Martin Luther King’s Assassination in Spain’s NO-DOs and in Bulgaria’s Kinopregledi

Abstract

This chapter analyses the audiovisual representations of Martin Luther King’s assassination in the newsreels of two different countries: Bulgaria’s Кинопрегледи (literally Cinema Overviews, from here on Kinopregledi) and Spain’s Noticiario y Documentales Cinematograficos (News and Cinematographic Documentary Films, widely known as NO-DO). It aims to deconstruct the political functions underlying the narratives created by the regimes controlling the newsreels’ production. For all their differences, both Francisco Franco’s Spain and Todor Zhivkov’s People’s Republic of Bulgaria are recognisably authoritarian. This contribution builds on the non-commercial (i.e., state-initiated) understanding of the ‘propagandistic (ab)use of newsreels’ in both countries. It contends that propaganda, or propaganda-like elements, were essential for Spain’s and Bulgaria’s self-fashioning of the respective regime.

In terms of method, this chapter offers a close reading of the multiple semiotic systems (audio, visual, textual, contextual) which interact within the analysed sequences. These semiotic systems are abundant and diverse. Starting with the simple fact of the length of a sequence and the choice of the footage from the international newsreel’s transfer, the chapter shows the context and order in which the assassination of Martin Luther King was set. One important aspect is dedicated to the narration and pathos of the speaker’s voice, but the chapter will also consider the importance of music selection. Last but not least, all these editorial ‘choices’ of the newsreels are interpreted in the greater context of Zhivkov’s People’s Republic of Bulgaria (PR Bulgaria) and Franco’s Spain. This chapter therefore offers a novel way of drawing comparisons or tracing contrasts between different regimes by analysing newsreels from an intercultural and multinational perspective.