The way of the dog: Truman through the cosmopolitan lens

Abstract

This article examines Truman (Gay, 2015) as an example of a transnational co-production between Argentina and Spain within the wider context of contemporary co-productions in Latin American cinema. The article uses cultural-industrial analysis and cosmopolitan theory – in particular, the notion of cosmopolitan performance and cosmopolitan spaces – as a framework for the exploration of the symbolic-ideological space that the film creates out of the real places in which the action is set and out of the various journeys inscribed in the cinematic identities of its main authorial voices. The Madrid neighbourhood in which most of the narrative develops, Las Salesas, is transformed in the movie through the presence in its midst of transnational star Ricardo Darín and the urban sensibility contributed by Barcelona-based director Cesc Gay. As a consequence, Truman’s construction of space becomes part of a Hispanic American imaginary which, originating in industrial practices, financial motivations and a vaguely defined common cultural space, attempts to supersede colonial history within the logics of globalization, transnationalism and cosmopolitan sensibilities.