(Almost) Everybody Loves Javier Bardem… “For He Is a Good Actor”: Critical Reception in the Spanish and US Media

Abstract

The sun is rising in the Spanish desert of Los Monegros. In the distance, a bullfighter calls a bull. The camera moves swiftly through the dunes, finally revealing Raúl (Javier Bardem), a matador, training amateurishly, dressed in shorts and a cheap ribbed tank white t-shirt. He practices intensely with a friend, who charges at him with phony horns in his hands: He, he! Ha-ha, bull, ha-ha! I am going to be known even in Huesca. In Paris … In the whole world!!! Such are the first images of Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992) after the title credits, which, retrospectively, prove fruitful to frame the career of Javier Encinas Bardem (b. 1969), descendant of a family of ranchers on his father’s side and member of one of the most reputed Spanish lineages of actors and filmmakers. His uncle, director Juan Antonio, is a key figure of 1950s and 1960s Spanish cinema and his mother, Pilar, is also a popular actress. Bardem’s first lines in the film give us a hint of the problems of scale and perspective involved when looking at transnational stars—namely, the relational processes that are involved in star-making, from local and national arenas to international recognition and stardom.