Posted by: taravb
US movies in Spain:What do Spaniards think about them? - 05/11/02 02:38 PM
Hi--
I've been feeling like both the new "Star Wars" movie and the film "Spider-Man" are taking over the news sites on the web recently...and that got me thinking about how American movies are received in Spain.
I only saw one film while living in Spain (a dubbed version of "Look Who's Talking," of all things, in Salamanca in 1990), but had several conversations with friends about American films. One of them told me something I haven't forgotten, which was that most (at the time) American movies were too "black and white" in their portrayal of moral issues. This friend said that this overly simplistic formula was laughed at by most Spanish moviegoers.
I wonder if that's a common view, and if anyone senses that this is changing? And if it is true that Spanish people think American films are too formulaic, why do you think they do so well at the box office in Spain and in the rest of Europe? Even films that "flop" here seem to have new lives in Europe.
What do you all think? Obviously movies are (for good or bad) one of our biggest cultural exports!
I've been feeling like both the new "Star Wars" movie and the film "Spider-Man" are taking over the news sites on the web recently...and that got me thinking about how American movies are received in Spain.
I only saw one film while living in Spain (a dubbed version of "Look Who's Talking," of all things, in Salamanca in 1990), but had several conversations with friends about American films. One of them told me something I haven't forgotten, which was that most (at the time) American movies were too "black and white" in their portrayal of moral issues. This friend said that this overly simplistic formula was laughed at by most Spanish moviegoers.
I wonder if that's a common view, and if anyone senses that this is changing? And if it is true that Spanish people think American films are too formulaic, why do you think they do so well at the box office in Spain and in the rest of Europe? Even films that "flop" here seem to have new lives in Europe.
What do you all think? Obviously movies are (for good or bad) one of our biggest cultural exports!