the end of the two films with Trapero. These characters are also outsiders, but Trapero uses Darín’s star status to draw attention to broader social issues within Argentine society. Ultimately, both directors rely upon Darín’s off-screen persona to aid characterization and link their protagonists to national issues and questions of national identities.
Highlights
Ricardo Darín has become the somewhat unlikely middle-aged poster boy of Argentine cinema of the first quarter of the twenty-first century
TV, stage and even cinema, but the definitive moment for his career came with the release of Nueve reinas, which uncannily seemed to foresee the Argentine economic crisis of 2001 (Hines)
I want to look at the films Darín made with directors Juan José Campanella and Pablo Trapero in order to consider the ways in which his star status is used to pose certain questions that seemed to occupy the national psyche in the first decade of the new century and to engage with forms of masculinity, whether that be to represent them, reify them or do both simultaneously
Summary
Ricardo Darín has become the somewhat unlikely middle-aged poster boy of Argentine cinema of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. I want to look at the films Darín made with directors Juan José Campanella and Pablo Trapero in order to consider the ways in which his star status is used to pose certain questions that seemed to occupy the national psyche in the first decade of the new century and to engage with forms of masculinity, whether that be to represent them, reify them or do both simultaneously.
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