Cria Cuervos was made in 1975 when Spain’s infamous head of state,Franco, was still alive and censorship had not yet been officially abolished. This is precisely the reason why Saura’s films of that period lend themselves particularly well to be looked at from a semiotic point of view for Spain’s filmmakers of those days had to go to great lengths in order to avoid any run-ins with the censors; which is to say that with censorship looming large, in order to transmit his criticism of Franco and the Francoist society, he had to use coded messages as otherwise his films would have been likely to be cut. Saura’s collaborator and star of seven of his films, Geraldine Chaplin, put it this way: 'Politics were omnipresent in our daily life, we discussed them all the time. Whenever we made a new film we decided we didn’t want to be martyrs. No, we wanted to make intelligent films which weren’t slaves to the censors. The first questions we were always asked was ‘What was cut by the censor?’. But nothing was ever cut in a Saura film. The politics were hidden. It was like a game of cat-and-mouse'(Nicodemus 2000: 13).
Besides Saura’s collaborator and star, Geraldine Chaplin, the great Clown’s daughter, was also his partner at the time. The seven films they made together range among Saura’s most political and arguably most important works. I am intrigued by the fact that their relationship yielded such an impressive body of work, which is why in my opinion Geraldine Chaplin’s contribution as the films’ star deserves closer examination. Cria Cuervos is on the surface a film about childhood memories as recalled by Ana(Geraldine Chaplin) twenty years later in, what we must reason is the year 1995, thus assuming that the story is set in 1975, the year the film was made, a time which marked the transition of Spain from a Francoist to a Post-Francoist society.
Geraldine Chaplin said that “she sees Cria Cuervos as a feminist movie….about a pianist who abandoned her career for her family and then died. Carlos didn’t mean for it to be that, but I think that’s the way it turned out” (Klemesrud 1977). However, taking into consideration her statement cited above (“…The politics were hidden. It was like a game of cat and mouse”) and F.X. Feeney’s claim that ‘Saura’s place in Spanish film history is literally central. His work draws strength from the anarchic surrealism of Bunuel and paves the way for the erotic and romantic anarchies of Almodovar and Bigas Luna’ (Feeney 1999: 51), it quickly becomes clear that beneath the film’s surface lurks a subtext not only of profound criticism of Franco and the society his regime produced, but also of Saura’s scepticism of post-Franco Spain. And although Cria Cuervos is indeed readable on two levels, it is specifically the anarchic subtext, the “hidden politics”, that I seek to examine in the second part of this essay since I firmly believe that the film must be read in the context of the time it was made.
To begin with, I suggest that each one of the main characters in the film represents a part of Spanish history. Cria Cuervos has three central characters: Ana as a child (played by Ana Torrent), who represents post-Franco Spain; Ana as an adult (played by Geraldine Chaplin), who embodies the Spain of the future, and the father (played by Hector Alterio), who stands for the declining Spain of Franco. Of all three characters his is the most obvious to decipher. Misogynistic, tyrannical and despotic, his character is a none too thinly veiled symbol of Franco and the men who staunchly supported him. Never shown without his uniform (even wearing it when he is buried!), we learn that during the Second World War he fought for the Germans on the Eastern front as part of Spain Division Azul. Although he dies at the film’s beginning, he appears to dominate the film until the end for such was his (read: Franco’s) influence, Saura seems to suggest, that even though he dies, his children will remain. Children, like Ana, who are the legacy, the product, of a authoritarian, repressive society. Cria Cuervos (literally: raise ravens) derives from a Spanish proverb: “Raise ravens and they will peck your eyes out”. (Hence the fact that the first time we see aunt Paulina is when she is applying mascara needs to be mentioned here.) Thus, it is no surprise that little Ana, who is devilish and angelic at the same time, is obsessed by thoughts of death and murder, for these are the children Franco and his helpers created. To be sure, Ana’s various attempts at murder all fail, for what she thinks is a lethal poison turns out to be only bicarbonate powder. And yet, it is no doubt murder that it is on her mind: she truly is the result of her upbringing: its victim and its creation both at the same time. However, in spite of her homicidal intentions, she remains an ambiguous and ultimately likeable figure, which is mainly due to her age. Ana, like the Spain of the time which was in transition from a Francoist to a post-Francoist society, is still too young to be judged. Saura’s scepticism about the new Spain is embodied in the little Ana. But, it seems, he is willing to give it, or her, the benefit of a doubt.
Nevertheless when Ana is not preoccupied with murder, she escapes into her own little
world, a place outside reality (i.e. squinting her eyes and making her mother appear and disappear; imagining to fly like a bird). Given the world she grows up in, those hallucinations and fantasies are Ana’s only means for survival. But Ana, representing post-Franco Spain, also has to carry the burden of Spain’s past and leading it into the future, and her dreams and fantasies seem to be an allusion to the many possible shapes and forms Spain’s future may take. That Saura had low hopes for his country’s future is accentuated at the very end when we see Ana, accompanied by her two siblings attending a Catholic college, the Catholic Church having played a vital and instrumental role in Franco’s Spain.
Carlos Saura himself told John Hopewell that “nothing in my films is casual. The most minimal detail has a sense” (Hopewell 1986: 135). Again, seen in that light, it can in my opinion not be a coincidence that Saura used a wide-angle shot of the college with a cross on top clearly visible at the end of the film, suggesting that even though Franco might have gone, his children would remain. Or to put it in Marsha Kinder’s words, these are the “children of Franco, who bear the crippling legacy of Francoist cultural repression” (Kinder 1993 : 194). However, as the film constantly veers between Saura’s scepticism and his hope regarding post-Franco Spain, the camera pans away from the Catholic college and zooms in on a group of skyscrapers, which suggest Saura’s yearning for his country to be able to rid itself of the Franco legacy, the skyscrapers implying progress,modernity and most of all – secularisation.
Saura’s critical stance towards the Catholic Church is demonstrated in another scene,
about three quarters into the film, when we see Ana interring her recently died hamster, Roni. Digging a hole in the ground with her own hands, she puts the hamster into a shoebox that has an oversized cross painted on it and buries it in the backyard, making it clear that what we have just witnessed was a Catholic burial. Once finished, she looks at her dirty hands, in an almost contemplative manner, and slowly besmirches her face, thus becoming something of a “tarnished angel” or one of the many “angels with dirty faces” that Franco’s Spain produced: A society with dirt on their hands for they were blind followers of a church that actively supported an oppressive regime. In that respect a parallel can be drawn between Francoist Spain and the Third Reich, for although the Catholic Church didn’t actively participate in the Holocaust, it certainly turned a blind eye to it.
It goes without saying that Saura’s scepticism of the new Spain would prove to be unfounded, for with democracy firmly restored just after Franco’s death, Spain has since joined the European Union (on January 1, 1986) and has joined the ranks of the continent’s most prosperous countries and certainly turned into one of its most liberal. For instance, Spain is one of only three countries in the world where marriage among gays has the same status as marriage among heterosexual couples. That also is ample proof to what extent the importance and the power of the Catholic Church has diminished.
The third central figure in Cria Cuervos is the adult Ana, who appears on only three
occasions throughout the film. Yet, she is a fundamental figure, for it is through her that we realize to what extent her childhood experiences have shaped and traumatized her. Visibly distraught, she is remembering various events from her childhood, and as memories often are, they are incomplete, a distortion of reality; like a patchwork, inconsistent and more often than not, indistinguishable from fantasy and hallucination, while adding and eliminating certain events in the process. In that respect Cria Cuervos is reminiscent of Terence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives (UK 1988), in which the narrative also jumps back and forth in what we realize is a string of loosely connected memories from childhood. Unlike Davies’ film, however, Cria Cuervos has a narrator, the adult Ana, who, while going down memory lane, looks directly into the camera and thus, at us, bringing to mind the role of a patient undergoing psychoanalysis, with the audience in the role of the analyst. It appears as if she is interrogated by us, answering questions that we didn’t ask but that we are tempted to ask, particularly since her recollections do not always seem to match reality. It his here that Cria Cuervos is paying homage to the films of Ingmar Bergman, for it is a technique which he frequently used (i.e. The Hour Of The Wolf, Sweden 1968) and which was later adopted by Woody Allen (i.e. Husbands And Wives, USA 1992). In point of fact, the intense gaze of the adult Ana is reflected in the stares of Ana, the child, a stare that is 'opaque, completely neutral, fixed in wax-like pallor, a blank look designed more as passive defence against inquisition than a means of making contact'(Hopewell 1986: 139).
Given Ana’s traumatic childhood, which was marked by a despotic father, loss and
bereavement, it is of course no surprise that she would seek psychoanalytical help as an adult. Blaming her father for the death (of cancer?) of her loving and beloved mother and(unsuccessfully) trying to kill him as well as - later - her aunt, we are perplexed not only at how forgiving she appears to be towards her father (for her recollection of him does not match the villain we see on screen), but also at the confusion of the images before us, which make it almost impossible to distinguish fantasy from reality. In other words, the viewer is at a complete loss as to what are the imaginations of Ana the child and what are the distorted recollections of the childhood as Ana, the adult, remembers it. In that respect (the adult) Ana’s stares could indeed be read as those of a schizophrenic patient, examined by her psychiatrist, in this case, us, the audience. It is then that Saura’s film most resembles those of his predecessor Luis Bunuel. Ana’s imaginings, distorted memories and hallucinations call to mind films like Les fantomes de la liberté (Luis Bunuel, Italy/ France 1974) or Le charm discrèt de la bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, France/ Italy/ Spain 1972), where all boundaries between reality and fantasy seem to disappear.
To further illustrate my belief that Saura intended to tell much more than a story about childhood memory I have handpicked one particular sequence, about halfway through the film, in which we see Ana listening to an extremely popular song at the time (Jeannette’s “Por Que Te Vas?”) while cutting out female models from a catalogue and pasting them into a scrapbook. The song’s title, “Por Que Te Vas?”, which means “Why Are You Going”, clearly is a hint at the Spain of the time - which was in the process of change - and Ana’s discomfort about the consequences that will invariably follow. Furthermore, the song is a pop-song, decidedly contemporary and modern which again implies that the old Spain is on its way out and has run its course. This is supported by the flamenco tune heard in the following scene when Ana is called away to look after her ailing grandmother, a “voice-less” - literally - relict of the Spain of yesterday, the Spain of flamencos, toreros and Sevillanas. But before she goes off to see her grandma, she thumbs through her scrapbook which is filled with images of women until reaching a blank page on which the camera subtly lingers. As stated previously, Cria Cuervos can be read on two levels. And although it is obvious that Ana is missing her mother and is sampling paper clippings of female models in search of a replacement, it is equally evident that when she arrives at the blank page - one that has yet to be filled - she is not only at a loss in terms of her female parent, but also in respects to the new Spain, whose pages also had yet to be filled and whose history had yet to be written. The blank page in Ana’s scrapbook is masterfully juxtaposed just a few moments later by the wall full of photos in her grandmother’s room, stared at by the latter with an almost bleary-eyed nostalgia and by Ana with childlike indifference. We recognize the wall of photos from
the beginning of the film, when we see the camera slowly moving across from photo to photo as the opening credits roll, each picture representing history, memory and consequently the distortion of those memories, which over time turn into a dreamscape consisting of fantasy, reality and hallucination. The leisurely panning movements of the camera are accompanied by hauntingly beautiful piano-music, anticipating the profession Ana’s mother gave up for her husband and family. Since there is no non-diegetic music in Cria Cuervos at all - which again is reminiscent of literally all of Ingmar Bergman’s films – each time music is used its use cannot be ignored.
The solemn piano music (occurring on two occasions during the film), Jeannette’s
pop-lamento “Por Que Te Vas” (also occurring on two occasions), the sombre undertone of the narrative, Ana’s hallucinatory dream world and her preoccupations with death and murder - all are evoking the later paintings of Goya, making Cria Cuervos resemble one of his grave pinturas negras, the series of pictures Goya painted during his exile in Bordeaux, while Spain was occupied by Napoleon, and Goya - near death, deaf, and on the brink of madness - was in a world of his own, which is reflected in those dark, cryptic and gloomy paintings. Saura himself declared that, 'in his inauguration speech at the Academy, [Goya] said that he sees neither lines nor colours, just shadows that move. That to me is one of the most concise characterizations of modern art'(Dockhorn 2000: 36).
That Saura was, and probably still is influenced by Goya, becomes apparent when watching his films, most notably those made between 1966 and 1979, among which Cria Cuervos stands out as prime example.To quote John Hopewell: 'Though such techniques (confluence of fantasy and reality, and a critical realism which uses allegory and distortion) were developed in part to evade the Francoist censor, Saura traces them back through esperpento and Goya to such “Golden Age” seventeenth century writers as Gracian, Quevada, Calderon, and Cervantes (who took to ‘transfiguring reality in the imagination … because of the weight of the Inquisition on the intellectual life of the age’'(Hopewell 1986: 135).
Cria Cuervos is a complex film which can easily be misread or misunderstood as being merely a film about a traumatic childhood. Although it goes without saying that seen as such makes for very beneficial viewing, but deprives the viewer of the deeper pleasures, hidden meanings and lessons to be learned that are lurking beneath the film’s thick-layered, murky surface.
As mentioned above, the film’s leading actress, Geraldine Chaplin, plays a double role in Cria Cuervos, that of Ana as an adult as well as Ana’s mother. To be sure, Ana Torrent, who plays Ana as a child, probably has the bigger part. But I consider Chaplin’s part more important inasmuch as it is through her eyes that we see the story unfold, and it is by looking at and listening to her - the adult Ana - that we come to fully comprehend the consequences an upbringing in Francoist Spain has had on its people.As previously stated, Geraldine Chaplin was instrumental in the films Saura made during that period for she starred in altogether seven of his films, in a few of which she played double roles (i.e.Cria Cuervos; Elisa Vida Mia, Spain 1977) and in one she contributed to the screenplay (La Madriguera, Spain 1969). Looking at her filmography - which includes nearly a hundred films - and her life, it seems to me that Geraldine Chaplin has always been a reluctant star, one that contradicts the usual definition of the term. She rose to international stardom in 1965 when she appeared in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago (USA 1965), but in spite of the worldwide success of Lean’s film, it was the other female lead, Julie Christie, and her male partner, Omar Sharif, whom the public at large identified with Lean’s film rather than Chaplin, who appears to have somewhat remained in the shadow of her colleagues.
But rather than cashing in on the accolades surrounding Doctor Zhivago, which, no doubt, would have been an option, Chaplin went on to work with Saura, whom she met on the set of his film Peppermint Frappé (Spain 1967) and subsequently became his muse and lover. During the 1970s her most noteworthy films - apart from her collaborations with Saura - are those she did with Robert Altman (Nashville, USA 1975; A Wedding, USA 1978) and her two films with Alan Rudolph (Welcome To LA, USA 1976; Remember My Name, USA 1978). Although I am unable to comment on the offers she might or might not have received during those years, I believe that to her the quality of the film had precedence over the film’s box-office potential or big names. Therefore, I would even go so far as to say that if it was not for her father’s fame, the name Geraldine Chaplin would mean little to most cinema-goers. A quote by Chaplin herself confirms this. Asked by Katja Nicodemus of the German daily TAZ about her “shameless exploitation of the name Chaplin”, she bluntly quipped, “I still do” (Nicodemus 2000: 13). In the same interview Chaplin argues that „she has never been a star“ (Nicodemus 2000: 13), and in his book, Die Unsterblichen Des Kinos, A. Heinzlmeier claims that „Geraldine obtained her first film part because she was her father’s daughter. That she became a star, is alone her achievement” (A. Heinzlmeier/ B. Schulz/ K. Witte, 1982: 210).
But the question, “what makes a star a star”, has preoccupied film historians for quite some time and clear definitions are few and far between. For instance, Meryl Streep rejects the idea of being a star and regards herself purely as an actress, almost as if the term star was an insult, something that she must not, cannot be if she wants to be taken seriously. Stars, as the name implies, are unreachable, unapproachable and endowed with an air of myth and mystery. Moreover, although stars go as far back as the French comedian Max Linder (1883 – 1925), who worked in various countries including the US, the term “star” really came into being with Florence Lawrence, who is generally quoted as having been the first film star, when the German-born Carl Laemmle, who later became the head of Universal Pictures, exploited her box-office clout and turned her into a star. In fact, in 1991 actor Roddy Macdowall donated the funds for a proper gravestone to be placed in her memory that reads: “The First Movie Star”.
Hence, when cinema was in its infancy, stars were the products and creations of the
studios they were working for and studio heads went to great lengths to turn their discoveries into a bankable “product”, ranging from changing their names and biography to altering their looks by requesting that they dye their hair or undergo plastic surgery. With the disappearance of the studio system the star as such had ceased to exist, yet the term remains to the very day while its connotations surely have changed although the question arises if the term “star” still applies today or if maybe what/ who we deem to be a star is not simply a celebrity? Have not the words “fame” and “celebrity” made the term “star” redundant?
Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck – they
all were indisputably stars in the “true sense of the word”, which is to say that without being able to adequately define the term “star” the star status of these actresses has never been questioned. In fact, Dietrich probably is what one could call the epitome of a star, for she had all the makings, all the ingredients, that - arguably - make a star a star: beauty, notoriety, wealth, charisma and a certain ‘je-ne-sais-pas-quoi’ - probably that touch of mystery - all of which turned her into perhaps the 20th century most well-known “star”. That her talent as an actress was limited and that her voice was far from perfect didn’t seem to matter and had no impact on her career. Neither did the fact that she was the creation and invention of her mentor, Josef von Sternberg, who oversaw the transformation of the plump songstress from Berlin-Schöneberg into a sequined siren, universally admired and revered.
I.C. Jarvie proposes that “…striking photogenic looks, acting ability, presence on camera, charm and personality, sex-appeal, attractive voice and bearing” are what makes a star a star (Jarvie in Dyer, 1986: 18). But although that definition might have been valid in the past, I do not believe it still applies today. In my view that explanation clearly is far too general as the above-mentioned qualities apply to a multitude of actors who are not necessarily stars. Richard Griffith’s description appears to be somewhat nearer to the mark, “…no machinery ever of itself and by itself made a star. That takes place in the depth of the collective unconscious” (Griffith in Dyer, 1986: 20).In this day and age stars are indeed subject to one’s own personal perception and definition and are certainly created in our minds. Although I would go somewhat further and say that a star need not necessarily be a creation of the collective unconscious, but can in fact be the conception of one’s own individual unconscious. In other words, today, where the term “star” itself has lost its traditional connotation, somebody who might be seen as a star in the eyes of one person might only be an actress/ actor in the eyes of somebody else and vice versa. Stars are made in our minds. Whom we deem worthy of the term “star” is up to one’s own individual perception.
Nevertheless, having established that the term “star” may be a term that has lost its significance, and, furthermore, that stars - or rather: our perception of them - can only ever be very personal, I will now go back to Geraldine Chaplin and try to analyze what it is that makes her different from other stars and what she contributed to the films of Carlos Saura and to Cria Cuervos in particular.
Geraldine Chaplin, the first of eight children of Charlie Chaplin’s marriage to Oona
O’Neill, the famous playwright’s daughter, was born in Santa Monica in 1944 and spent part of her childhood in Beverly Hills. In 1952, after her father had run into difficulties with the American officials for his alleged involvement with the Communist party, prompting him to relocate to Europe, the Chaplin family settled in Vevey on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, which is where Geraldine Chaplin lives today. Geraldine Chaplin was subsequently sent to England where she attended the Royal Ballett School, but had little intention to continue her career as a professional dancer and instead followed her father’s footsteps. No sooner had she made waves in the previously mentioned Doctor Zhivago did she meet Carlos Saura, eventually leading to her move to Madrid, which is where she continued living even after their separation in 1979. Their collaboration began in 1967 with Peppermint Frappé (Carlos Saura, Spain 1967) and ended in 1979 with Mama Cumple Cien Anos (Carlos Saura, Spain 1979). And it seems to me that it is precisely this very fact, Geraldine Chaplin’s nationality, which is and has always been difficult to place, what makes her an exception among the majority of film stars. Having grown up on two continents, in two different countries and having lived in two more, she is absolutely fluent - and accent free - in English, French and Spanish, which, as a result, turns her into something of a person without roots, without a home, impossible to be identified with a certain country. In her won words:'I have always been difficult to characterize. To the English I’m sounding American, and to Americans I’m sounding British. I suppose to American directors I come across as European'(Vahabzadeh & Göttler 2003: 13)
That statement sums up my perception of her, as in her - relatively few - American films she seems almost displaced, an alien body, who stands out amid the rest of the cast. In fact, not only ranks Geraldine Chaplin’s work with Saura among the best of her films, but those films are also where she seems most at home. I suppose the fact that for political reasons the Spain of the time (the 1960s and 70s) was somewhat isolated, did not help to foster international co-productions or facilitate a star’s foray into the global stage. Nevertheless, bearing in mind her own statement of “having never been a star” and the fact that she was Saura’s partner with “politics being part of their daily lives”, I do indeed believe that it was Chaplin who deliberately chose an - arguably less luminous but ultimately more rewarding – career in Spain over the short-lived glitz and glamour that a career on the world stage would have entailed. And to me personally Chaplin has always been identified with Spanish cinema than with films from any other country.
Her face, which is not conventionally beautiful, but which has a certain melancholy,
inscrutability and mystery about it, effortlessly blends in with Saura’s enigmatic and cryptic films of the time; films, like Cria Cuervos, that were subtle explorations of the reality and the consequences of Francoist Spain and whose thinly veiled criticism of the Franco regime was discernible in Chaplin’s face, which emanates fragility, mysteriousness and a certain lunacy, but never glamour or artificiality, which is why her participation is central to those films. However, her choice to have opted for a career in Spanish films cost her not only a potentially successful career in American films, but it may also explain the academic neglect of her star persona. As Andy Willis writes:'Popular actors from Spain, France or Italy, for example, have usually only received any real academic interest when they have crossed over into the more global sphere of Hollywood'(Willis 2004: 4).
Geraldine Chaplin once said that “I have a face of the past and a face of the future”
(Vahabzadeh & Göttler, 2003: 13), a comment which I find quite fitting, considering
that her two parts in Cria Cuervos are set in the past and in the future, but not in the present. At this point I should like to mention her three scenes in the film when she, in her role as Ana, in close-up, speaks directly to us, reflecting on her experiences as a child. Wearing the same grey sweater in all three scenes, and always facing the viewer, she has little help from the mise-en-scène and only has herself and her capability as an actress to rely on. Nevertheless, not only does she credibly embody the Spanish woman - with her silky black hair, her luminous face and facial features that never betray her American-English origin - but her looks also match those of Ana, the child (played by Ana Torrent). Furthermore, her facial expressions, her eyes, exude a vulnerability and a defencelessness, that make us instantly understand the effects that Ana’s traumatic experiences as a child has had on her later life.
In summary, Cria Cuervos is a film which, apart from being one of Saura’s most
memorable works, deserves to be rediscovered and reassessed, which ideally should include all of his films between 1966 and 1979. He was - and still is to a lesser degree- one of Spain’s and Europe’s most uncompromising auteurs, his “career under Franco suggesting a consistently personal voice surviving from one film to the next, which could be matched in Spain only by Edgar Neville and Luis Berlanga” (Hopewell 1986: 134). Saura dared to show chutzpah and verve in a political climate that was potentially dangerous and could have cost him his career. He - albeit subtly - raised his voice when in other countries that had been through similar situations, like Germany or Italy, all the voices remained unforgivingly silent. Saura’s - sometimes more, sometimes less - obvious criticism of Francoist Spain makes Cria Cuervos a highly complex film that is not always easy to decipher and dissect as the viewer is often tempted to merely look at it as a film about childhood memory, whereby neglecting the hidden meanings that are lurking beneath its surface. Cria Cuervos, which received the Grand Prix de la Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1976, also marks the pinnacle of Carlos Saura’s collaboration with Geraldine Chaplin, who evidently played a vital part in his body of work, primarily because of her ability to convincingly portray the at times mad, at times delicate, at times vulnerable women that were at the centre of his films. Although Geraldine Chaplin might not be considered a “star” in the eyes of most cinema-goers of today, in my opinion her
contribution, not just to the cinema of Spain and Carlos Saura in particular but also to world cinema, is fundamental.
Bibliography:
Dyer, Richard (1986): Stars.London: BFI
EPD Film 11/ 2000, page 36, Carlos Saura interviewed by Katharina Dockhorn
Heinzlmeier, A., Schulz, B., Witte, K. (1982): Die Unsterblichen Des Kinos. Frankfurt: Fischer
Hopewell, John (1986): Out Of The Past. London: BFI
Jordan, Barry & Allinson, Mark (2005): Spanish Cinema – A Student’s Guide. London: Hodder & Arnold
Kinder, Marsha (1993): Blood Cinema. Ewing/ New Jersey: University Of California Press
LA Times, February 26, 1999, page 51, F.X. Feeney
NY Times Encyclopaedia Of Film 1977, Geraldine Chaplin interviewed by Judy Klemesrud, no page numbers
Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 1, 2003, page 13, Geraldine Chaplin interviewed by S. Vahabzadeh & F. Göttler
TAZ, August 3, 2000, page 13, Geraldine Chaplin interviewed by Katja Nicodemus
Willis, Andy (2004): Film Stars – Hollywood And Beyond. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York
Wollen, Peter (1972): Signs And Meaning In The Cinema. London: Martin Secker & Warburg
Filmography:
A Wedding, Robert Altman, USA 1978
Cria Cuervos, Carlos Saura, Spain 1975
Doctor Zhivago, David Lean, USA 1966
Elisa, Vida Mia, Carlos Saura, Spain 1977
Husbands And Wives, Woody Allen, USA 1992
La Madriguera, Carlos Saura, Spain 1969
Mama Cumple Cien Anos, Carlos Saura, Spain 1979
Nashville, Robert Altman, USA 1975
Peppermint Frappé, Carlos Saura, Spain 1968
Remember My Name, Alan Rudolph, USA 1976
Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder, USA 1950
The Hour Of The Wolf, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1968
Welcome To LA, Alan Rudolph, USA 1978
Cria Cuervos is available on DVD.
