“And I’m not just going to bring the filmmakers!”: Relations between Cinema and Youth Literature in Una vida de película, by José Antonio del Cañizo

Abstract

The transfers from juvenile literature to cinema have been studied from different perspectives. However, the same does not happen if we approach such a suggestive subject in the opposite direction, that is to say, if we are interested in the presence of cinema in youth literature. Probably, the best-known title in this field could be The Film Club, by David Gilmour, whose original in English was published in 2007. Nevertheless, there is a paradigmatic case that is quite earlier in the context of Spanish literature that should be taken into account: Una vida de película (1993), by José Antonio del Cañizo (1938). The writer, recognized by different prestigious awards and admired by the younger reading public (Morales Lomas y Morales Pérez 2011, 328), has therefore managed to offer a new path at the crossroads of current children’s and youth reading, and it is fair to put it now in value. Thus, the present proposal attempts to analyze the presence of cinema in his book, stratifying it into three blocks: 1) presence in the main characters, 2) nominal presence through the chapter titles and 3) presence in the plot construction of the story.