From trace to sigh

Spain is not now notably rural. According to The Economist, in 2004 France, Italy, and the United States had a less urbanized population (216, 146, 166, 234). But, as is well known, city dwelling came late to Spain, when the hunger of the 1950s and the economic boom of the 1960s led to rapid depopulation of the countryside. Television had early implications for the city/country divide. By 1964 research suggested that, of the US imports then dominant, urbanites favoured the gritty crime drama The Untouchables, while villagers preferred the gentler Dr Kildare (Palacio 63). The first reliable statistical survey reported in 1966 that 51% of those living in the largest cities owned a television set (more than those who had access to hot water) and 66% considered TV essential; the figures for the smallest towns were just 5% and 38%, respectively (64). Curiously 60% of the urban population and 35% of the rural declared themselves to be regular viewers (66). The reason for this apparent anomaly is that country people watched television communally: so-called “tele-clubs” had been set up by the government in 1964. By the end of the decade they numbered three thousand and were considered by the regime to be sites of political agitation (60). The second half of the 1960s saw a change in viewing tastes with the arrival of a lower-class audience, which preferred domestic programming to imports (71).

It is worth remembering, then, that TV has not always been consumed privately; and that it has not always been thought to be the opium of the people. The question arises, however, of the relationship between the new medium and the earlier visual media from which it evolved; and of the possibility of a distinct Francoist aesthetic across those media. In this chapter I examine newsreel (the form of cinema which, through its regularity and impermanence, most closely anticipates aspects of television); Francoist series drama (the genre that most closely interacts with everyday life in the period); and the scheduling of Francoist feature films on post-Franco television (the clearest and most disturbing sign of nostalgia for the Dictatorship).