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Narrative Voice in El embrujo de Shanghai: Novel, Promise, Film Thomas Deveny Letras Peninsulares 16.3 (Fall-Winter 2003): p719-738. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 302. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center. Critical essay

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[(essay date fall-winter 2003-2004) In the essay below, Deveny focuses on point of view and narrative technique in this comparison of three different versions of El embrujo de Shanghai: Mars's novel; the unproduced movie script by Victor Erice; and the film, adapted and directed by Fernando Trueba.] Film makers have often adapted the novels of Juan Mars to the screen.1 The cinematographic version of his El embrujo de Shanghai was originally to be filmed by Victor Erice, but was ultimately directed by Fernando Trueba. Antonio Santamarina's Dirigido review of Trueba's film begins with a series of questions pondered by possibly every fan of contemporary Spanish cinema: "Cmo hubiera sido la adaptacin de El embrujo de Shanghai, la novela de Juan Mars, si Victor Erice la hubiera llevado a la pantalla tal y como estaba inicialmente previsto? Cules hubieran sido las diferencias ms significativas con la adaptacin del mismo texto que propone ahora Fernando Trueba? Sobre qu bases estticas y narrativas se hubieran fundado una y otra?" (36). The publication of Erice's script. La promesa de Shanghai, allows us to answer those questions. Since Mars describes his authorial role as that of a "contador de aventis," the act of narrating and the role of the narrator are crucial to his fiction, and should be so in any film adaptation of his works. This paper examines the importance of the narrative voice in the three versions of the narrative. Shortly after the novel was published in 1992, Spanish producer Andrs Vicente Gmez acquired the screen rights to the work, and when it was announced that the director for the project would be Vctor Erice, many people eagerly awaited the screen adaptation, because Erice's previous three films are each considered a masterpiece. His version of Adelaida Garca Morales's El sur is one of the most outstanding cinematographic adaptations in the history of Spanish film. Erice is known to work at his own pace, however, and that earlier project was controversial. Producer Elias Querejeta wanted to present El sur at the Cannes film festival; he became impatient with Erice and did not give him more time to film the final segment in Sevilla. Consequently, the director always felt that the film was unfinished. Erice wrote the script for his version of the El embrujo de Shanghai between May of 1996 and December of 1997, and in May of 1998, he began the plans for filming (budgeting, selection of locales for filming and choice of actors). The initial script would have resulted in a film that was three hours long, and that apparently caused problems. Erice (15) states, A primeros de junio de 1998, a ocho semanas de la fecha establecida para iniciar el rodaje, de la noche a la maana, el productor, Andrs Vicente Gmez, despidi al equipo de profesionales implicados en las labores de la preparacin, poniendo punto final a la misma. No supe, al menos en ese primer momento, con exactitud, la razn que le llev a tomar esa decision. El caso es que unas semanas despus me comunic que la pelcula de tres horas era inviable. He tried cutting the script, reducing the time to two hours and twenty minutes, but this substantially changed the story, eliminating the material after the protagonists' childhood (including the homicide of Denis).2 In spite of these changes, the producer and scriptwriter could not come to an agreement, and eventually Trueba became the director. According to producer Andrs Vicente Gmez, "Yo no cambi a Erice por Trueba. Abandon el proyecto con Erice porque no nos entendamos. Y despus de un tiempo, cuando Trueba ley la novela, me dijo que si an estaban disponibles los derechos, l lo hara" (www.buscacine). Erice bitterly accused Gmez of being stingy, and in the spring of 2002, when Trueba's film had its debut, he
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published the script that he had written. Mars's El embrujo de Shanghai and the question of narrative voice Dani's role as first-person narrator appears on the first page of Mars's novel: "Aqu empieza mi historia, y me habra gustado que hubiese en ella un lugar para mi padre, tenerlo cerca para aconsejarme, para no sentirme tan indefenso ... pero en esa poca a mi padre ya le daban definitivamente por desaparecido" (11-12). The temporal reference with the demonstrative adjective (" esa poca") indicates a temporal jump between the act of narrating and what is narrated. As in Lazarillo de Tormes, a novel that has an intertextual link with this work, the first-person narrator is the adult who thinks back on his childhood. Examples of this temporal dichotomy appears throughout the novel: "He pensado a veces que nunca me sent tan cerca de ella como en este momento" (68); "He revivido mil veces esa fosforescencia y ese ardor en la oscuridad" (169); "As, con el tiempo y casi sin darme cuenta, el escenario vital de mi infancia se me fue convirtiendo poco a poco en un paisaje moral, y as ha quedado grabado para siempre en mi memoria" (200); "No llegu a captarlos [detalles] totalmente aquel da, sino ms adelante ..." (214); "En qu estara pensando, me pregunto hoy ..." (219). In addition, Dani shows a consciousness of his role as principal narrator and questions his own abilities: "No s si lo estoy contando bien. Estos son los hechos y sta la fatalidad que los anim, los sentimientos y la atmsfera que nutrieron la aventera, pero el punto de vista y los pormenores, quin sabe" (205). A second narrator is Forcat, the maquis whose tale of Kim's adventure in Shanghai constitutes the mythification of the hero. The embedded narrative, the tale within the tale, occupies over 78 pages of the text--a full quarter of the novel.3 The importance of this second layer of narrative is evident in the fact that it gives rise to the title of the novel. Just as with the aventis in Mars's earlier novel. Si te dicen que ca, the self-reflexivity of this tale in El embrujo de Shanghai is fundamental.4 Forcat's role as narrator is highlighted at several places in the text. The maquis tells the children, "Si algo invento, sern pequeos detalles digamos ambientales y garabatos de recuerdo, ciertos ecos y resonancias que no sabra explicar de dnde provienen o que me pareci escuchar entremedio de lo que l me contaba, pero nada escencial aado ni quito de su narracin ..." (95). Moreover, Forcat occasionally breaks the "spell" of his narrative by addressing the narratees (Dani and Susana): "Si alguna vez habis amado un horizonte, sabris de qu os hablo" (117); "Y si en este momento hubiramos estado all, muchachos, ..." (120); "Te cuento el resto si te bebes la leche ..." (131); "Estbamos en la cabina del capitn Su Tzu, si no recuerdo mal ..." (133); "Una vez ms, muchachos, parmonos ante el Kim y fijmonos en su estilo ante la adversidad ..." (210). The first narrator (Dani) recognizes Forcat's role as secondary narrator, commenting on the act of narrating--"aqu Forcat interrumpi su relato como si la luz elctrica hubiese cortado bruscamente el hilo de sus recuerdos ..." (167). Dani later offers this metanarrative comment: "Tena Forcat el don de hacernos ver lo que contaba, pero su historia no iba destinado a la mente, sino al corazn" (205). Indeed, the first part of the comment shows that the narrator's skill as a "contador de aventis" manifests what Joseph Conrad felt is the principal task of the novelist: "to make you see" (xiv), but it is clear from Dani's remarks that the perlocutionary aspect of Forcat's narrative is to persuade.5 Forcat tries to persuade the children of Kim's exploits, and thereby mythify Susana's father as a heroic maquis. The title of Mars novel ostensibly comes from the movie by Josef von Sternberg, The Shanghai Gesture (called El embrujo de Shanghai in Spanish), and the cover of the first edition of the novel has a photograph from that film. However, in a deeper sense, it relates to classical rhetorical theory. Plato regarded rhetoric (the art of persuasion) as psychagogia or the art of leading the soul (Phaedrus 261a). Asmis notes, "the earliest attested meaning of the compound psychagog- is that of 'conjuring' or 'evoking' souls of the dead. From this use, there evolved the notion of influencing the souls of living people, with the connotation of 'alluring' or 'beguiling' them." (155-156).6 Gorgias, in his "Encomium on Helen" states. "The power of speech [logos] over the constitution of the soul can be compared with the effect of drugs on the bodily state: just as drugs by driving out different humours from the body can put an end either to the disease or to life, so with speech: different words can induce grief, pleasure or fear; or again, by means of a harmful kind of persuasion, words can drug and bewitch the soul" (Freeman, Ancilla 133). Dani overtly manifests an awareness of the ability of the maquis as a narrator, as he recognizes Forcat's ability to create a "spell" with "[el] conjuro de su voz" (156). The "embrujo de Shanghai" thus relates in a profound way to the idea of psychagogia. From classical times, treatises on rhetoric discuss the importance of the relationship between the speaker and his public, giving particular importance to gaining the public's sympathy, and inciting their emotions to the desired action (Cicero, De Oratore II.xxviii. 115). Aristotle listed three types of artificial (or artistic) proofs: the character of the speaker, the emotions that are produced in the soul of the listener, and those of speech or the argument in itself (Rhetoric 1.2). Forcat attempts to establish his credibility as narrator through certain objects that link him both to Susana's father and to the Orient: sandals, a robe, a postcard from Shanghai written in Kim's hand (69). A second postcard of a Chinese pagoda from Kim (126) helps confirm his veracity. The extraordinary powers that Forcat uses to heat a glass of cold milk with his hands (133) add to the magical qualities of this character
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and provide him with authority in the eyes of the children. However, as in the sophist tradition. Forcat uses artful language with the aim of persuading without being concerned with the truth. When Dani begins to realize that Forcat's tale is a lie, he says that the maquis was "enredado en la maraa de su propia invencin, en los confines de lo intangible que adorna la mentira del mundo" (and he calls Forcat "el gran embaucador," 219) It is then that Dani fully realizes the importance that the fabrication of the tale has for Forcat: siempre supo que lo suyo con esta mujer crdula y desdichada y vulnerable slo durara lo que durase la dbil llama que alumbraba el sueo de Susana, el tiempo justo que la muchacha tardese en descubrir que el Nantucket no haba existido nunca y que si acaso exista no poda ser otra cosa que un decrpito y carcornido buque que ahora mismo estara pudrindose en alguna apestosa drsena de la Barceloneta, donde me gustara magnar que l lo vio casualmente una brumosa noche de invierno mientras deambulaba por los muelles sin saber qu hacer con su vida y sus recuerdos ... donde empez a urdir la trama de su pacifico asalto a la torre y la tela de araa sentimental con la que atraparia a la madre y a la hija ...(219-220) Denis unmasks one of the main proofs of the veracity of Forcat's tale--the postcards from Shanghai written by Kim--when he states that Forcat simply imitated Kim's handwriting. When Denis calls his fellow maquis "un verdadero artista" (222), the syntagmatic relationship with Kim's earlier description of Forcat as an "artista" (75) gives this early portrayal of Forcat a new meaning, and in retrospect it gives us reason to question Forcat's reliability as a narrator from the beginning.7 From Dani's analysis of the motivation behind Forcat's tale, we see that, as Chatman (Story and Discourse 158) notes, "The narrator's vested interests may be so marked that we come to think of him as unreliable." Chatman (Story and Discourse 153) also points out "the crucial difference between 'point of view' and narrative voice: point of view is the physical space or ideological situation or practical life-orientation to which narrative events stand in relation. Voice, on the contrary, refers to the speech or other overt means through which events and existents are communicated to the audience." In this regard, Capitn Blay's importance in the narrative is crucial. As the father figure for Dani, his oppositional stance toward the Franco regime and criticism of the social problems in post-civil war Barcelona is the fundamental ethical and ideological point of view in the narrative. Fernando Trueba's El embrujo de Shanghai The debut of Fernando Trueba's El embrujo de Shanghai was much anticipated. Two weeks before it opened, El pas semanal devoted its cover story to the film, featuring a photograph of Ariadna Gil as Madame Chen.8 There were interviews with Juan Mars and Fernando Fernn Gmez as well as Gil. For its debut on April 12, 2002 it opened in twenty movie houses in Madrid.9 The film poster showing Ariadna Gil that appeared on billboards and in full-page newspaper ads leading up to its debut contains a fundamental symbol of the narrative--smoke. This polysemic symbol refers literally to the smoke of an opium pipe, and metaphorically to the truth of the tale within the tale, which fades away as quickly as does the happiness of the characters.10 The question of narrative voice in Trueba's film can be examined in the light of recent theoretical studies that explore the role of the narrator in cinema. The opening voice-over by Dani (Fernando Tielve) as narrator establishes him as a first-person narrator as in the novel. However, Kozloff theorizes that "voice-over is just one of many elements, including musical scoring, sound effects, editing, lighting, and so on, through which the cinematic text is narrated" (43-44). Seymour Chatman notes, "Though film theory tends to limit the word "narrator" to the recorder human voice 'over' the visual image track, there is a good case to be made for a more general conception of 'cinematographic narrator.' Films, in my view, are always presented--mostly and often exclusively shown, but sometimes partially told--by a narrator or narrators. The overall agent that does the showing I would call the 'cinematic narrator'" ("The Cinematic Narrator" 482).11 Trueba's cinematographic adaptation of the novel manifests important questions concerning narrating and subjectivity. Trueba's film clearly has multiple narrators. The slow tracking shot with which the film begins must be attributed to an omniscient cinematic narrator. This shot includes close-ups of three important symbolic elements in the narrative: a rose, a Chinese book with the mark of lipstick from a woman's lips, a languid wisp of smoke from an opium pipe. As the narrative progresses, syntagmatic relationships of these images will make clear that the first two are symbols of Madame Chen's duplicity. The smoke has a double function: it relates to the wisps of smoke that frame the close-up of Ariadna Gil as Madame Chen in the publicity poster for the film, reaffirming the tenuous nature of the embedded narrative; and it functions as a visual bridge between the two narrative threads, as a dissolve changes the smoke from the opium pipe in Shanghai to the billowing smoke from the factory in Barcelona that will be the target of Captain Blay's quixotic campaign.
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There are some minor but important differences between the first person narrator of the novel and of the film. Dani's opening words, "No s muy bien dnde empezar mi historia ..." is in the voice-over by the child actor that continues throughout the film, and therefore does not convey the same temporal dichotomy as in the original narrative. The Mars text begins, "As empieza mi historia" (11), and the important change in wording from the novel underscores the tentativeness of the film narrator's narrative authority. The young Dani as protagonist and narrator links this film to a long heritage of coming-of-age narratives in Spanish cinema (El espritu de la colmena, El sur, Cra cuervos!, Secretos del corazn, etc.) that also share the same chronotope: postcivil war Spain.12 Dani's point of view is doubly limited, since it has the innate limitations of all first-person narratives, and it also is that of a young and somewhat ingenuous person. (In the novel, Dani describes himself as "timorato, aprensivo y crdulo [30]). His role as Lazarillo to the quixotic Capitn Blay (Fernando Fernn Gmez), whose dark glasses give him the appearance of being blind, also links him implicitly to the narrator of that classic picaresque novel. As a young teenager, one of the important coming-of-age themes is sex, and the film expands on and visually exploits motifs that are hinted at in the novel. When Dani discovers cigars in the basket of fruit that he is to take to Doa Conxa, he wonders if they are for one of her lovers. His mother reproaches him, saying that we all have our little vices. In the film version, Dani's "little vice" is his sketches of naked women, a visual element that manifests the male gaze (as we see a close-up of a drawing). He hides the sketches in his room, thus manifesting the postwar taboo regarding sexuality. The recurrent presence on screen of Capitn Blay (Fernando Fernn-Gmez) underscores his point of view in the film text.13 Chatman notes that "interest point of view can be established quite independently. The point of view may reside in a character who is 'followed' in some sense," and he gives the example that if Jack is in several scenes, we would "identify with Jack simply because he is the one continually on the scene" (Story and Discourse 157-158). The initial close-up of Blay underscores the importance of speaking or telling on the part of this character. However, the narrative authority of this character is tentative, as well. Capitn Blay's opening words also connote uncertainty, as he tries to determine the source of a disagreeable smell: cat shit and rotten eggs are possibilities, but he settles on gas. (The film conflates the emissions from the factory and the possible gas leak.) The very nature of this character blurs the line between reality and fiction. Called "el hombre invisible" in the novel, he is a sort of "mole," or a Republican who lives in hiding from the repressive Franco regime.14 In his flat. Blay inhabits a hidden room that is accessed through an armoire, and Dani first learns of his existence when that furniture begins to mysteriously shake and Blay emerges from its interior. Blay's wanderings throughout the city further underscore the fiction/reality theme, as he disguises himself as a pedestrian who has been hit by a streetcar. Blay's persona allows him to become a voice of criticism, and he constantly satirizes Franco and his regime. (Blay complains of being old, saying that his age is "el doble de Franco y la madre que lo pari," and he satirizes a man who gives the fascist salute at the lowering of the flag, saying that the gas has left him "fulminado"). His point of view provides narrative information that is sometimes accurate and other times not: although he informs Dani about Kim's background as a son of a wealthy family who was disowned when he fell in love with the maid, he obfuscates the neighborhood gossip ("mentira podrida"). The theme of reality/fiction that is at the crux of the embedded narrative also appears in the drawing that Capitn Blay commissions Dani to do of Susana (Aida Folch). Blay wants to use the art work as propaganda, showing that Susana's sickness is due to the presence of the noxious emissions of the chimney, whereas he later admits that a relative of Anita infected the young girl. Susana insists that Dani do another type of drawing in which she is cured and wears a flower in her hair. After hearing the story of Kim in Shanghai, she changes her directions to Dani, insisting on being depicted with a black Chinese dress. (Though a small detail, a slight change from page to screen here is significant. In the novel, she first opts for black and then changes her color preference to green; in the film, the preference for a black dress matches the aesthetic of the film within the film, which is shot in black and white.) Her desire to be depicted with a dress like that of Madam Chen manifests the further blurring of reality and fiction. Furthermore, Susana also plays tricks on Dani when she pretends to be asleep; these tricks connote a literariness both in their play-acting and in their reference to folktale (Sleeping Beauty). Point of view is fundamental to the fiction/reality theme throughout. The narrative offers differing voices regarding Kim and the other maquis. Kim is first called a "legend" (which makes him more fictive than real). However, Forcat, who is his right-hand man, is called a "delinquent." The young boys view the hole in the street as a possible tomb for the maquis Forcat, whereas for Blay, it simply represents "la ineficacia histrica de este pais." Anita (Ariadna Gil) likewise blurs fiction and reality. When she returns home drunk, stumbles, and loses her shoe, she relates her plight to that of Cinderella. Belying her state, she affirms that everything with her sick daughter and her is wonderful ("estupendamente"). She also invents a family of four where none really exists: when Forcat cures her of her headache, she begins to cry as she leaves, saying, "Hasta luego, familia."
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The arrival of Forcat (Eduard Fernndez) introduces the other important narrator, and again the concept of point of view is crucial. Forcat establishes his credibility as narrator with the physical objects that "prove" his experience and knowledge: as in the novel, the kimono, fan, and postcards from Shanghai seem to validate him as narrator. Also faithful to the original, Forcat displays extraordinary powers by heating a glass of cold milk with energy that emanates from his hands. Dani significantly confirms this seemingly impossible event by touching the milk. This adds to Forcat's mysterious and exotic air. Forcat further solidifies his credibility with regard to his youthful listeners by invoking the important adult in their lives, implying that if they do not believe him, they should ask Susana's mother. Finally, the children's discovery of certain objects in Forcat's suitcase--a French newspaper, a stamp, a copy of La conquista del pan, and a revolver--seem to confirm his condition as a maquis who has experienced what he tells.15 A dissolve marks the beginning of the first segment of the "long story" that Forcat tells, which is filmed in black and white. With this important aesthetic choice, Trueba tried to recreate two separate realities: "la Barcelona de la infancia de Juan Mars y el Shanghai de las peliculas que vea en el cine de su barrio y el mundo de fantasia que le transportaban" (Renoir 2) While working on this project. Trueba documented and saw several of the films that were showing in Barcelona from 1946 to 1948 in order to give to the black and white film within the film the look of that period. It is significant that from that list--Gilda, Casablanca, the Marx Brothers' Go West, An American in the RAF, Hitchcock's The Shadow of a Doubt, and of course, Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture, he chose Hitchcock's film to be on the billboard of the Cine Rovira when Dani goes to the movies at the end of the film. Regarding his aesthetic choice of black and white for the embedded film narrative. Trueba notes, "Con el blanco y negro recuperamos la nostalgia del tiempo que no hemos vivido y del cine que no hemos hecho" (Garca 38). Throughout the embedded narrative, the question of what is true is of great importance. Forcat's very first segment of the flashback tale should cause us to doubt his credibility, however, because it shows him as a falsifier when he expertly makes fake passports for his fellow maquis. His narrative makes us "see" Kim's first exploit: narrowly escaping arrest, he successfully leads Denis's wife Carmen and her child across the mountainous French border to exile. It is significant that precisely this first segment of the tale within the tale contains the narrative information that will later catch Forcat in a lie. (The lie in the original narrative is more blatant, since Forcat falsely states that Kim "entreg a Carmen" 95). The second segment of the embedded narrative also contains dubious information that is reflected in the transformation in the identity of the German from Kruger to Omar and the fact that Kim never really saw him. The next segment tells of Kim in Shanghai, and diverse opinions regarding the German further point to the inability to arrive at the truth: he is described as a gentleman, a communist, an excellent person, and a man with a dubious reputation, all of which create a seemingly contradictory depiction of this character. In the fourth segment, Kim questions Madame Chen about her relationship with Omar. Her answer to the question, "Conoce a ese hombre?" is an elusive rhetorical response, "Quin no lo conoce?" Her explanation that when Kim saw them together, Omar was merely asking about her husband proves to be a lie; Madame Chen is yet another character who obfuscates fiction and reality. The syntagmatic relationship between the rose in segment four that Omar acquires in The Yellow Sky and the rose that Kim sees in a vase in Madame Chen's home imbues the flower with the symbolism of Chen's adultery, and gives new meaning to the image from the opening sequence of the film. Kim finally confirms Chen's affair in his visit to The Yellow Sky: sneaking into Omar's private quarters, he sees the German come out of a room, and the point-of-view close-up tracking shot of Madame Chen's legs as she lies in Omar's bed underscores her illicit sexual affair. This is one of two culminating scenes in the narrative, both of which have the function of shattering our versions of reality presented by the secondary narrator up to now. The reason for Kim's mission to Shanghai was to kill Kruger, the Gestapo torturer whom Michel Lvy had identified as Omar. However, the German denies this identity, and Madam Chen reveals the more mundane, indeed sordid, reality: Michel wanted Kim to kill Omar because he knew that the German was Madam Chen's lover. Instead of a mission of justice, the motivation is jealousy. The heroes are demythified. Kim simply turns and walks away. The rest of this sequence contains the most important transformation from page to screen. In the film version, someone knocks Kim out, murders Omar, and then places the weapon in Kim's hand. Kim later escapes, and carries Madame Chen to a boat. The idea of him possibly wanting to throw his pistol into the water from the original narrative (213) is materialized on screen, and they sail out to sea amid a storm. This radical departure from the novel seems to fit the film noir aesthetic that served as a basis for the black and white film within the film, but it does not reflect the demythification that is one of the most important themes of the novel, which, according to Mars, are "el desprestigio del hroe" and "la corrupcin de los sueos" (Luzn 47). The other culminating scene of demythification occurs following the last segment of the Shanghai narrative. The arrival of Denis in search of his family not only further shatters the figure of Kim as a legend, but also destroys the credibility of Forcat. Although Forcat had told of Kim crossing the border with Denis's wife and child, Denis now reveals his version of the truth: "el cabronazo de Kim" and Carmen were lovers, and they ran off together. Forcat becomes merely a "mosquita muerta" and "pobre Diablo." The earlier objects that had established Forcat's credibility--the letters, the postcards--are now simply the work of "un maestro de la falsificacin." Susana cannot bear the demythification of her father and the destruction of the storyteller. Like the legendary Kim
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that the teller of the Shanghai tale has invented, Forcat simply leaves. Denis now rules the roost: he prohibits Dani from visiting Susana, and when Dani finally is able to show Susana his completed drawing, it constitutes one more disillusion for the protagonist. Susana is focused on playing a new game when Dani offers to show her his work of art. Although her response, "Mierda, mierda, mierda" seemingly refers to her frustration with the game, it simultaneously connotes Dani's disappointment. Her negative reaction, asking why he did not draw her shitting, is heightened in the film version: the drawing falls to the floor, and when Denis comes to carry Susana out to the garden, he steps on the drawing. The distraught young artist then tears it to pieces. As in the original, the film narrative also foregrounds the act of narrating by drawing our attention to the narrator. In the film, Forcat, asks, "Dnde hemos quedado?" and "Por dnde iba?" In addition, the dissolve used as a transition to the fifth segment of Forcat's tale links the two narratives with the visual bridge of the tray that Forcat uses to serve a snack to his adolescent audience, and the tray that is used to serve Kim in Shanghai. The foregrounding of narrative point of view and its importance for the reality/fiction theme culminates in the epilogue of the narrative, as there are three versions of events. After summarizing what occurred in the years following Forcat's departure (Denis had a bar with "fulanas" where Susana worked, but Forcat later returned), Dani narrates how Denis aggressively enters the house to take Susana with him but is shot in the back. In the first version, after Denis pushes Forcat aside and violently approaches Susana, a shot is fired, and we see that Forcat has the pistol in hand; Denis falls head first down the stairs. In the second version, which corresponds to what the newspaper reported, Susana struggles with Denis, and it is Anita who fires the shot; Denis again falls down head first, and then Forcat takes the pistol from her and we hear the five shots off screen. In the third version, which Dani says the he always imagined and which is filmed in slow motion, it is Susana who fires the revolver, and Denis falls feet first down the stairs. The emptying of the revolver's chamber occurs in a high-angle shot reflecting Forcat's point of view. This, then, restores some of the heroism to the discredited maquis: he sacrifices himself by shielding either Anita or Susana from the guilt, and he metes out justice to the man who had returned Anita's life to depravation. In addition, Denis had essentially been Susana's pimp. The narration of three versions of the events, however, causes doubt about which account is correct and calls into question the truth. It is significant, then, that the film advertised on the marquis of the cinema that Dani enters at the end of the movie is Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The final images of the film are the low-angle shots of Dani sitting in the movie theater as the light from the projector appears over his head and tears roll down his cheeks. The tears are more than result of the simple fact that Susana, who was working in the ticket booth, did not even look up to see him when he bought his ticket. These tears reflect the profound disillusionment that is concomitant with the main themes of the narrative. Ending the film with a scene in the cinema constitutes an important intertextual reference for Trueba. The director comments, "Toda la novela no deja de ser una reflexin sobre lo que significaba el cine para la generacin de Juan [Mars], esa ventana por la que uno escapaba de la realidad. La novela trata como, ante una realidad adversa, uno puede fugarse por la ramas de la imaginacin, y encontrar otra manera de vivir, los sueos, lo imaginado; y, al mismo tiempo, como la realidad te persigue y no te deja escapar de todo eso" (Renoir 2). Trueba further believes that his film is "sobre la necesidad de la imaginacin para poder soportar la realidad. La necesidad de evadirnos, de creer en otras cosas. Gracias a ellos existen el cine y la literatura" (Renoir 2) Vctor Erice's Promesa de Shanghai The first-person narrative in Erice's script is framed by the adult Dani's hand writing his story as we hear his voice, "Aqu empieza mi historia ...," so that Erice captures the temporal dichotomy between the narrator and events narrated. As in Erice's previous screen adaptation, the cinematographic version of Adelaida Garca Morales's El sur,16 Erice adds material to the original narrative in order to foreground the civil war, and he often filters it through Dani's perspective. The most important element is the recurring image of the dead Republican soldier--Dani's father--in the snow. Not only is this the first and last image of the script, but it appears throughout.17 After Capitn Blay's death, the chapter ending with the image of the dead Republican soldier in the snow relates the image metonymically to Blay, who became a father figure to Dani. Additional material at the beginning of the script--the classified ads for information regarding lost combatants, the scenes of a battlefield with dead bodies (scenes 3, 4)--also serves to foreground the civil war, but its real meaning later becomes clear in its syntagmatic relationship with the specific recurring image of the dead soldier and its importance to the central theme of the film: the demythification of heroes, particularly Kim and Forcat. Narrative point of view is again central to the development of this theme. Throughout the narrative, the heroism and demythification of these maquis swings back and forth like a pendulum. Kim never actually appears on screen in the Erice version. His role as maquis is emphasized early on by references to his distribution of incendiary pamphlets exhorting workers (in Catalan) to fight for social justice, the subsequent police persecution (scenes 10, 11), and characters offer differing opinions about him (45). Blay has a skeptical view of this "hero," saying, Kim "y los de su cuerda hacan lo que les sala de los cojones y eso no puede ser" (139). However, the description that accompanies his
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photo counters this skepticism, calling him a "legendario personaje" (155). Although Dani realizes that Susana's version of her father's visit is "pura fabulacin" (176), both Kim's voiceover reading the words on his postcard. "El deber me lleva de nuevo a esa lejana ciudad [Shanghai]," as well as Forcat's reaffirmation, "Lo dice ah: por cumplir con su deber. Imagino que se trata de una misin especial" (180), seem to solidify of Kim's heroic character. "Seem to" because "imagino" leaves open the possibility that that the mission is just imagination. When Forcat refers to his Chinese robe, a gift from Kim, as proof that Susana's father had been in Shanghai, she skeptically asks, "Verdad verdadera?" and Forcat affirms that it is so by shaking his head. Nevertheless, Erice notes in the script. "La respuesta resulta, pese a todo, algo enigmtica por la expresin de Forcat, su parquedad de gestos, y el carcter de su vestuario tipicamente oriental" (182). As further proof, Forcat gives Susana the package that he claims is a gift from Kim: a silk chipao (Chinese dress) and a fan. Susana then instructs Dani, "Cuando hagas el segundo dibujo, quiero salir con este traje y este abanico" (183). Dani and Susana investigate Forcat's suitcase, and they find records by Edith Piaf and Charles Tenet, clippings from French newspapers, postcards from ocean liners, Kropotkin's La conquista del pan, a fake refugee card, and a note from Kim. In addition, they find a revolver, and Susana comments, "Y deca que no haba pegado un tiro en su vida!" (252). As part of the demythification process. Forcat later openly admits his cowardice to the children: Forcat: "Para ser un soldado de verdad ... y no digamos un hroe ... aparte de la salud, siempre me falt algo.Susana: "Qu?"Forcat: "Valor." The most important item, however, is a photograph of a young Forcat as a bartender in the Shanghai Club from 1930, which Dani hides under his shirt when he hears Forcat approaching (256). This marks an important difference from the original narrative, because it is the only irrefutable proof that Forcat was indeed in China. The photo gains importance with each scene in which it appears (scenes 91 [260], 94 [261], 106 [279]). As in the original narrative, Forcat's magical ability to warm milk with his hands (199) also lends credibility to his extraordinary character. In a totally original sequence, Dani follows Forcat to the port (scene 97) where he sees the ship called the Veracruz, "el nombre que todava sobrevive a duras penas inscrito en su proa enmohecida" (270) which causes Dani to be disconcerted. This discovery represents "la prdida definitiva de una ilusin" (271). The presence of a Chinese sailor who approaches them to sell chipaos seems to add to the ambiguity. Although the script notes, "La presencia del marinero chino en la taberna, con su cargamento de 'souvenirs', es el detalle que le faltaba al chaval para imaginar el itinerario que debi seguir Forcat cuando, obligado por las circunstancias a dar a Susana noticia de su padre desaparecido, buscaba una historia que contarle" (279), this would be difficult to express on screen. Perhaps we think that Forcat could have acquired the garment right there in Barcelona, but to Dani's (and our) surprise, Forcat converses with the vendor in Chinese, which is linguistic proof of the authenticity of Forcat's experience in the orient. Dani's subsequent confrontation with Forcat regarding the truth is ambiguous at best, marked by denials and rhetorical questions more than answers: Dani: "Por qu cuenta usted tantas trolas? Deca que no fumaba ...Forcat: Eso no lo dije nunca.Dani: No, no lo dijo, pero s que fuma ... Es lo mismo con el revlver. Tiene uno, lo lo he visto, pero dijo que no haba pegao [sic] un tiro en su vida.Forcat: Y es cierto.Dani: Si y el Kim fue a Shanghai en el Veracruz, verdad? Pues ya he visto a dnde ha ido a parar! De Shanghai, nada!Forcat: T no crees que el Kim est all?(282) When Dani accuses Forcat of having forged the postcards from Kim, pointing to Forcat's hands as proof, Forcat can only respond, "En esta vida, decir la verdad a veces no sirve de nada" (283). The most important change from the original narrative is the elimination of Forcat's tale about Kim in Shanghai. The narrative within the narrative is totally eliminated. Santamarina notes that there are thematic affinities between Erice's earlier films and Mars's novel, such as "la ausencia recurrente de la figura paterna" and "la presencia del mito ... como espacio legendario y nebuloso donde se emnarcan los perfiles desvados de la figura ausente" (36). In his film script, Shanghai becomes that legendary and nebulous space. However, Erice maintains two important motifs from the embedded narrative, transferring them from Madam Chen to Susana: the rose and the oriental make-up. Whereas in Mars's (and Trueba's) version of the narrative, the rose symbolized the sexual relationship between Madame Chen and the German, here it symbolizes that of Susana and Dens. He appears with a bouquet in Scene 126 (321), and a single white rose appears on her nightstand instead of the photograph of her father (329); Dens metonymically has taken Kim's place. When Susana puts on the chipao, she also wears makeup (not just lipstick, but also rice powder that is traditional among Chinese women). Erice's script notes that "todo en ella contribuye a crear la illusion de que se ha convertido en una jovencita oriental" (233). Although the embedded narrative is missing in Erice's script, there are two comments regarding the fiction/reality dichotomy, both of which show skepticism about the act of narration. Susana manifests doubt about the veracity of narratives. Referring to the
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"novella de quiosco" entitled Shanghai that Dani brings her, she says, "De estas noveluchas no te puedes fiar. Todo lo que dicen es puro cuento" (194). When discussing a movie about Shanghai (presumably Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture), Dani comments, "a m los sitios, cuando los veo en una peli, me parece que no son de verdad" 196). This metafilmic comment echoes Isabel's remark in Erice's first film. El espritu de la colmena, that everything in movies is a lie, and it also relates to Forcat's statement that "decir la verdad a veces no sirve de nada." Elimination of the tale within the tale minimizes the importance of the secondary narrator. Even so, Erice's script still demythifies this character. When El Dens asks for Kim's whereabouts, and Susana tells him he is in Shanghai, his choice of words reveals the fictitious nature of Forcat's version of events: "Pero quin te ha contado ese cuento, preciosa?" (305), and he later refers to it as a "funcin" and "cuento chino" (307), finally contending to Anita, "Siempre supo que slo era eso: un cuento" (308). His allegation is stronger than in the original, as he accuses Kim of stealing his wife and of denouncing his maquis companions. Susana points to physical proof of Kim's trip to Shanghai--the dress, the post-cards--in order to, in the words of the script, "agarrarse a un ultimo resquicio de verdad" (310). Denis, however, points to tangible proof of his own--Forcat's hands (311), thus paralleling Dani's earlier accusation. In a beautiful visual transformation, Susana gets under her bedcovers, and when Dens uncovers her, her hair, which had been up in a bun, is now loose, and the tears she sheds when discovering the truth cause her white makeup to disappear: "su imagen de oriental se desvanece" (313). The narrative point of view that is so important in determining the truth takes a new twist in Erice's script. Dani's mother Rosa destroys Dani's myth regarding his father, which was represented by a seminal recurring image of the film, the dead Republican soldier in the snow: "No s de dnde has sacado t este cuento de la trinchera y la nieve ... Pues no es verdad" (336). The script manifests points of view that are both limited and conflictive regarding the events surrounding Denis's death: "Desde alguna ventana o balcn cercano, ms de un vecino sigue tambin con curosidad lo que est pasando. Es Forcat quien abre, pero no tiene tiempo de decir nada. El Dens empuja la puerta y penetra en el interior. Desde la calle se le oye gritar ... Pronto es evidente que una fuerte discussion tiene lugar en la torre. La seguimos sempre desde la calle, compartiendo el punto de vista de los vecinos del barrio. (367). We hear two shots; after Dens stumbles into the garden, Forcat appears and shoots him three times. The narrator explains that much later, Anita tried to clarify details of what had occurred, negating the gossip that circulated: "No, no es verdad lo que se dice por ah ..." (369). Her clarification that Forcat had opened the door leads to a flashback in Scene 157 in which there is a shift in point of view, and we now see events on the inside of the house. When Forcat confronts Dens over Susana, Dens beats him with his walking stick. The original two shots that come from the darkness of the hallway is clarified by Anita: "Lo nico que hizo mi nia fue defenderse" (374). Forcat again shoots Dens in the garden. Consequently, Erice shows this episode from two different points of view--exterior and interior. When Dani later discusses the events with Doa Conxa, she reinforces the ambiguity of the situation, saying that Anita "un da cuenta una cosa y al siguiente otra. Yo no s cul es la verdad" (387). The narrator's rhetorical question as to whether he would be able to ask Susana who shot Forcat maintains us in suspense (389). Unlike in the novel and the Trueba film, Susana and Dani look at each other when he goes to the movies, but words unspoken leave an ambiguous meaning: "Se trata de un cruce de miradas cuyo sentido ltimo permanence abierto" (390). The intertextuality of Erice's choice for the film being shown. La gran ilusin, provides a poetic touch to the ambiguity regarding truth and fiction, which Erice complicates when music from the Renoir film accompanies images on screen that show the thirteen-year-old Susana dressed in her chipao on board the Veracruz. The narrator's final words, "Entonces yo an no saba que a pesar de crecer y por mucho que uno mire hacia el futuro, uno crece siempre hacia el pasado, en busca tal vez del primer deslumbramiento" precede the final image of the dead Republican soldier, now covered completely with snow (392). Perhaps the process of moving from illusion to disillusion is an inevitable part of becoming an adult. The other character whose point of view is important in the Mars novel and Trueba adaptation, Blay, also changes in the Erice version. To begin with, Erice radically changes the narrative order regarding Blay's initial appearance. In both the opening scene of the novel and the Trueba film, Capitn Blay smells something bad; in Erice's Promesa, this does not occur until scene 33 (page 101); here, he attributes it to the plague, and the Sancho-like Dani informs the quixotic Blay that the smell emanates from the chimney of the Plexiglas factory. There are strong intertextual resonances in this relationship to both the Lazarillo and the Quixote, and Blay becomes an even more quixotic--and pathetic--figure in Erice's version. Erice even refers to Blay and Dani as "el caballero y el escudero" (189), and there is dialogue that inspired by Don Quixote's episode of the galley slaves (244). There is quixotic pathos in two scenes in which Blay suffers physical violence at the hands of representatives of authority: a municipal policeman who beats Blay when the Captain shouts that the information published in the newspaper Solidaridad nacional is all lies (70-71); and Blay, as if battling windmills, shouts at the factory, calling the owner "asesino de inocentes," which results in the guard throwing him to the ground (106-107). In addition, Erice underscores Blay's point of view and the act of seeing through a significant change in a prop. Unlike in the novel, where the Captain complains that at the very least, they could have returned his dead son's binoculars, in this script Blay wears binoculars when he goes out walking with Dani (85, 89, 91, 96, 100, 143, 229-30). When Blay leaves the house without the binoculars, the script even emphasizes this fact ("Un detalle: no lleva sus prismticos"
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285). It is on this outing that Dani hears Capitn Blay identify himself with his real name (287). In the next scene (Scene 112), Blay dies (291). When he finally "sees" the truth, it is too much for him. "Los embrujos de Shanghai" When discussing film adaptations of novels, the word "faithful" almost inevitably arises, with numerous theorists contriving various models of relationships between the two texts, and other critics dismissing such criteria and focussing on the quality of the film narrative per se.18 Regarding this debate, director Trueba states, "Lo de la fidelidad es un espejismo. Creo que algo que se escapa y que es lo ms importante. La fidelidad o infidelidad es secundaria y carece de inters. ... Lo que importa es el punto de vista, la mirada, la respiracin, el aire de la escena" (my emphasis) (Garca 38). Author Mars was certainly happy with Trueba's adaptation, calling it "un peliculn" and "espectacular" (Luzn 44), and saying that it is the best screen adaptation of any of his novels. (www.buscacine). Using the Russian formalists' terms, certainly Trueba's film more closely follows both the plot (sjuzet) and the story (fabula) of the original novel than Erice's "promise." (In Erice's script, the characters take on a life of their own in myriad scenes that are not in the original narrative). Jos Belmonte Serrano affirms that Mars's El embrujo de Shanghai contains "una prosa modlica, labrada a cincel," and calls it "una obra con la que Juan Mars lleg a reafirmarse como uno de los escritores en lengua espaola ms importantes de la segunda mitad del siglo veinte" (19, 5). Likewise, Trueba's quality adaptation reaffirms him as one of the most important Spanish film-makers today. Erice's rendition would undoubtedly have been as excellent as his previous works, and the publication of La promesa de Shanghai adds to Erice's prominent position in contemporary Spanish culture.19 The function of the narrator(s) and point of view in all three versions of the narrative is of fundamental importance. The limited knowledge of the first-person narrator that manifests the child's point of view, and the unreliable nature of the secondary narrator in Mars and Trueba temporarily captivate ("bewitch") the reader/viewer for a time, before the naked truth destroys any notion of illusion.20 From the perspective of writers and filmmakers who may not believe the political rhetoric of "Espaa va bien," perhaps this process applies not only to these narratives, but also to Spanish cinema and to contemporary Spanish life in general.21

Notes
1. Earlier adaptations include La oscura historia de la prima Montse (Jordi Cadena, 1977), La muchacha de las bragas de oro (Vicente Aranda, 1980), ltimas tardes con Teresa (Gonzalo Herralde 1984), S te dicen que ca (Vicente Aranda, 1989), and El amante bilinge (Vicente Aranda, 1993). 2. Unlike the novel and the Trueba version, Erice adds an accent to the name Dens. 3. Forcat's tale of Kim's adventure in Shanghai occupies the following pages (since some pages have both the main narrative and the embedded narrative, I have used decimal points to show at approximately what point of the page the latter begins): 74-79; 8186; 94-102; 115-121.5; 133-38; 145-152.5; 156.8-167.5; 182.5-192; 203-205.3; 206-213 4. Regarding Mars's Si te dicen que ca, Diane Garvey believes that "We can only conclude that the boys who make up the aventis are just as fictional as the aventis themselves. The focus is placed on the process of storytelling" (385). 5. John Austin notes that texts have three fundamental aspects: the locutionary aspect is grammatical; the illocutionary aspect is what sentences intend to do; and the perlocutionary aspect is what they in fact do (99 ff). 6. Asmis argues that Socrates "relies on the etymology of the term psychagogia to reveal its underlying, true meaning, 'guidance of the soul.' Only sham rhetoric beguiles others; real rhetoric guides souls to self-knowledge through knowledge of the soul" (157). 7. "Sophist" originally meant "skilled craftsman" (Freeman 341). 8. The choice of Gil to play Madam Chen shows the importance of the star system in cinema. After La fuente amarilla, why not have a Chinese-Spanish actress, such as Silvia Abascal, Unja Carolina Choi, or Ramona Sun Lpez, play the role? Trueba justifies his casting of Ariadna Gil in the double role of Anita and Madame Chen: "Cuando me ofrecen el proyecto, vuelvo a leer la novela y lo primero que pienso es que Anita, la madre, tiene que ser Chen; que los nios ponen la cara de la madre en el cuento y que eso es una forma adems de unir las dos historias" (Garca 38). This recalls Vicente Aranda's choice of casting Victoria Abril in multiple roles in his film adaptation of Mars's Si te dicen que ca, but in that case, the original text called for it. In an interesting
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parallelism, the cover photo for Erice's script features Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919) with Gish dressed in Chinese garb, as Gil will do in Trueba's film. 9. During the spring of 2002, the only Spanish film to open in more cinemas in Madrid was Almodvar's Hable con ella, in twentyfour. 10. This symbol may be based on a visual image from the novel. When Kim encounters Omar with Madam Chen, the narrator describes "un nido de cojines de raso, sbanas revueltas y lentas espirales de humo" (205). 11. Kozloff notes that "heterodiegetic voice-over narrators speak only intermittently and do not mediate every moment of the story. Such narrators, along with the accompanying scenic presentation, are actually transmitted by the narrative agency I call the image-maker" (74). 12. The concept of "chronotope" is from M. M. Bakhtin (84). 13. The marvelous portrayal of Blay by this veteran actor led novelist Mars to muse, "estara dispuesto a afirmar que Fernando Fernn-Gmez era ya de algn modo el capitn Blay desde mucho antes de publicarse la novela," and he notes that from the very day that the film project was conceived, the veteran actor was the unanimous choice for the role (Mars "Algo ms" 49). 14. There is an associative relationship between this role and Fernn-Gmez's portrayal of the "mole" in Mambr se fue a la Guerra (1986). 15. The slight transformation in the movie, when Susana points the pistol to her chest and Dani exclaims, "Pero qu haces?" adds a note of suspense and a romantic touch to Susana's film persona. 16. See Thomas Deveny's Contemporary Spanish Film from Fiction, 162-174. 17. The image appears in scenes 5 [in Dani's artistic rendition], 18 (ending chapter 1) 35 (ending chapter 3) 52 (ending chapter 4), and 79. 18. For a summary of this debate, see the Introduction to Thomas Deveny's Contemporary Spanish Film from Fiction. 19. Before Erice was terminated by Gmez, Mars stated, "El guin de Erice es una pieza literaria extraordinaria. He seguido todo el proceso de su creacin. Erice vino varias veces a Barcelona y hablamos mucho del tema, cambiamos bastantes impresiones", dice. "El resultado era buensimo. Tena que ver con la novela, pero parta de un enfoque diferente, muy interesante" (Hermoso s.p.). 20. Trueba notes, "Se trata de una serie de personajes desamparados, con las vidas rotas, que crean una ficcin de familia y logran un instante de felicidad. Pero como todas las cosas hermosas, se acaba" (www.buscacine). 21. I would like to express my appreciation to the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports and United States Universities for a grant that supported my research on Spanish cinema during the spring of 2002.

Works Cited
Austin, John. How to Do Things With Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U P, 1962. Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U Texas P, 1981. Belmonte-Serrano, Jose. " El embrujo de Shanghai: Regreso de las sombras tabernarias." Ojancano:-Revista-de-LiteraturaEspaola, April 18, 2000: 3-23. Chatman, Seymour. "The Cinematic Narrator." In Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. Film Theory and Criticism. Introductory Readings. Fifth ed. NY: Oxford UP, 1999: 473-486. Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca NY: Cornell U P, 1978. Conrad, Joseph. Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus. London: Dent, 1897. Erice, Victor. La promesa de Shanghai. Madrid: Aret, 2001.
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Fernndez-Santos, Angel. "El juego del agua y el aceite." El pas 12 abril 2002: 38. Freeman, Kathleen. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U P, 1966. Freeman, Kathleen. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. 2nd ed. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1966. Garca, Rocio. "El blanco y negro recupera la nostalgia por el cine que no hemos hecho." El pas 12 abril 2002: 38. Garvey, Diane I. Juan Mars's Si te dicen que ca: The Self-Reflexive Text and the Question of Referentiality. MLN 95.2 (March, 1980): 376-87. Hermoso, Borja and Emma Rodrguez. "El embrujo de Shanghai que nunca veremos." http://www.elmundo.es/1999/11/06/cultura/06N0093.html Kozloff, Sarah. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-over Narration in American Fiction Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1988. Luzn, Julia. "A propsito de Shanghai." El pas semanal 1331 (31 marzo 2002): 44-49. Mars, Juan. "Algo ms que saberse el papel de memoria y no tropezar con los muebles del decorado." El pas semanal 1331 (31 marzo 2002): 49. Santamarina, Antonio. "Simples marionetas de representacin." Dirigido (abril 2002): 36-38. Trueba, Fernando. El embrujo de Shanghai. Madrid: Lolafilms, 2002. Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition) Deveny, Thomas. "Narrative Voice in El embrujo de Shanghai: Novel, Promise, Film." Letras Peninsulares 16.3 (Fall-Winter 2003): 719-738. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 302. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/ps/i.do? id=GALE%7CH1100104828&v=2.1&u=wisc_madison&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=ff6af15daf7d99a6577f9f569dd89630 Gale Document Number: GALE|H1100104828

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