Fascist space and film: spatial practice and ideology in El Valle de los Caídos (1963) and La sombra de la cruz (2013) Katherine O. Stafford Department of Languages and Literary Studies, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA ABSTRACT This article analyzes how film reproduces and/or contests the spatial practices of the most emblematic fascist monument in Spain, the Valley of the Fallen. I focus on two documentary representations of the monument made by foreigners, Hollywood director Andrew Marton’s El Valle de los Caídos (1963) and Italian Alessandro Pugno’s La sombra de la cruz (2013). I analyze how montage and cinematography tell a story of a Francoist space in two distinct moments in time. Though products of considerably different historical and social contexts, both documentaries tell a similar narrative of a monk who joins the Benedictine order located in the Valley, and both works seek to translate a national Spanish essence to a wider audience through a cinematic representation of a symbolic space. Marton’s film, a product of Samuel Bronston Productions, is a performance of the spatial aspirations and ideals of the Franco regime: we observe a “will to architecture” and a desire to create or recreate what Lefebvre calls “absolute space” through long shots and a filmic- cartographic aviator gaze. In the contemporary film La sombra de la cruz (2013), the gaze is dissonant and full of temporal and spatial contrasts, revealing the fragility, frictional core and threat of fascist spatial practice and ideology. Ultimately, this article reflects on the legacy of Francoist space in Spain and how the filmic gaze has evolved in response. KEYWORDS Spain; fascism; space; memory; film It was 1 April 1964, and Francisco Franco’s dictatorial regime celebrated its “25 Years of Peace” campaign with religious ceremonies across Spain. The main event was a “Te Deum” composed by José María Morales in the recently inaugurated Valley of the Fallen, a monument built to commemorate the fallen “heroes and martyrs” of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Franco, his family and his appointed Bourbon heir to the dictatorship, Prince Juan Carlos, were in attendance. It was the height of the monu- ment’s prestige. Later, this striking edifice would gradually transform into a kind of “pariah” space, as well as one of the most costly and subsidized sites of Spanish national patrimony. As I write this, its identity is in limbo. 1 As Rafael Rodríguez Tranche and Vicente Sánchez-Biosca (2018, 496–497) note, the success and impact of the Valley of the Fallen was ultimately limited because the © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Katherine O. Stafford staffoko@lafayette.edu JOURNAL OF SPANISH CULTURAL STUDIES https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2022.2107755 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 CJSC2107755 Techset Composition India (P) Ltd., Bangalore and Chennai, India 7/29/2022