"This used to be a very elegant area with plush chairs and tables for having tea." "My father would bring his gramophone and 78 rpm records and put on Wagner and Beethoven." "He'd leave the doors open, and people of the village would come to listen." "The village was still practically medieval, so this music was new to them." "What really struck him were the poor children who sat right in front." "Many of them had flies on their lips." "The poverty made a deep impression on him." "He'd play three or four records, and though they didn't know what it was, they liked it." "THE LAST SCRIPT REMEMBERING LUIS BUNUEL" "My grandfather went to Paris in 1899 to honeymoon with his bride." "MY PARENTS IN CALANDA, 1899" "He came back here to Calanda, where my father was born in February of 1900." "When my father was four or five, DIRECTOR they built this tower here, la torre María." "My grandfather went to Cuba at the age of 17." "In the 1890s he came back here and met a very beautiful girl." "Then he returned to Cuba." "Just before the war with the US, he sold everything and came back here." "It was a wonderful place to go for a stroll or a hike in the mountains." "He liked to walk down along this wall." "It had holes where you could sometimes find lots of spiders." "Maybe that's where the whole family's fear of spiders came from." "They were always talking about spiders." "At Cabezo, a little mountain close to here, there were all kinds of insects and spiders." "He found a Praying Mantis." "He always liked insects." "He wanted to buy the tower for my brother and me, but we said no." "My brother lives in Los Angeles." "I live in Paris." "We couldn't come and take care of this place, so we didn't do it." "But it was an affectionate gesture to give you roots here in his village." "Yes, but it was impossible." "All the wars, and the Civil War, had severed those roots." "On Fridays, lots of people bring their drums to the square." "When I shot here 40 years ago, there were 800 or 1,000 drums." "The last time, a few months ago, CALANDA 40 YEARS LATER there were 3,000 drums." "This square fills up completely, and just before 12:00, people arrive with a very big drum, and at 12:00 on the dot, they "break the hour," as they call it." "CALANDA 40 YEARS LATER" "Everyone pounds the drums wildly, and that goes on for 26 hours." "I've brought lot of friends, and they all really enjoyed it." "During Holy Week- in Mexico, for example - my father carried his drum and played it." "He used the sounds of Holy Week in Calanda in three of his films." "Yes, it's in quite a few." "It made an impression on him and everyone else." "Last time I came, a German man over 6'6" tall passed out when the drums burst out playing." "L 'ÂGE D'OR" "SIMON OF THE DESERT" "THE LIFE OF A BOURGEOIS CHILD ZARAGOZA, EARLY 20TH CENTURY" "From Calanda my grandfather came here and built a house that we'll come to in a moment." " Here in Zaragoza?" " Yes." "On the Paseo Independencia." "There were trees here." "The center of the street was lined with trees." "It was very pretty." "And very few cars." "When I came here in 1958, a car passed by every eight minutes." "You know I never came to Zaragoza?" "I never came here with your father." "AUTHOR AND SCREENWRITER" "I don't know why." "He invited me to Calanda once to see the drums, but I couldn't go." "I don't know why, but he always kept Zaragoza to himself." "He spent his entire childhood here." "He spent summers in Calanda and went to school here." "The Jesuits were very important for him." "The education he received here influenced his whole life." "And he never wanted to make a film here in Zaragoza." "He shot in Madrid and Toledo, but not here." "I remember the huge cathedral." "And the famous "Our Lady of the Pillar." She appeared atop a pillar." "She has a greater following than the Virgin of Guadalupe." "She appeared atop a pillar in Roman times, right?" "So now people can go kiss the pillar." "Why?" "I don't know." "Because they're believers." "And so many people have kissed the pillar that it's all hollowed out." "For us Frenchmen," "Zaragoza was the site of a fierce battle in Napoleon's time." ""The siege of Zaragoza."" "There's a park nearby." "Goya was here." "It was really horrible." "It lives on in Spaniards' memories." " "Damn Frenchmen!"" "Napoleon was a ferocious man." "People used to say that nothing ever happened here and that a newspaper headline once read, "Worker falls off bicycle."" "They put it on the front page." "What peaceful times." "No, not peaceful - just a time of no information." "That's all gone now." "Now there are modern buildings." "The same ones you see everywhere." "My grandparents used to come here with the family." "For what?" "Opera, theater?" "Theater, opera, music." "My grandparents had a private box, and the whole family came." " Like nobility." "Yes." "Bourgeoisie of note." "It's beautiful." "It probably hasn't changed much." "He came here to see his first plays." "Few people know that your father was also an actor." "Yes, he enjoyed it." "He was in Zorrilla's play Don Juan Tenorio at the student residence and later in Mexico." "But since he couldn't hear, when it was his turn to say a line, another actor would nudge him, and he'd say his line." "Your father wrote his first screenplay here in Zaragoza about Goya, and it was published." "It was a little biography of Goya, about the encounter between two Aragonians." "GO YA" " SELF-PORTRAIT" "He was a great painter, and he was deaf." " And a Francophile." " He went to France and died there." "Since my father was deaf, his favorite joke went," ""There are three famous deaf Aragonians:" "Goya, Bunuel and Beethoven."" "A friend spoke up and said, "But Beethoven wasn't from Aragon."" ""Well, then..."" "COLLEGE YEARS:" "LORCA, DALÍ AND BUNUEL" " MADRID 1917" "My father liked this place a lot." "He was 18 when he came to Madrid." "He came from Zaragoza to Madrid." "He went into the big post office once and there was a blind postman." "He really liked that." "We'd often walk from Cibeles, the square with the statue, to the Café Gijón." "This is full of memories too." "He really liked it here in Madrid." "The memories of his youth, the residencia de estudiantes." "Because the residence sat on higher ground." "There'd been nothing there before, just open field." "When he came to Madrid in 1918, it was a very small city." "It was a mythical city for him, with memories of his youth." "He'd met Galdós here once, who was already old, with a blanket over his legs." "It reminded him of another time." "It was the beginning of the 20th century, and Madrid held a special charm for him - not the charm of Toledo or Segovia, beautiful cities of the past." "But something very personal." "He liked walking along its streets." "The cafés." "I can almost see him walking down this street." "STUDENT RESIDENCE" "It's great coming here with the two of you." "It's a real privilege for me." "This place is sacred to Spanish culture, isn't it?" "One of the first university gathering spots." "Yes, because there wasn't a campus here like Oxford or Cambridge." "HISPANICIST AND BIOGRAPHER" "This was like a campus where people talked and shared their knowledge." "It's an oasis of peace on the outskirts of Madrid." "It must have looked very modern at the time." "It was opening Spain up to the world." "To Europe." "The great names in European culture came through here." "Madame Curie..." "Einstein." "Louis Aragon, who talked about surrealism." "Lots of people came and interacted with the students." "They shared their knowledge, heard new ideas." "It was like an organ of opposition to the church and conservative forces." "There was no chapel here." "The dean didn't want people speaking about religious beliefs." "It was more or less forbidden." "They weren't to speak about it." "Not one chapel, which of course offended a lot of Catholics." "My father said he was just an ignorant Aragonian here." "He came here and met other students like Dalí and Lorca." "Here he encountered culture and a sense of refinement." " It really changed him." " Yes, it did." "This is a fundamental place in his life." "Yes." "He came here in 1917, and Dalí arrived in 1922." "BUNUEL AT 17" "So your father spent seven years of his life here, MILITARY SERVICE, 1921 which is a long time when you're young, absorbing all the influences, the lectures, the music." "He also studied entomology at the nearby Institute of Natural History." "Just down the road." "I think this really is one of the sacred spots in Spanish and European culture." "Because two cultures met here... arts and sciences." "And sports too." "Sports and boxing were very important to him." "WORKING OUT IN THE RESIDENCE" "I think that the extraordinary encounter here between Lorca, Bunuel, and Dalí some years later was perhaps the most significant event in Spanish cultural history." "It's an extraordinary encounter, and you have Alberti and others too." "Yes, people all over Madrid, not just here in the student residence." "I don't know whether this is known outside of Spain, but Madrid at that moment was at a boiling point, swarming with activity." "You had Ramón Gómez de la Serna..." "Then it slows down... and his gatherings at the Café Pombo." "People here went out at night in Madrid." "AT THE CAFÉ POMBO, 1922" "To the theater, the cinema." "It was a very intimate relationship." "For example, Lorca used to read his works to Bunuel and Dalí to get their reactions." "It was a very rare cultural intimacy." "FOR FEDERICO, WITH A WARM EMBRACE" " LUIS" "And each played a part in the others' works." "There's a little story I can tell." "Lorca once asked Dalí and Luis to listen to him read one of his works." "I don't think he finished it." "He started to read it, perhaps in this very room." "And Bunuel told me that the first part seemed to him very bad, too long, boring." ""Well, let's see how the second act is."" "The second act was also pretty weak." "Afterwards, Lorca asked what they thought of it." "And Bunuel very tactfully said," ""I don't really think it's among your better work." "It has good points, and of course some wonderful turns of phrase, but something's missing."" "Lorca then turned to Dalí." ""What do you think?"" "And Dalí says, "Bunuel's right." "It's a piece of shit."" "They all came from good families, but they had this desire to change the world." "LORCA WITH THE THEATER TROUPE "LA BARRACA"" "THE ORDER OF TOLEDO, 1923" "There's the cathedral." "Look at that tower." "What a beauty." "Look, there's the tower." "Magnificent." "It's amazing." "The weight of the past, and the beauty - lost." "You have the contrast between the beauty of the past and the ugliness of today's shops." "How awful!" ""I think we invented ugliness," your father used to say." ""It's a modern invention."" "He really loved the cloisters in Toledo, Segovia, and Paular." "I don't know why." "A taste for a certain solitude." "To walk around the enclosed square." "The members of the Order of Toledo used to come here." "There was Dalí and García Lorca." "Just one woman..." "Ernestina Gonzalez, a librarian." "And Alberti and his wife, María Teresa de León." "A great poet who also lived in the residence." "They always ended up here." "First to the cathedral and its bell tower, and then here to eat." "It was a very well-organized order, with your father at the head." "What was the important thing?" "To love Toledo." "To love Toledo with all one's heart and spend one drunken night in her streets." "That was a sine qua non for being part of the order." "Your father made his decision after a vision here in Toledo." "Like the great mystics, after having a vision, he decided to " "A drunken vision, of course." "An ethyl-induced decision." "But all the great saints were drunks." "Yes, visionaries." "You can't be a saint without drinking a lot." "No." "Or smoking a lot." "Smoking something." "There was a little patio painted white, and concealed under the white paint were some paintings by Dalí." "And some poems by Lorca too." "When they left, the owner painted over it all with white paint." "It's all gone now." "They destroyed it." "But it's full of memories for me, as it is for you." "I think Pepín Bello is the only one still alive." "He's now 102." "PEPÍN CELEBRATING 100 YEARS 103 or 104 years old." "Perhaps he's immortal." "It's possible." "José "Pepín" Bello died that very night in Madrid at 103 years of age." "They came here often." "They liked it a lot." "Federico, Salvador and my father liked to walk around here after dinner or having drinks." "Very strange and beautiful things would happen." "The bells." "That's one." "That's two." "MEETING THE SURREALISTS PARIS 1924" "This is the "Passage Jouffroy."" "I believe my grandparents came here on their honeymoon in Paris." "Your father was conceived here, or so he claimed." "He'd cry and be full of emotion, like he'd known Paris before he was even born." "And the first time he came here, he too stayed at the Hotel Ronceray, in memory of his " "Of his mother, who'd said, "When you go to Paris, go to the Hotel Ronceray."" "He certainly encountered a different world here compared to Madrid or Calanda or Zaragoza." "He told me many times that just the fact WITH SPANISH FRIENDS that young couples kissed in the street - that was scandalous." "Unthinkable in Spain." "He really came to this spot a lot, both before and after being born." "If you had to choose a place that symbolized" "Montparnasse in the '30s, it would surely be La Closerie des Lilas, this very famous café and restaurant where Luis came in contact with the surrealist movement for the first time." "He enjoyed wearing costumes, didn't he?" "Once he dressed up as a nun." "There's a picture of him as a nun, walking down the street with friends." "He was a bit afraid." "Because in Spain " "Yes, in Spain it was a serious matter." "It was punishable by four or five years in prison." "But the policemen were very kind." ""Good evening, sister."" ""What can I do for you?"" "Luis had a little lipstick on too." "It was a time... of youth, of happiness, of parties." "And he also met your mother." "MY WIFE, JEANNE RUCAR" "Jeanne Rucar, who was an athlete, chosen for" "Yes, she was in the Olympics." " A gymnast, right?" " Yes, she did rhythmic gymnastics." "BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN" "He saw lots of films here, including Battleship Potemkin." "Which he liked a lot." "And especially Fritz Lang's movie..." "Destiny." "He told me many times that he decided to make films after seeing that film by Lang." "He met Fritz Lang years later." "In 1972 in Los Angeles." "He brought back a picture signed" ""From Fritz Lang to Luis Bunuel."" "A wonderful object that's disappeared." "He gave it to some idiot in Mexico." "My father was a filmmaker." "He didn't write." "He didn't paint." "What would he have done if he'd been born before cinema?" "I've wondered the same thing many times." "He didn't like writing." "He couldn't draw." "He'd have liked to draw, because it's a solitary activity." "Yes, it was a dream of his, but he couldn't." "He was a born filmmaker, in my opinion." "In cinema he found his own way of doing things, of saying and showing things." "What would he have been in the 17th century?" "A butcher." "THE PATHÉ ALBATROS STUDIOS" "We're entering a historic place." "These are the Albatros studios, aren't they?" "Some of the oldest in the world." "We're in Montreuil-sous-Bois, outside Paris, and these are the old Pathé studios." "Now it's a center for the dramatic arts." "Let's go see the oldest soundstage." "Wonderful!" "This is "the set" of the old Pathé studios." "They used natural light for shooting." "For me it's always very exciting to come to one of the original sites in the history of cinema." "He came to see if he could work with Jean Epstein." "Right here, in this place that has changed very little, really very little." "Epstein asked him, "What can you do?" And Luis answered," ""Well, technically speaking, nothing."" "But he had this drive to work in cinema." "So he told Epstein, "I'll do anything." "I'll sweep up." "I'll make coffee."" "And he began as an extra right here." "THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER" "After that he was an assistant." "It's not generally known, but he started out as an actor." "Yes, I've seen him in gypsy costume." "Yes, as an extra." "There was a friendship between Epstein and Luis." "For example, one day Epstein gave Luis a ride in his car from the other studio in Villancourt to Paris." "And he told him," ""Be careful, because you have surrealist tendencies." "Stay away from those awful people!"" "Those dangerous and scandalous people!" " It's full of kids." " Holy cow!" "It's awful." "How things change!" "This is a historic place." "The first screening of a film by Luis took place here, and it was a great success." "Your grandmother financed it." "He had no money." "He paid her back later." "I didn't know that." "He stood behind the screen here with some stones in case the audience didn't like it." "But it was a success, and he threw the stones in a flowerpot." "He was afraid because some of the surrealists were invited." "But that screening opened the doors of surrealism to him." "UN CHIEN ANDALOU" "But it was a surrealist movie before Luis joined the movement." "I always found that very interesting." "That invisible imperceptible call heard all over the world." "LOPLOP INTRODUCES THE SURREALISTS" " MAX ERNST, 1931" "From Max Ernst in Germany and Man Ray in America to Bunuel and then Dalí in Spain." "It's incredible how the group came together here." "And Luis's artistic life really began right here in this studio." "It's very interesting how they wrote the script." "Yes, he and Dalí." "They just tossed around ideas, and they weren't to have any symbolic meaning." "They were all dreams." " And no rational meaning." " That's right." "Each of them could say, "That's no good."" " 'A bull comes in here. " - "No good."And that was that." "Just three seconds, so that the intellect couldn't interfere." "I think they wrote it in a week or two." "Yes, in Cadaqués." "DALÍ AND GALA MEET" "It started out with two dreams." "I think the dream about the ants was Dalí's, and the dream about the eyeball being slit was Luis's." "Two unforgettable images." "I saw something interesting in the shooting script..." "'A man passes by on a bicycle." "Four turns of the crank. "" "Cameras had no electric motors at the time." "It had to be measured by hand." "One, two, three, four." "Every scene had "turns of the crank."" ""Fifteen turns of the crank" SHOOTING UN CHIEN ANDALOU instead of 15 seconds." " At a steady rhythm." "I believe cameramen back then would sing." "There was a certain song." "My father met my mother in this neighborhood." "In a bookshop, right?" "L'ÂGE D'OR" " The Spanish bookshop." " Where was it?" "On the rue Gay-Lussac, 100 yards from here." "She worked there." "Every Spaniard in Paris went there to buy newspapers and books." "And that's where they met." "And from there they went, for example, to the atelier of Senor Vinez." "They fell in love, and here I am." "My mother also worked on Un chien andalou." " As what?" " An assistant." "There are lots of details in the film." "For example, that's her tennis racket." "Things like that." " That was hers?" "At one point she places a striped tie on the bed." "Critics and philosophers had a field day with those stripes!" "But she'd simply gone to the store and bought a tie." "There was nothing symbolic in it." " Shall we?" " Let's walk that way." "He created a naturally surrealist piece, and the fortunate thing was that Aragon and other members of that group saw the film." "And L 'âge d'or too, which they liked very much." "From that moment on, he started getting to know the members of the group." "They'd meet five times a week, two or three hours each time," "MEMBERS OF THE SURREALISTS to discuss things and exchange ideas." "Luis was part of the group for almost two years." "PORTRAIT BY MAN RAY And for the rest of his life, as you know." "Yes, his way of thinking and being always fit the surrealists' morality." "I think perhaps he was most faithful to the surrealist spirit throughout the rest of his life." "They'd come drink and discuss things here." "Yes, at the famous café brasserie Cyrano." "A shining red phantom of the Cyrano still lingers here." "The café doesn't exist anymore." "THE OLD CAFÉ CYRANO" "The movie came out, and for five or six days, there was no problem." "The theater was sold out." "And then some groups from the far right began to demonstrate." " The "camelots du roi."" "In the lobby there were paintings by " "Max Ernst, Dalí and others." "Which they destroyed." "And so the police banned the film completely." "For how many years?" "I think it was 50." "The movie was forgotten." "When I was young, the only way to see L'âge d'or was at a film club, until 1980 or 1981, I think, when it was authorized to be screened again." "Fifty years of complete prohibition - an almost unique case in film history." "L 'ÂGE D'OR" "For the surrealists, all the scandal made it a great success, because it caused lots of controversy." "You can't consider it a failure." "On the contrary." "For the surrealists it was a success." "This scent of scandal, from the very beginning of your father's career in cinema, was always quite important for him." "To provoke." "I remember some years later when one of his movies was successful, he wasn't happy." " Yes, he was skeptical." ""Did I do something wrong?"" "I always remember how your father and I came here once." "For two minutes, he was very moved watching the film." "Seeing the theater itself." "And then we left to have a drink." "This theater is certainly full of phantoms and memories." "A ROUNDTRIP TO AMERICA HOLLYWOOD 1930" "He came to Hollywood in 1930 AS AN ACTOR IN HOLLYWOOD with a contract for a few months." "He'd tell me stories." "Chaplin once invited him and all the other Europeans over for Christmas." "Chaplin said, "You and Ugarte, there'll be a Christmas dinner tonight, but you have to bring a gift." "We put them under the tree, and everybody picks one. "" "My father had an idea." ""We'll show these bourgeois jerks." "When I take out my handkerchief, we destroy the gifts and knock over the tree."" "So there they are, eating and drinking a lot, when he suddenly takes out his handkerchief." "They get up, knock the tree over, and stomp on all the presents, and Chaplin throws them out." ""You're all bourgeois!"" "Two weeks later he sees Chaplin at the studio." ""Hello there, Bunuel!" "Come over for dinner tonight."" ""How nice." "Sure."" "That night they open the door and there's a magnificent Christmas tree." "And Chaplin says, "Please knock the tree over, and then we'll have dinner. "" "They hugged and laughed." "It was very funny." "The world of Hollywood." "Your father pronounced it with the guttural Spanish sound." "FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE CIVIL WAR" " MADRID 1931" "The arrival of the Republic, for Bunuel and his whole generation, was a great moment, when Spain might possibly rejoin Europe." "Transformation seemed possible." "Their whole life in the student residence came to fruition in 1931." "I think he felt very involved in the life of the Republic." "FILMÓFONO PRODUCTION COMPANY" "When he came back to Spain and was part of Filmófono, he had the sense he was contribution BUNUEL'S PARTNER AT FILMÓFONO to the uprising of a country." "Filmófono was very powerful in the '30s." "CARMEN AMAYA FILMED BY BUNUEL" "Your father could have been rich." "IN LA HIJA DE JUAN SIMON, 1933" "Luis was starting a career and a life in Spain as a director and producer, and suddenly the war stopped everything." " Once again." "And on July 17..." "ESPANA 1936" "The fascists reached the Casa de Campo." "Madrid was going to fall." "The government fled, leaving Madrid almost completely undefended." "When I think of the war, I think of Machado..." ""O Madrid, breakwater of all Spain. "" "The defense of Madrid." "There was artillery up there on the Telefónica building, because Franco's forces had made it to the Casa de Campo and were bombing." "Imagine the Gran Via with bombs falling." "German and Italian airplanes bombing and killing people." "Here we are on the Place du Trocadero." "Here's where the International Exposition took place in 1937." "It's amazing what they managed to do in wartime." "We're talking about 1937." "Madrid was completely besieged by Franco's forces, EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT yet the Republic managed to mount an international pavilion in Paris, and all the importance that goes along with that." "A beautiful and interesting pavilion, with avant-garde art." "It was really a political manifesto." "They wanted to influence democratic countries to help the Republic - which didn't happen." "It was propaganda." "That's what DIRECTOR, CERVANTES INSTITUTE the Republic could use at the time to let people know of Spain's plight." "Certain artists participated, like Miró, who painted the mural and created the poster for the exposition." "Luis never said much about the pavilion." "No, not even about the movie." "He put together a montage, ESPANA 1963" "Loyalist Spain Takes Up Arms." "Also known as Espana 1936." "He was the organizer of the film section at the Spanish pavilion where they showed not only that film but also another he produced," "La hija de Juan Simón, and also Las Hurdes." "I think Las Hurdes, though a quote-unquote documentary, was a way for Luis to leave surrealism without falling into realism." "For me it's a skillful transition from his so-called surrealist work to his work yet to come." "For me it's very interesting and exciting how it addressed the reality of Spain in such a different way." "The money came from Acín, who'd won the lottery." "He and his wife were captured and shot by the fascists too." "The amazing thing is how throughout his whole life," "Luis never wanted to talk about Federico." "Their relationship was so deep, so intimate," "It was part of Luis." "He didn't like to speak of Lorca's death." "He grieved for him every day for the rest of his life." "When he spoke about Federico, it was about what a great guy he was." "It wasn't about his poetry." "It was the man himself, what a great guy he was." "He'd opened up doors for Luis in his life and showed him another world... the world of poetry, of expression, of art." "Luis would become very sad." "He'd suddenly think about Federico, how they took him away to kill him." "He knew what was going to happen." "It must have been terrible." "LORCA IN LIFE IS A DREAM" "Because he was afraid to die." "EXILE IN THE U.S. NEW YORK, 1939" "When we arrived in September of 1938, we were all sick from the boat trip." "There'd been a storm, and we'd all been horribly seasick." "But the sea here was calm, and the first thing we saw was Manhattan, a real sight to see." "We stayed here a few days and then set out by car for California." "The government sent my father to California to help on films they'd made about the Civil War- or were going to make." "But there was no work." "So we stayed in California a while and came back here in 1940, where my brother was born." "We thought we'd be here another 20 years, but we couldn't, because WWII broke out." "We went to California and then Mexico, living in different countries." "It was the famous exile that affected not just us but millions of people all over the world." "JEANNE AND OUR SON" "We lived in a very small apartment with a Murphy bed," "My brother and I slept on the floor." "My father asked Dali to lend him" "$50 for the rent, but Dalí said you shouldn't lend money to friends." "So we had no money." "We went to live with Alexander Calder in that red building." "Calder's wife, Luisa, would make coffee and toast." "I was five years old." "I'd hand Calder his tweezers and some wire, and while they talked, he'd make me little toys." "I'd say thank you and throw them away later." "CALDER EXHIBIT AT MOMA" "I threw away about 50 mobiles and objects Calder had made." "What interested me was seeing him make them." "This was the German neighborhood." "They'd stage big demonstrations here before the war in 1938-39." "Big pro-Nazi demonstrations." "The street was full of guys with Nazi flags." "Once the war started, they settled down quickly." "MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK" "Here we are in front of the Museum of Modern Art." "Before, it was a building of three or four floors." "It was torn down to build this skyscraper, and they rebuilt the museum downstairs." "One of my father's first tasks here was to reedit Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will to show American authorities the importance of film in propaganda." "About two years later, the book The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí came out, in which he denounced my father as an atheist and communist, two very undesirable labels at the time." "So they asked my father to resign, and he quit his job, and we moved to Los Angeles." "Now that whole group of friends " "Miró, Calder, Picasso - is all together inside that building." "WRITER AND ARTIST" "So how's this documentary going?" "Very well." " Thanks for coming to the airport." " No problem." "The problem with this street is all these palm trees." " Yeah, they're so ugly." " Kinda boring." "I like the streets in Mexico, where there are cars and " " Or Calanda." " Yes, Calanda's not bad." "Full of dust and flies." "We're on our way to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where our father was invited to observe how they made films in Hollywood." "They made the same shit then that they make now." "When his fame grew a bit, they'd write him, "Would you like to shoot in Hollywood?"" ""I'm not interested."" ""The producer won't set foot on the set." "Not interested."" ""You can shoot in France or Italy..."" "He never wanted to shoot anything in Hollywood." "Here we are." "THE BUNUEL HOME" "Poor little house." "We were small, so it seemed much bigger." "Now it looks so small." "We came here by train from New York around 1943." "We crossed the whole country by train." "Our father worked at Warner Bros., dubbing American films into Spanish for export to Latin America." "But they closed down the studios." "There was no work." "Dancigers offered my father an opportunity in Mexico." "So he went to Mexico alone, and then you and I flew to Mexico with our mother." "All our Spanish friends came to this house, like Ugarte." "All our Spanish refugee friends." "My mother would think up something to cook." "One day we made paella." "My father was cutting the pork, and suddenly he sliced off this part of his finger." "He was bleeding, and the piece of flesh fell into the pork." "They bandaged him up, and then we looked for the piece of his finger." "We couldn't find it." ""What should we do?"" ""Let's just not say anything."" "So someone ate a piece of my father's finger." "That could be George Cukor's house." "Yes, the famous dinner with all the directors." "Who was there?" "Billy Wilder, William Wyler." "Robert Wise, Hitchcock." "Wise was a great director." "Mamoulian." "I remember that our father sat next to Hitchcock at the table." "I think all they talked about was wine." "He said Hitchcock kept saying," ""That leg!" "Catherine Deneuve's leg in Tristana!" It really struck him." "John Ford came in later." "A black nurse practically carried him in." "Someone asked Ford, "What are you working on?"" ""Next month I'll be shooting a western in Death Valley."" "And he could hardly walk." "I think he just stopped in to say hello." " He left early." " I don't think he was there for dinner." "They brought him by to say hello and then took him away." "But what spirit." "A FILMMAKER RETURNS MEXICO 1946" "My mother and brother and I arrived here in 1946 and settled down." "The whole group of Republican friends met again." "Refugees." " And he made his film " " Gran Casino." "Gran Casino, grand failure." "With two stars:" "Jorge Negrete " " And Libertad Lamarque." "She was Argentinian, right?" "She knew everything about filmmaking." "She'd get to the studio, look around, and tell the gaffer," ""Have No. 7 hit me here, but lower the other one."" "She'd set all her own lighting." "I think after Gran Casino he had to wait two years without making anything, right?" "He sat at home doing this." "That's why this film, based on real life, isn't optimistic and leaves the solution of the problem to the progressive forces in society." " This was the slum." " In Los olvidados." "PHOTOGRAPHS BY BUNUEL" "He came here dressed as a worker, taking pictures and scouting locations." "We're speaking of 1948-49." " And he always took a gun." " Of course." "He made three or four films before Los olvidados." "I think it was his first really personal film." "It was about "the other side of the city,"" "and the contrast between the poorest neighborhoods, the poverty belt of Mexico, and the growth of the modern city." "It was also a new way of working for him that has hidden connections to Las Hurdes." "It's almost a documentary, because people told him stories about their everyday lives, and the entire film arose out of that contact." " Faster!" " We're tired." "You can rest when you're dead." " He shoot it in three weeks." " Which is nothing." "So everything was very well prepared." "Of course." "As usual." "His work was always perfectly prepared." "Mexicans who saw the film wanted to deport him for showing " "But he covered his back by starting the film with," ""There are problems with youth in all the big cities of the world."" "And then he showed Paris, London, New York." "And what a title - The Forgotten Ones." "It says everything." "The French gave it a very bad title..." "Pitié pour eux." ""Pity for them." A stupid title." "He told me he was walking around Paris once when he saw a poster for the film, with a line that read, "Luis Bunuel, cruelest director in the world."" "He started crying right in the street." "How could anyone think that the man who had made Los olvidados was a cruel man?" "When they met, your father was already PHOTOGRAPHER very famous in Mexico." "A star in the world of cinematography." "That's exactly why they hired him, to give Don Luis the best resources to make his film." "I haven't really heard critics speak about the cinematography in Don Luis's films in Mexico." "But if we look at Los olvidados, for example, it's rooted in photorealism and photojournalism." "That's contrasted with all the interior shots in the barn and the house that are very carefully constructed." "The dream too." "It's frightening." "I'm scared when I watch it." "My father considered it the best dream sequence ever filmed in all of cinema." "The film is so good and so well-shot that you don't notice the photography." "Like when you ask someone how the music was in a film." ""Wonderful" means it's a bad film, because they noticed the music." "But "I don't remember, but the actors were good,"" "means it was good." "Same with a script:" "If you're aware of it, it's a bad film." "The script has to disappear, like the photography and the acting." "The important thing is the film." "Rest a while." "Here's where they shot Nazarín." "A part of Nazarín." "They also made ÉI and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz." "Simon of the Desert." "And Exterminating Angel." "A really wonderful film." "Our fathers got along very well." "I remember them laughing a lot." "I think they both had that spark of humor that relieves the tension on a shoot." "That's a wonderful thing." "I remember that by the final part of Nazarín, my father was very deaf." "Your father would stand behind him." "My father would call out "Camera!" "Action!"" "but he couldn't hear a thing." "When it was over," "Gabriel would tug on my father's shirt, who'd say, "Cut!" "Great dialogue!"" "But your father would say, "No, once more!"" "Gabriel was really controlling everything." "The two of them came here scouting locations." "There are pictures of them studying what angles to use." "But apparently Don Luis would take the pictures and then practically frame the shots himself." "Your father was a master of black and white." "And he was very fast." "He used to say that's why they hired him." " Well..." " Because he worked fast." "That was part of it." "THE EXTERMINA TING ANGEL" "This is the house where they shot - was it 50 years ago?" "Forty-seven." "Exterminating Angel." "He asked Bergamín for permission to use the title." "Where'd the idea for the film come from?" "I think it was an original idea, not an adaptation." "My father hated large groups of people." "Being stuck in a crowd at a party was a nightmare for him." "Then he saw Géricault's painting." "The Raft of the Medusa." "He thought, "How awful!"" "Stranded at sea for that long." "They even ate each other." "But shooting at sea would be hard:" "the wind, the waves, the weather." "So he thought he'd shoot a room where people enter but can't leave." "Why can't they leave?" "It doesn't matter." "They simply can't." "All the rest of the film is very realistic." "Just the fact they can't leave and don't know why." "It's not explained, and he said it didn't matter." "It's an extraordinary film because the situation is so unique." "No other filmmaker or novelist could come up with it." "It was made once for all time." "When it came out in the US, the distributors sent him letters saying," ""What does it mean?"" "He sat writing for an entire day, and finally just wrote," ""It doesn't mean anything!" "Go to -"" "It means nothing but says so much." "Everyone has to interpret it for themselves." "The nice thing about these movies is that they make the audience work." "With lots of movies, you have some popcorn and leave." "You leave this one wondering, "What was that about?" "What did those conversations and insults mean?"" "It doesn't matter." "It makes you think." "Shall we go inside?" " You go ahead." "I'm going to stay here a minute." "I'll be in soon." "CHURUBUSCO STUDIOS MEXICO CITY" "My gosh, we made so many movies here!" "I've made about 99 movies, 50 of which I made in these studios." "The others were in Spain and other places, like Viridiana." "Our only full-length feature ever to win the Palme d'Or." "I wanted to make a movie with Don Luis." "I chased after him with projects that never worked out." "Then I married Gustavo Alatriste, who had a furniture factory." "He asked how he could help." "DINING WITH ALATRISTE" "I said I wanted to work with Bunuel." "Sit still!" "In Viridiana he needed two more beggars for the twelve apostles at the Last Supper." "So he grabbed the seamstress and driver, dressed them like beggars, and shot the Last Supper." "Then they left, and nobody ever knew." "I'm an innocent little girl, Simon." "Look what innocent legs I've got." "The devil in Simon of the Desert - that's my favorite." "The best devil in the history of cinema." "Look how long my tongue is." "Your tongue!" ""Stick it out more!"" ""I can't!"" "And I'm dressed like Jesus and I have to kick the lamb." "The things he asked me to do!" "They dedicated a plaza and a building to Bunuel." "I don't know if he'd be too happy." "No, he wouldn't, but it makes us happy." "The movies we made with Don Luis won awards all over the world." "Viridiana won about 70 awards worldwide." "At every festival or competition, it was awarded some prize." "Same with Exterminating Angel." "Even Simon of the Desert, which is a short, won a prize in Venice." "He couldn't believe it had won the Palme d'Or." "Juan Luis, Gustavo and I spoke to Don Luis on the phone." "He was outside of Paris and had no interest in coming to Cannes." "His wife had to tell him," ""I heard it on the radio." "You won the Palme d'Or!"" "Then he finally believed it." "A SPANISH AND MEXICAN FILMMAKER TRIUMPHS CANNES 1960" "Viridiana is one of the legends of the Cannes Festival." "And the film was banned in Spain until the 1970s." "I transported the negative of Viridiana to Barcelona." "There we put it in a truck with some bullfighters, under their capes and things, and we crossed the border." "At the border, the Guardia Civil said, "What have we here?" "Good luck, matadors!" The bullfighters were sweating." "My father told Favre le Bret, of the Cannes Festival, that if Viridiana won," "Fontan, a Spanish government official, should go accept the award." "Favre le Bret said, "No, I invited you." "Viridiana is not a Spanish entry in the festival. "" "A very excited Fontan later accepted the award, and two days later he was sacked." "Cut the cards." "Like this." "You won't believe it, but the first time I saw you, I thought," ""My cousin Viridiana and I will end up shuffling the deck together."" "This is where I met your father for the first time." " What year was that?" " 1963." "I was very young." "Silberman, the producer he'd found, told me that Bunuel wanted to find young French screenwriters with a good understanding of provincial life." "I flew here from Paris one morning and flew back that evening without even going to the festival." "Just to meet with your father over a meal." "That was a legendary day in my life." "It was the beginning of an extraordinary adventure, almost 20 years of work." "And it started here." "That was many years ago." "He was younger then than we are now." "He was 60." "Very young." "Sixty-three." "Just a baby." "I'd love to be 63 again!" "If only for a week." "Around the time of Viridiana, he wrote two scripts based on Galdós..." "Viridiana and Tristana." "But when Viridiana was banned in Spain, he couldn't film Tristana either." "He had to wait 10 years, until 1970, to shoot it here." "He decided to shoot in Toledo, though the novel's set in Madrid." "Because Toledo had been a sacred city for him since his youth." "My father played jokes on Fernando Rey here at this very table." "They were sitting here having a drink when a child ran up:" ""Are you the famous director?" "Your autograph, please." Fernando was a little irritated." "Nothing for Fernando?" "Two minutes later, another child ran up for an autograph." "By the third child, Fernando was laughing, because Bunuel had staged the whole thing." "He'd paid the kids." "They had a lot of laughs." "He liked that kind of joke." "Where are you going, my lovely?" " To find a suitor." " He's standing before you." "So old?" "When your father and I were working in Madrid, we'd come to Toledo once a week." "Coming to Toledo meant coming to a certain spot on earth that was sacred in some way." "Not in a religious sense." "Something connected with himself and his memories, with the memory of a unique friendship in Spanish history that had been shattered." "He and Dalí never spoke." "Lorca had been executed." "Dalí and Gala were invited to the premiere of Tristana." "I was there on the Champs-Élysées in Paris." "My wife and I were sitting here, and there were two empty seats in front of us." "At the last minute, when the theater was completely full," "Dalí and Gala arrived." "Dalí with his mustache and his silver cane, and he and Gala sat down as he nodded to people." "Now the show can begin." "The lights go down, and the movie begins in silence." "The first image is a long shot of Toledo." "And in the silence that famous voice... says, "Toledo!"" "Like a cry from the heart to launch the movie." "It was wonderful." "What happened?" "They had such a friendship." "One day we were working in the Torre de Madrid when a telegram arrived from Cadaqués." "It was in French, which was extraordinarily snobbish." ""Dear Luis, I have some ideas for a sequel to Un chien andalou." "Please come to Cadaqués, or I can go to Madrid."" "Luis showed it to me and said," ""He still thinks he's back in the '20s or '30s."" "He sent a reply - in Spanish." ""Dear Salvador... that water flowed under the bridge long ago" " Luis."" "At the end of his life, the man was completely alone, surrounded by fools." "I was at José Barros's house with Alberti, and Dalí was dying." "And Alberti said, "Poor Salvador doesn't even have friends to pull out the tubes and let him die with dignity."" "That's a poet's line." ""Poor Salvador."" "Look at the face and hands in marble." "It's like the flesh is already rotting." "Berruguete made it from the cardinal's death mask." "It's like an homage to death." "Very Spanish." "Luis adored this image of a body that seems alive yet is dead." "And the marble." "The nails are disintegrating." " It's extraordinary." " And this here." "The whole body is very well done." "Well, good-bye, Cardinal." "This place holds so many memories." "We spent so many months here, over the course of years, working on various movies together." "To write dialogue, you have to act it out." "And since your father was deaf, I had to shout, and you could hear it through the walls." "For example, the love scenes in Diary of a Chambermaid." ""I'm mad about you, Céléstine." "I love you. "" "But two men's voices - and in French." "When we left, they'd look at us like..." "Luis always said, "A day without laughter is a wasted day. "" "Enormous waves of laughter." "A very important thing in his life was making a good dry martini." "You know how?" " Sure." "The alcohol has to be refrigerated so that it's freezing cold." "Then in the cocktail shaker you put ice, a drop of bitters, and a tablespoon of Noilly Prat, because there's no Martini vermouth in a dry Martini." "So you add the Noilly Prat, mix well, and then add gin." "We spent hours and hours in this very spot meditating, saying just a word or two in hushed voices, thinking about movies, getting ideas." "We worked here." "Fernando was this spirit of old age with the nymph." "He's like a strange mirror of Luis." " It was a way of" " They laughed a lot." "He came to this bar often." "They were very close right to the end." "Another joke Luis played on Fernando:" "The three of us were here with a journalist, who was asking questions." "Fernando's over there, and Luis says to the camera," ""There's nothing easier than acting." "It's the easiest job in the world."" "Fernando says, "Well..."" "Really." "I swear." ""You sit here, and the director says," "'Look to the right." "A little less." "More intense." "Less." "That's perfect.'" "It's so easy."" "And Fernando goes, "Well, it's not that easy."" ""Sure it is." "What do you do in The French Connection?" "You look out a window and eat oysters." "So you have to know how to eat oysters, but otherwise it's the easiest thing in the world."" "He knew how to get to him." "Right in front of Fernando." "He always was very happy with me, because I'd shout." "He asked me to once, and I understood." "There's a reason from my own life:" "I lost my hearing a while ago." "I've always thought about him and his patience, and his brilliant sense of humor." "Almost like he heard you by looking at you." "He always did this." "So much so that I almost forgot I was shouting, but I was, and he really appreciated it." "There's something else I've always loved about him that I've never found with anyone else." "When he knew that we'd grasped what he was telling us, the technical aspects and all about acting out a moment, creating that moment, he'd lose himself like a child in our performance." "He would relish it." "He wouldn't judge it." "He'd really enjoy it." "I remember a moment where Fernando Rey had to hit me and make me bleed." "Luis came over with tears in his eyes - which he'd already forgotten about - and said," ""It brought back a certain moment for me." "I was really moved."" "It had reminded him of a moment in his life, and he gave in to it, like the pure soul that he is." "We started out in the same hotel, the Hotel L'Aiglon, and we often rode the elevator together." "We'd chat as we rode up and down." "Once he asked me where I was going." ""Out for a coffee." "And you?"" ""Out for a stroll."" "He liked to go walking in the Montparnasse Cemetery." "He said it was wonderfully peaceful." "From another world." "He really liked nature and flowers." "He had this kind of wisdom about nature." "He was very aware of nature." "I enjoyed that a lot, and it really struck me." "I'd never have thought of going there for a stroll." "One day he told me," ""There's no reason to fear that peace."" "Exactly." "How beautiful!" "Exactly." "That's just like him." "Incredible." "I love him." "I'll love him my whole life." "And he loved you a lot too." "Here it is." "We've very close." "Look." "Here we are in the hotel, in a room of the Hotel L'Aiglon, where he'd always come." "I often came here to work in that room, and when he was alone, he'd always be looking out the window at the cemetery, with that comic obsession that he had about death." "Let's go see." "Come look." "Lots of his friends are down there." "Delphine Seyrig, who worked with him twice." "Langlois, from the Cinématheque." "Jean Carmet, a close friend of mine too." "Joris Ivens." "Lots of personalities from the world of the arts." "Lots of gentle spirits." "He loved to sit here and look out for hours and hours." "He'd sit for two hours meditating, thinking, with that Spanish obsession with death, as if saying, "Since we can't reflect on life when we're dead, we should reflect on death while we're alive."" "It was a kind of exorcism, this constant thinking." "He played a joke on me many times in this room." "I'd walk in and find him dead on the floor, one leg up on the table." "It was the "comedy of death."" "The first time, I was really surprised." ""My God, he's dead!"" "The second time, he forgot I already knew the joke." "I just said, "Luis, get up." "Let's work."" "Here's where we shot the last scene of That Obscure Object of Desire." "The last scene your father ever shot in his life." "That's right." "And what was the first one?" "Slicing open the eye in Un chien andalou." "And the strange thing is that in the last scene, my first wife - who's no longer with me - was sewing some clothes or something." "She's sewing in the shop window." "At the beginning of his life he shot an eye being sliced open, and at the end it's being sewn up again." "Here's where my mother would make paella." "Your father too." "My father taught her, and then she would make it." "This was my mother's favorite place." "She liked to garden, and she had her dogs here." "This is my first time back here in 25 years." "Me too." "You know I stayed here too." "I spent a few nights " "You stayed in my room." "In your room." "I called your mother "my Mexican mother."" "One day, after writing the last script, which he never got to shoot," "he was alone here in the house, and a little sad." "I was in Paris, and I found some excuse to come here to Mexico, and I suggested he write a book, but he said absolutely not." "To convince him, one day at the El Diplomático hotel" "I wrote a chapter myself, starting out "I, Bunuel..."" "I showed it to him the next day." "He read it and said," ""It's like I wrote it myself!"" "So he was convinced, and we started working the way we worked on a script." "In the morning we'd work together here in his office, and I'd work alone at the hotel in the afternoon, trying to write." "Some chapters were very easy, because we already had all the elements." "Others were much more difficult." "For example, dealing with the Spanish Civil War." "He'd always been very discreet about the war, and I really wanted to know what he'd experienced and how he felt about it." "As you said, it was very personal, very painful and deep." "I came here for the last time two months before he left us in 1983." "He was very fragile." "I knew it was the last time, our last hug at the door, and then I left."