"Carlos Fuentes Writer and friend I learned the quality of silence with Bunuel, because we could sit for ten minutes without speaking, looking at each other or drinking, without a word." "That's the height of friendship." "REGARDING BUNUEL" "Claudio Isaac Friend He had that face..." "that broken boxer's nose, that gaze of his that was asymmetrical and terrible, showing brutal concentration." "He loved to make jokes, but with a serious expression on his face." "That was disturbing." "Michel Piccoli Actor He showed us we didn't need to be afraid of existence and the catastrophes of existence." "For him, those catastrophes were lies, political lies, fascism, Franco, and the Pope." "Angela Molina Actress He had the art of provocation, but he was so lively about it." "That's what he wanted, to disturb people, make them question things and have fun at the same time." "Jose Bello Friend With Luis Bunuel, it's difficult to look for "the explanation", because most of the best things about him had no explanation." "He used to say," "Jean Claude Carriere Screenwriter "A day without laughter is a lost day," "I mean real laughter."" "Father Manuel Mindan Priest and friend I'm about three years younger than Bunuel." "He was born in February, 1900 and I was born in December 1902." "But we were friends." "His father, as a young man, joined the army, he was a bugler in Cuba." "He was a soldier in Cuba, and worked in a hardware store." "The lady who owned it entrusted it to him, and when she died, she willed the business to him." "Afterwards, with the money he made in the store, he and two partners started a shipping company that was very profitable because it was wartime." "When the Spanish-American War was over, he went back to Spain, wanting to get married." "He marrried the daughter of the Calanda innkeeper," "Maria Portoles Cerezuela." "She was 17 years old when she was married," "Don Leonardo was 45." "He sent her to school for six months so that she could polish her manners a bit, since she was a girl who had been used to serving people in the inn..." "They were married in the church of "El Pilar" in Calanda, in the "Milagro" chapel." "Then they went to Paris on their honeymoon." "She became pregnant in Paris, so the baby Luis really did come from Paris." "In the village where I was born on Feb. 22, 1900, the Middle Ages continued until the World War." "It was an isolated and fixed society where class differences were very clear." "Life unfolded monotonously, ordered and directed by the church bells." "The bells announced religious services, the events of daily lives, and the tolling for deaths." "It seemed nothing would change, gestures and desires were passed on from generation to generation." "Words of "progress" barely passed in the distance like clouds." "Death was always present and formed part of life." "Like faith." "We, deeply anchored in Roman Catholicism, never doubted any of its dogmas." "But our sincere faith could not calm our impatient, obsessive, and permanent sexual curiosity." "Instinct's hard battles against chastity occurring only in our thoughts, overwhelmed us with guilt." "For years I lived with a sense of sin that could be delightful." "3 km. from town, my father built a house we called "The Tower"." "The whole family went there every day in two carriages." "The whole band of kids would often meet hungry children in rags collecting manure." "If I'd been one of them, watering the earth with sweat, what would my memories of that time be like?" "His father was the only one who talked at the table." ""Luis, go get that", went to his father's strong-box and pulled out some sausages and a very sharp knife." "He gave it to his father, who'd unwrap it, serve himself a rather large piece, one much smaller for Luis, another even smaller for Leonardo, and a tiny one for Alfonso." "The women there said nothing, they knew they had no right to eat that, none at all." "He used to tell us about that, boasting about his father, their manners, and their well-kept household." "Luis went up to the nanny's room." "Since she took awhile to go up there, he pinched the baby to make her cry." "She started to cry, the nanny went up, and Luis hid under the bed." "She got ready to go to sleep, and when she lifted one leg to get into bed, he came out from under the bed and grabbed her other leg." "She let out a scream the whole household heard." "Everyone went up to see what had happened." "In 1908, while I was still a child, I discovered the cinema." "Back then it was just a carnival attraction, a simple technical discovery." "But it was the invasion of something totally new in our Medieval universe." "He hung a sheet up between the bedroom door and the room where we were." "He'd use a magic lantern to project shadow on it." "Then he'd get a friend and a chisel and hammer, and he'd hit the chisel behind his friend head." "Then he took out things he'd prepared on the seat behind him." "He said, "There's a sponge, there's a rag, of course he can't learn anything!"" "Then he pretended to sew him up after having healed him." "My father died in 1923." "That was a decisive moment for me." "A few days later, I put on his boots, opened his desk and began smoking his cigars." "I'd assumed my role as head of the family." "His mother saved that family." "She was the cheer, the lightheartedness, the joy of the family." "She was an extraordinary person, pure goodness." "Maria was..." "I loved her like a mother, and she loved me, too." "When his father was alive, he didn't go to Madrid to study, he went to Zaragoza and studied philosophy and literature." "He didn't get his degree." "His mother paid for his tuition." "Dali's parents gave him 5 pesetas, like with Lorca and I, but Luis Bunuel always got ten or fifteen." "He constantly exploited his mother, he was her boy, the eldest, and she had a weakness for him." "When he was 17," "Conchita Bunuel Sister he started seeing an older girl." "Someone told her father that our family was very well-off and that" "Luis had his degree." "The father decided to formalize things and that Luis's parents had to ask for her hand." "Luis took advantage of his vacations and said he'd ask his parents, but what he did was to write a letter pretending he was a friend saying, "Luis died in an accident, uttering your daughter's name."" "3 months later, her father ran into him in Madrid and chased him with an umbrella." "One thing Bunuel did was to start studying science." "He only started, but that's behind the insect thing... he was interested in studying insects." "He started three different majors:" "agricultural engineering, natural science, and philosophy and literature." "My memories from that time are so rich." "I know if I hadn't been at the "Residencia", my life would have been different." "I was the first at the "Residencia", then Bunuel arrived a few years later." "Then Lorca came, and Dali was the last." "It was just a coincidence that we met and liked each other, that we had fun, that we enjoyed jokes" "I don't know... the "Residencia" was an epicenter." "There was this group..." "Roman Gubern Writer Jose Bello, essential." "He didn't write or paint, but he held them together." "An unpredictable, good fellow, Aragonese from Huesca, medical student who passed no exams, neither painter nor poet, Jose Bello was just our bosom friend." "It would have been strange not to have known each other." "It would have been strange not to have had those people around each other." "With Lorca, I discovered poetry." "Spanish poetry, which he knew so well." "He didn't believe in God, but he conserved the artistic sense of religion." "They created the "Order of Toledo", which meant they came here, usually on Saturday, and ate and drank according to Luis." "To be a "Knight", you had to blindly love Toledo, get drunk at least one night and wander through its streets." "Those who wanted to go to bed early could only be "Squires"." "Let's not even talk about "Guests" and "Guests of Guests"." "We really liked Toledo and we went there on weekends." "We caught the afternoon train, third class, of course." "We didn't have dinner, we just drank, going from one tavern to another, drinking very cheap wine." "We slept at the "Posada de la Sangre"." "A bed there cost no more than three reales, with sheets whose cleanliness was rather doubtful." "The next morning we met in Zocodover Square." "I remember something about that." "We would have drunk a bit the night before, we hadn't slept much, and Bunuel discovered that a shoeshine could be very refreshing." "It's true." "One feels very rested after a shoeshine." "Jose Luis Barros Doctor and friend Bunuel always liked to dress up in costumes... even just a sheet on the city walls, scaring people." "He wouldn't say a word, just pass by them." "At lunchtime we would go eat at the "Venta de Aires", outside the Toledo city walls." "Very cheap, very modest." "It was a village inn." "We drank wine from Yepes there, and then we went to see the tomb of Cardinal Tavera, that Bunuel really liked." "Those years of formation and encounters are hard to explain." "Our talks, our work, our walks, our drunken nights, the Madrid brothels..." "the best in the world." "Very rarely, because we didn't have any money." "Very rarely, and only Luis and I went." "Lorca, of course, wasn't interested, and Dali wasn't interested at all, because he was asexual." "Completely." "Dali was like this table." "Emilio Sanz de Soto Friend The day he asked Lorca if he was really homosexual, the two of them went to a festival." "San Antonio." "They say they told each other their life stories, and that's where the airplane photo comes from." "On the back, Lorca wrote Bunuel a very moving poem." ""My heart shines and rolls in the yellow-green night." ""Luis, my impassioned friendship braids the breeze." ""The child grinds the sad organ without a smile." ""Under the paper arches" ""I shake your friendly hand."" "Then there's a moment of complicity between Lorca and Bunuel when they both agree that Gala," "Dali's girlfriend, is a viper." "They both loathed her." "Bunuel almost drowned her in Cadaques." "He grabbed her neck and Dali shouted, "You'll kill her!"" "What he liked most was to shock people with homosexual things." "With Dali, not with Lorca." "He told me they once went to..." "I think "El Lion D'Or cafe"." "He exaggerated, saying he saw" "Valle Inclan, Pio Baroja, and all the old guys." "At the door, he said to Dali, "Kiss me on the mouth"." "Dali fell apart, "Let's go, let's go"." ""A kiss on the mouth!"" "And he kept insisting, and you can't imagine the reaction in the cafe:" ""You queers!"" ""This is what's called a surrealistic gesture"." "...make fun of the established figures of the time, like Juan Ramon Jimenez, or "the old fart"." "That's what they called" "Unamuno. "The old fart"." "Back then Gomez de la Serna was a great figure." "De la Serna was the father of the avant-guard." "He was an open window in a closed Madrid... the third world Madrid of pestilent taverns, of ignorant neighborhoods... he was the window open to Europe." "Luis hung out with Ramon's group at the cafe." "Like Max Aub said so well, Luis's films are Ramonian in the sense of being a series of linked gags." "He really admired Ramon Gomez de la Serna." "He went to Paris wanting to do Ramon's film." "I got to Paris not knowing where to go." "I went directly to the "Hotel Ronceray"" "where my parents honeymooned in 1899, and where they conceived me." "Those first few years in Paris, when I practically knew only Spaniards," "I hardly heard about the surrealists." "In the beginning surrealism interested me very little." "When I saw "Between Two Rolds", I knew I wanted to make films." "Something in that film deeply moved me and illuminated my life." ""An Andalusian Dog"..." "I had more to do with the screenplay than Dali, and as much as Bunuel." "It really was a collaboration." "Critics say, "Dali did this, Bunuel did that", wanting to give credit to one or the other." "That's completely false." "It was an absolute brotherly collaboration, a product of perfect understanding between us." "The film came out of two dreams." "Dali invited me to his house in Figueras." "I told him about a dream" "I had in which a cloud cuts the moon and a razor slashes an eye." "He said the night before he had dreamed about a hand full of ants." "He added," ""Why don't we make a film about that?"" "I wasn't sure at first, but then we got down to work." "I wasn't a cinema technician or anything." "But you suggest things..." "I gave them almost everything." "The dead donkey on the piano, that was my idea." "When it came out," "I was surprised my name wasn't on it, but I didn't mind." "Man Ray and Luis Aragon saw the film in the "Studio des Ursulines"." "They said they had to give it life, exhibit it, organize a presentation." "The greatest surrealism isn't French." "Surrealism was born in France, but was only theory." "Born in rationalism, it's a Cartesian surrealism, and that's a paradox, right?" "But the great surrealist artists, like Max Ernst in Germany and Bunuel in Spain, go to their cultural roots and from there extract the surrealist worldview." "Bunuel is a modern surrealist, but he has behind him Goya," "Valle Inclan, Cervantes, the picaresque, St. John of the Cross, and all that extraordinary Spanish culture that feeds him." "Surrealism was above all a call heard by different people who were already using instinctive and irrational forms of expression, even before meeting each other." "Dali and I were working on the screenplay of "An Andalusian Dog"" "and we used a kind of automatic writing." "We were unlabelled surrealists." "In my case, meeting the group was essential and crucial for the rest of my life." "For the first time," "I'd found a morality that was coherent and strict, without a fault." "Of course, that surrealist morality went against conventional morality, which we found abominable, because we rejected conventional values." "Our morality had other criteria." "It exhalted passion, hoaxes, insults, malevolent laughter, the attraction of the abyss." "But in that new context, all our thoughts and gestures seemed justified to us, without a shadow of a doubt." "Our morality was more demanding and dangerous, but also stronger, firmer and denser." ""Age of Gold" is a militantly provocative film, against the fatherland, religion, the bourgeoisie, chastity, sexual repression, and the family." "The scene where the man shoots his son because he'd taken his tobacco..." "Charles de Noailles said," ""The idea is a 20 minute film with complete freedom"." "I wrote the screenplay at the estate of the Count of Noailles." "They left me alone during the day." "At night" "I read them what I'd written." "They objected to nothing." "They thought it was all exquisite." "Dali saw the film and liked it." "He told me," ""It's like an American movie"." "What joy!" "What joy to have killed our children!" "My love!" "My love!" "The premiere was at the "Studio 28"" "and filled the house for six days." "Then the right-wing press assailed the film and the "Young Patriots" attacked the cinema, tore apart the surrealist paintings in the lobby, threw bombs at the screen and destroyed the seats." "It was "the Age of Gold Scandal"." "A week later, Police Chief Chiappe banned the film." "That ban lasted 50 years." "I'm often asked what happened to surrealism." "I don't know how to answer." "Surrealism triumphed superficially but not essentially." "Its urgent and unrealizable desire was to change life and the world." "Regarding that essential desire, we only have to look around to see we've failed." "Most surrealist intuitions showed themselves to be right." "For example, the idea of work, a sacred value of bourgeois society, an untouchable word." "The surrealists were the first to systematically attack it." "That diatribe echos through "Tristana", when Don Lope says..." "Poor Workers!" "They can't win." "Work is a curse, Saturno." "Down with having to work for a living!" "It doesn't dignify one, like some say, it just fills the belly of swinish exploiters." "But work one does out of pleasure, does dignify men." "I wish everyone could work that away." "One day I was talking about making a documentary about Las Hurdes with my friends Sanchez Ventura and Ramon Acin" "Ramon suddenly said," ""If I win the lottery, I'll pay for it."" "Two months later, he won some money, a fair amount." "And he kept his word." "Those disinherited mountains won me over immediately." "The people's helplessness fascinated me, and their intelligence in their "Land Without Bread"." "We asked one of the best students to write one of the maxims from the book." "The morality they are taught is that which governs our civilized world:" ""Respect the property of others"." "When the war broke out in 1936, a right-wing armed group went to Ramon Acin's house." "He escaped, but the fascists got his wife and threatened to shoot her unless Ramon returned." "Ramon came back the next day." "Both of them were shot." "Jeanne Bunuel Wife I was going to take anatomy classes because I taught rhythmic gymnastics." "That's where I met Luis, and we've been together ever since." "I got married in 1934 in the 20th District office in Paris." "The surrealist Bunuel was a great organizer." "At "Filmofono", he was in charge of a production company and planned filmings." "They were fast, efficient, cheap, and well done." "I think... and he told me..." "that he spent the happiest days of his life doing films here in Spain before the war." "He hired" "Carmen Amaya, when she was fourteen or fifteen years old, for a film he did when he came back in '35." "She dances on a table and it's Carmen Amaya's first film." "Of course he supported the Republican movement all the way;" "he was completely Republican." "Insecurity and confusion ruled." "We fought each other despite the fascist threat before us." "An old dream came true before my eyes, and all I found there was a kind of sadness." "A Republican who had crossed through the lines told us about Garcia Lorca's death." "The war broke out and he said," ""Tomorrow I'll go to the nearest" "Communist cell and I'll give them my car." "I have a ticket and my passport, I'm going to Paris."" "I said, "But didn't you like the Communists?"" ""Why do you want to go?"" ""Yes, but this wasn't what I had imagined," ""all this killing people."" "Naturally, he participated in the jobs they had for him, missions they gave him, some outside of Spain." "He did things, many things." "I've always been amazed at that photo of the cathedral in Santiago de Compestela, where church dignitaries and generals perform the fascist salute." "God and the Fatherland, side by side." "They only gave us repression and blood." "Ron Magliozzi MoMA film department" "Charles Silver MoMA film department" "Mary Calder Rower Daughter of Alexander Calder" "Charles Champlin Film Critic" "Eva Lopez Friend I think he realized he couldn't work in Hollywood, not with the freedom he had later with his films." "Jorge Negrete was the leader of the actor's union." "Pedro Armendariz, Jr." "Actor It was as if he were the representative of the "Sweet Mexico, don't let me die far from thee", the Mexico of those songs." "When he saw Bunuel didn't show that sweet Mexico, he said," ""What?" "Don't bullshit me, my sweet Mexico is" ""the Mexico of Cadillacs and charros," ""not of this poor blind man" ""who bats his cane at the children," ""and crumbling houses and a city full of the impoverished," ""that's not Mexico." But it was." "The films are more fluid and more elegant in the French period." "In the Mexican period, the films are almost homemade." "You see his genius despite the lack of means, he makes movies in five days, sometimes." "Federico Farfan Cameraman In that time in Mexico between 80 and 100 films were made in six studios." "They were all the same." "Charros, cabarets girls, scoundrels... and they weren't that attractive." "Some South Americans said we made them like potato chips, all the same." "So Luis Bunuel's films were different." "Arturo Ripstein Film Director When Eisenstein made "¡Que Viva Mexico!"... or John Ford, or Losey..." "All these directors who came to Mexico were so overhelmed by this tremendous, fierce country that they were having insights that were at the time completely unknown." "Bunuel never really joined Mexican culture, it was always strange to him." "His house walls had broken glass on them," ""so that burglars couldn't break in"." "He was never close to the political or cultural life of Mexico." "He still carried all that cultural weight from Europe, especially from Spain, however he made Mexico's best films." ""The Young and the Damned"." "It's universal, but it's a Mexican neighborhood." "Roberto Cobo Actor I was born in that neighborhood." "I was born in Garibaldi." "I was born there." "The city of Nelsa, you see it in "The Young and the Damned"." "All of that diabolical poverty you see today in Mexico." "Bunuel wasn't just ahead of his time, he was very ahead of it." "In the beginning you hear Ernesto Alonso's voice:" ""Mexico City, Paris, breeding grounds of criminals."" "Society tries to correct this evil, but its success is very limited." "Only in the future can the rights of children be claimed so they can be useful for society." "Mexico, the great modern city, is no exception to this universal law, so this film, based on real events, is not optimistic..." ""... and leaves the solution to the city's progressive forces."" "I wonder about that and see Bunuel was right." "He said that 50 years ago..." "Have that many years gone by?" "50?" "...and now our youth is truly criminal, because of hunger." ""Don Luis, can I ask a question?"" ""Of course, Farfan, whatever you want."" ""What makes a good actor, what do you like in one?"" "We chatted, and he said, "I want all actors to chat with the camera like you and I are chatting."" "I was in the chorus, one of the kids who danced in the background in the Tiboli Theater." "I got close to Bunuel's desk." "He looked at me and gave me a piece of paper to read with the famous line:" ""Mess with me, you pay for it."" "Everyone said it overacting." "I don't know, God illuminated me and I said," ""Mess with me, you pay for it."" "He said, "Can you do that better?"" "I said yes, and in take two" "I did it the same way." "We did five more takes and I kept doing it the same way." "I think he liked it and that's that." ""Mess with me, you pay for it."" ""You mess with me, you pay for it."" "You, farmboy?" "He was crazy to start with, and deaf because of the drums in Calanda." "He didn't like erotic things, however he was erotic deep down." "Terribly erotic." "The milk on the girl's legs, the blind man." "He was erotic, even if he denied it very often." "I never knew who my father was." "I think my mother died when I was just a baby." "You don't remember her?" "No, not really." ""You see her and you feel almost like you were her son, but she's very sexy, so you think both things at the same time."" "It's not that it was so difficult, but he said it that way and I felt it that way." "In our eyes..." "Watch it again, you'll see..." "At one moment, you can see in our eyes a sexual charge that's wonderful." "He was really a man without legs." "Where did he find him?" "Who knows?" "He said, "Then work, you lazy shits!"" "Back then, no one said those words in movies." "I said, "He said shit"." ""That's okay"." "Don Luis dubbed him:" ""The work, you lazy bums"." "That was Don Luis's voice." " Police!" " Shut him up!" " Shut him up!" " Police!" "Pick him up!" "Shut him up." "Careful." "Put him down." "Take off." "Police!" "I had so little attraction to Latin America, I always said," ""If I ever disappear, don't look for me there."" "Despite that, I've lived in Mexico since 1944." "I've even been a Mexican citizen since 1949." "I've spent my whole life comfortably among many contradictions, without trying to resolve them." "They're part of me, of my natural and acquired ambiguity." "I've always been an atheist, thank God, I was born one." "When I die, I'd like..." "I told Julio this... to send for my friends..." "And while still completely conscious, to send for a priest." "Not Father Julian..." "A stricter priest. "I want to confess aloud..."" "I'll call my atheist" ""I've sinned, I believe in God, take my death as an example." "We've shared evil beliefs, look how I die."" "I die and go to hell because it was a joke on my friends." "Juan Luis Bunuel Son He was born and raised in a very religious country." "So just like he was interested in insects or firearms, religion was part of his civilization." "But it was nothing more than an ethnographic study." "So he did things against this organized religion." "I studied with the Jesuits." "Good people." "I loved to remember the month of May with the Jesuits." ""Let us all take flowers to Mary", all that was wonderful." "He was educated in fear." "In the fear of religion," "Michael Lonsdale Actor with all those processions, people in hoods, all of that..." "He must have been terrified by it when he was very small." "Now, he always talks about God in his films." "So he's a bit like Marguerite Duras, who said," ""I don't believe in God, but I talk about him."" "We talked about everything, seriously, jokingly, every way, believing halfway, not believing at all." "Everything fits in the field of doubt." "Father Julian Pablo Priest and friend He loved mystery." "He said," ""You believe in God, I believe in mystery." "What's the difference?"" " Everyone's Catholic?" " Yes, the whole world." "What about the Moslems?" "The Moslems are Catholics." " And the Jews?" " Yes, even more so." "Bunuel wanted to rebel against the dogmatic structures of the Church that said," ""There is no salvation or grace outside the Church."" "He wanted a kind of Protestant surrealism in which grace was directly attainable, like in "Nazarin" or "Viridiana"." "God bless you, ma'am." "He rebelled against the Church even when he was a small child." "Paco Rabal Actor and friend Before Communion at school, he'd gorge himself on chickpeas or lentils as a protest." "His religious concerns came out in different ways." "For example, dressing up as a priest, as a friar, or even as a nun." "Let us reflect on this." "What consequences can we derive from this?" "What teaching?" "He had a kind of aesthetic thing," "Carlos Saura Film director and friend and a kind of admiration, for example, of convents, cloisters, the solitary life of the Benedictines," "Santo Domingo de Silos, which he loved, El Paular." "He came here to go for walks, sometimes alone." "He often came to think about a screenplay, or some ideas he wanted to develop later." "We'd say, "Why are you so anticlerical?"" "He'd say, "Me, anticlerical?" "No." "I affectionately criticize the Church with "Simon" and "Viridiana"" "and things like that." "He defended his ideas, and when" "Father Ildefonso Prior El Paular Monastery sometimes he didn't want to answer a question, he wouldn't hear it." "Eduardo Ducay Producer "Tristana" He was friends with some monks, some French monks, I don't know what order." "He would go there for two days and talk with a very friendly and educated Prior, who told him about the miracle of Calanda." "He said," ""That's a bit excessive"." "Gonzalo Gonzalbo Calanda Parish Priest The miracle of Calanda occured on March 29th, 1640." "Miguel Pillicer had suffered an accident, a cart had run over his leg." "He went to Zaragoza, and the surgeon, Juan de Estanga, decided that his leg had do be amputated." "On March 29th, he went to bed, then his mother came in, and saw under the blanket two legs instead of one." "She started to shout and the whole village found out." "The next day they went to celebrate a Mass of thanks at the Esperanza church." "It was declared a miracle on April 27th, 1641." "All of the Christian lives of the saints is completely surreal." "All miracles are surreal." "You lose a leg and it grows back..." "He was fascinated by that part of it." "I don't know if it was because it amused him or because he had religious feelings." "He denied that." "His famous quote, "Thank God I'm an atheist"." "He was passionate about the Christian religion and its deviations." "No, there is no God, nature is enough for itself." "Nonsense created by a few social climbers." "We were sitting and he says, "Julian, would you mind if I believed in God?"" "I said, "Yes, Don Luis." "As much as you would mind if I stopped believing in God."" "If your God exists, I detest him." "Yes, God exists!" "God exists!" "Save me, Lord!" "It was very hard." "We had to find a place without anything" "Silvia Pinal Actress around it, it had to be a desert, we had to build that column there, and put that poor man up on it and take him down." "We had to go there with all the others, and when we got to where the column was, we had to say," ""Brother Simon, help me!"" "He didn't know..." "Or we didn't understand what he was doing." "They just told us he was a saint." "He said, "You must learn to kick the lamb because it has to fly out, of the frame of the shot."" ""But the lamb's heavy, Don Luis."" ""No, you have to kick it like a soccer player."" "And I did it." "You'll find that the mere name of pleasure nauseates you, then, I tell you the truth, you will be close to me." "Satan, I do not fear thee!" "Eduardo McGregor Actor When we finished filming, we had to say goodbye to the actors." "And the exiled Spanish actors like Paco Reguera," "Garcia Alvarez, and Antonio Bravo, all the exiles stood in line:" ""Thank you, Don Luis."" "And he answered, "Don't say that," "I believe in the cause." "You're a refugee?" "I'll call you."" "I don't know if he was Spanish or Mexican." "One thing, that Aragonese was in charge of everything." "Where did that one-eyed woman come from?" "One-eyed?" "You're wrong, Simon." "I tell you she has one eye." "She has two eyes, they're both healthy." "How do you know?" "I looked at her and both of her eyes were fine." "Then how did you forget the precept that commands:" ""Put not your eyes on any woman."" "I saw firsthand how women went after him." "It was amazing." "He got very nervous because he was very natural, very spontaneous." "Then he got almost childlike, but he had a great capacity for seduction." "Stephane Audran Actress If I could have met him during the war and if I were 18 or 20, he could have made me turn my family into the nazis." "He could do whatever he wanted." "I was fascinated by him, I would have done anything he told me to." "It was scary." "Pierre Larry Assistant Director It began during "Diary of a Chambermaid"." "Jeanne Moreau started it all." "She had a hot-plate in her dressing room." "For example, I remember once she cooked some morcilla blood sausage for Bunuel and gave him some red wine." "He was completely charmed." "I've always been sensible to women's walks and gazes." "In the boot scene in "Diary of a Chambermaid", it was a great pleasure to have her walk and to film her when she walked, her foot trembled slightly on the heel of the boot." "A disturbing instability." "A wonderful actress." "I just followed her, barely correcting her." "I learned about the character from her." "Modesty and a tendency to chastity." "For esthetic reasons, I think he's right when he says a kiss should be only hinted when on screen." ""Love is a secret ceremony to be celebrated underground."" "That's great." "Eroticism is sublime and magnificent, but it should be the last resort, we have to make a bridge to pass over carnal love." "Directly seeing a kiss, for example, disgusts me." "Onscreen kisses really disgust me." "Those passionate kisses leading men are proud of are disgusting." "Now if no one had ever kissed onscreen and tomorrow" "I could invent the kiss, it would be fantastic!" "He was like a scientist." "Because he finally had to choose his actress, and he had to look at my body in case" "I had a hump or something." "He said, "Mrs. Molina, I'd like to see you naked for a moment if you don't mind." He put on his glasses, said "Perfect", and left." "Sex was like a hairy spider that could devour you, you couldn't get too close to it." "He often told me that the idea of sin was supremely important, he respected it." "Even for sexual pleasure." "Bunuel used to say," ""Sex without sin is like eggs without salt"." "I'll get it off." "What is this?" "He placed people and the camera so that only the camera could see me, and then, when we'd finished, he'd say, "Cover her up!" It was like a war." "He always presented sex in a supremely ambiguous way." "He avoided nudes, except on certain occasions, nudes disgusted him." "He thought kisses were pornographic and immoral." "And he lived a monk's life." "Marisol Martin del Campo Jeanne's biographer and friend When they made love, they always put a jacket over the doorknob so that no one could see them through the keyhole." "Isn't it strange he was so modest?" "He told me," ""A 50-year-old man that runs after young girls just makes a fool out of himself." "A ridiculous old Don Juan."" "You can see that in all those characters played by Fernando Rey." "Bunuel imagines himself as a "dirty old man", which he wasn't." " What are you doing, lovely?" " Looking for a boyfriend." "You have one, beautiful." "So old?" "Not so old..." "Damn the devil!" "He said, "I'm finally free from sexual desires!" "Wonderful!"" "All his life he was tortured by the fact he was a slave and that he couldn't overcome his fascination of her, either." "Jeanne finally got herself a TV, and turned it down so he wouldn't know she was watching it." "He was very medieval in that sense." "Andrea Valeria Friend Once she started taking piano lessons, and she confessed to him the teacher was handsome, and she stopped the lessons." "She exchanged the piano for a bottle of champagne." "His wife never dined with us at his house." "And she was French!" "He knew Jeanne played cards with her neighbor," "Ana Maria and Maria Teresa Pecanins Friends but no matter what, he spoke to her at 5:00." "She had to leave the game and run to Luis." "Even when she was a widow, she always got home at 5:00." "He joked around with Jeanne, but he always treated her very gallantly." "It was a great love." "Very well, always." "I love him very much, though he can be a pain." "What are you doing?" "Let me explain!" ""Rehearsal for a Crime"." "We had a great time" "Ernesto Alonso Actor making that one." "I think it was his only film that was a black comedy." "You can't go to jail for wanting someone dead." "Judges would have too much work if we had to prosecute that." "Only when I was 60 or 65 was I able to understand and accept the innocence of the imagination." "I needed all that time to admit that what happened in my head only mattered to me." "That in no way was it bad thoughts or sin, and that I had to let my bloody, degenerate imagination go wherever it wanted." "I killed those women, I'm a criminal." "Thought commits no crimes, my friend." "For me... for my cinema work and everything else..." "That film's left me with the best memories." "I'm very fond of it." "I was very affected by Miroslawa's death." "She was very depressed then, she wanted to do it." "While we were filming, she bought her pills and was saving them." "She said, "for your sake I won't do it while we're filming."" "That's what happened." "We finished, and she killed herself five or six days later." "Bunuel was very worried about" ""Viridiana"." "Very anxious." "He felt he had a lot of responsibility coming back to Spain, having to show the world he was a good director." "So he had a lot on the line." "This picture was his future." "Those characters were out of Velazquez or Goya." "Those beggars were magic, each one had so much force." "The one with elephantiasis was great. "Little Dove!"" "We wondered if he'd actually eaten the dove." "He couldn't and he needed someone to live with him, take him to the bathroom, feed him, wash him so he'd show up clean." "He had to hit me on the head with a bottle." "He was scared." "It was candy glass, but he thought he'd hurt me." "So he started drinking, and when it was time to film he was completely drunk." "Then he crapped in this costume." "There was shit everywhere." "He got us all filthy." "I ran." "The lame man threw me on the bed." "Rabal was tied up." "And Don Luis didn't cut." "Maria Isbert Actress When I saw that the dinner scene was copied from the painting, I felt like saying, "I'm no apostle here!"" "I didn't like it when" "Lola Gaos said lifting her skirt and showing her panties." "In the end, she's wearing a nightgown, and she goes to her cousin's room." "He looks at her and says," "Pere Portabella Producer "Viridiana" "I knew you'd come here."" "She goes in, closes the door, and the film ends." "So we go see Munoz Fontan, and he says, "You won't deny that's suspicious." "A novice, who's not a novice, wearing a nightgown, with her cousin..."" "Then suddenly, Munoz Fontan himself says, if they weren't alone, then there'd be no problem." "Luis was puzzled, and said," ""Great idea, that's an excellent idea!"" "So I say, "I knew my cousin would play "tute" with me"." "And in Spanish, "tute"" "has a double meaning." "I told Don Luis, "You can't do this to Viridiana." "The poor fool, everyone takes advantage of her." "She thinks she was raped, but she wasn't." "Not by her uncle nor by the beggar, but she feels humiliated and lost." "Give her a more worthy ending."" "He told me, "She'll finally be productive." "She'll have kids and work the earth."" "That convinced me." "We got to Cannes late, and they showed it on the last day at 3:00, which was a horrible time." "People went crazy over it, saying, "A hit, Bunuel's go a hit!"" "When he won the prize, Fabio Bret said," ""A Spanish minister will accept it."" "We see this little gentleman with slicked-back hair appear." "It was the Spanish Minister of Film that went to get the prize." "I didn't think we'd get the Palme D'Or." "And the Vatican newspaper said that we, those film people, who had produced Luis's films... that we should be excommunicated." "It was fantastic." "And the General Director appeared and the Ministry fired all of us." "We never saw him again." "The Minister died six months later on his way to church." "Lucia Bose Actress My husband the bullfighter says," "I have "Viridiana"." "I've invited people to see it." "He's borrowed it from" "Bunuel or Domingo." "He invited his friends from the Catholic "Opus Dei" group." "I couldn't believe he showed them "Viridiana"." "But they didn't get it, not at all." "It came out 18 years after Franco died, and people said," ""Why did they ban this film?"" "Bunuel was very strict, strict about everything." "If you drink, you drink the right way." "If you want to go look at girls, fine, but from two o'clock to four o'clock, you can't live a dissolute life." "He never went to go look at girls." "Maybe when he was young, I hope so." "Serge Silberman Producer At his house, he had a chair." "No one else could sit there." "In the library, if an ashtray was out of place, he'd make a scene." "Or if his forty year-old kids came home after midnight." "Rafael Bunuel Son He got worried if we went out." ""When are you coming back?"" "My mother helped us." "She'd lie about when we got in." "I'd get home at 3:00 AM and talk to my mother." "The next day, he'd ask what time I got in. "12:30"." "He'd say, "Not bad"." "He said, "My son's used to New York." "Women are different here than in New York," "Rafael doesn't understand that." "Then he's out till midnight or one." "What does he do so late?"" "Rafael was 25 or 26 and had lived all his life alone in New York." "Bunuel was like that." "When we were shooting, we'd stop at one, come back at three and stop at six." "Carlos Savage Film editor He'd tell me, "I have this problem with my ear." "All these people start to bother it." "People come at me with shrill voices and I want to hit them."" "He said he worked with me because he understood my voice." "Everything I said was nonsense, but at least he understood." "When he got bored, so he couldn't hear." "He stayed in his apartment and everyone else went to see a movie." "They had to come back at 8:30 on the dot to have paella." "It's 8:30, he starts looking at his watch, ten minutes go by, then fifteeen." "A half hour goes by, he puts the paella on the floor, and when they arrive he jumps up and steps on the paella." "He stepped on it and said, "Here's your paella, you don't come late to my house!"" ""The Exterminating Angel" could happen anywhere, but it has to be Mexico, the way the characters speak, dress, and move." "He didn't say, "Dress up, put on a tux"." "He said, "Just dress like you think a wealthy bourgeois would for the opera."" "So it's an icy criticism of the Mexican bourgeoisie." "At night, when we go to bed after the concert, he still tries." "So I can't complain about him." "I have to stop him." "Jacqueline Andere Actress From the first day of shooting on, he had us there from 6:00 AM till 10:00 PM every day." "He did that to give us claustrophobia, and it worked." " You smell like a hyena." " What?" "You smell like a hyena, madam." "How dare you!" "We said, "Why a bear?" We had to find a circus that would lend us a tame bear." ""And why the sheep?" He says," ""When we find the plumbing, because the butler knows the house, you can drink." "A person can only live so long without food and water." "Sometime I'll have to feed you." "At that point the bear will scare the sheep, one will run in, and you will eat."" "Paco Ignacio Taibo Journalist and friend They were holding their glasses too carefully, they were behaving too well." "So Luis decided they had to change." "I have no idea where the idea came from to get their hands all sticky." "I swear I can't remember why, but we were all covered in honey." "I asked, "Why make firewood out of a cello?"" "He said, "Because I didn't like Pablo Casals, so I'm burning his cello."" "Marilyn Monroe's arrival was another big thing." "She visited Bunuel." "We saw her come in with a glass of champagne." "First the bear, and now Marilyn Monroe." "It was too much for me, the age I was." " To your health." " To our health." "We always had good food and good alcohol." "Not old wines, but good whisky and gin, and the rest didn't matter, He had one suit, one coat, and two pairs of pants." "I never saw him blasted, like we say here." "I never saw him drunk." "But always cheerful." "Roberto Cordoba Bartender He loved to drink his famous martinis, he loved them." "Prepared like he said." "You normally put in the Noilly Prat (the vermouth), in the mixing glass so that the ice soaks up the Noilly Prat." "Then the whisky, a few drops of bitters..." "Then you pour it in the glass." "Everyone knows I'm not an alcoholic." "At times I have been falling-down drunk, but usually it's a delicate ritual that leads not to drunkenness, but to a calm feeling of well-being, like the effect of a light drug." "It helps me live and work." "I've always had something to drink." "He said, "You're missing something." "You don't drink and a person that doesn't drink is missing something."" "He'd get up and guzzle down a "bunueloni", his drink." "What's in a "bunueloni"?" "Three parts gin, two parts Carpano, and one sweet Cinzano." "He looked at me, his eyes attentive, with his famous sideways stare, and asked, "Do you drink wine?"" ""Do you drink wine?"" "That was a deep question." "What kind of man I was." "When I answered that not only did I drink, but that I made wine, his face lit up, he glowed, and he ordered two bottles." "From then on we had something in common." "In Mexico, we had fun in the bar of the Hotel San Jose Purua in Michoacan, where for 30 years I went to write screenplays." "The hotel is on the side of a semi-tropical canyon and the window opened up to a splendid view." "Outside the window, hiding the view, there was a "zirando", a tree with light branches that intertwined like a nest of snakes." "I let my eyes wander over those branches, following them like plots of endless stories, and seeing among them owls or at times a naked woman." "He loved to go to Madrid, to Chicote, because of their martinis." "I've spent lovely hours in bars." "A bar is a place for meditation, necessary for life." "An old custom, stronger with the years." "I've spent hours daydreaming in bars, rarely talking to the bartender, and almost always alone, invaded by the most surprising of imaginings." "In Madrid, I love Chicote." "It's a place for company, not solitude." "He began to worry about his health and his hearing." "He'd say, "I can go till a certain time, but if we go out to dinner," "I have to be in bed by 10:30..."" "Irrational things." "I'd say, "Then don't have another martini."" ""Yes, but I like them."" ""I know, but since you're taking care of yourself..."" "He drank martinis like they were going out of style." "I like drinking too, I can hold a lot." "Then he said to the waiter, "Martinis aren't served in these glasses."" "He was like that." "You remember?" "Martinis should be served in a cone-shaped glass." "Like this one." "It was like a religion for him." "He took care of himself except for smoking and drinking." "In the last few years, my sexual desire has disappeared bit by bit, even in dreams." "I'm glad, I've been freed from a tyrant." "If Mephistopheles offered to return to me what they call virility, I'd answer," "No, thank you." "But strengthen my liver and lungs so I can drink and smoke." "For him, Toledo was the center of many things." "The day after the ministry authorized the shooting, he grabbed the car, went to Toledo with the production people, and had all the locations set in one morning." "He already knew where everything had to happen." "I didn't bring you, you insisted." "Except for Catherine Deneuve and Franco Nero, the film cost 27 million pesetas." "Jesus Fernandez Actor I'm not sure if it's true, but I think" "Catherine Deneuve cost 20 million and he was given 300 or 700 thousand." "I got by with just 40,000." "He said, "How can this screenplay interest a French actress?" "It's too Spanish."" "He was surprised and didn't think it was universal." "He thought making it a co-production was crazy and only the Spanish would like it because it was local subject matter." "He was completely wrong." " It smells good." " They're migas." "Try some." "I've always liked migas." "You see that she's not Spanish there, that Deneuve's never eaten migas." "She eats them like a tourist." "With that expression on her face..." "A Spanish woman would just spoon those migas in." "The time she" "Rafael Garcia Martos Electrician "Tristana" gets her leg cut off," "Bunuel wanted her to be ugly, but Aguayo wanted her beautiful." "They had to repeat shots because she was just too beautiful, and he didn't want that." "Also, once we were in a street in Toledo at night, and he tells Aguayo," ""I know this won't work, but do you see that lamppost?" "When she goes by the lamppost," "I want us to see her, and when she goes, I want her to disappear." "I want the light in the film like it is here in this street."" "The people thing was on the first day." ""Throw pebbles." I was eating peanuts and he said, "Throw pebbles."" "When I saw it," "I thought, "That bastard Bunuel!"" "That aspect of the "perverse child", the "Bunuelesque child" that was important to him in his life, became very strict in his films." "His films are anything but arbitrary." "They follow a narrow path through many dangers:" "too much fantasy too much absurdity, too much mystification, too many jokes..." "He was always careful to tread on a narrow path without falling to one side." "He wanted his films to have a power of strangeness without being strange." "Commissioner, there's a call for you." "Jean Rochefort Actor The police commissioner called." ""Your sister is on the phone"." ""But she's dead!"" "Cut." "We go to the next scene, the family tomb." "Don Luis says, "Camera!"" "Then he says "Cut!"" ""Go get me a phone."" "His assitant goes and gets a phone." "On a stack of coffins," "Bunuel pushes one of the coffins and puts the phone on the coffin beneath it." "So, we can immediately imagine an arm coming out to call the brother." "I said, "That, Don Luis, is a great idea."" "He answered." ""Yes, Rochefort, and it's cheap."" "Much has been said about my films, that I thought about them, about instantaneous apparitions of things that attract me." "I easily criticize, but I like them and I don't belong to any political party or church." "I like them." "Some people don't?" "Fine." "Others do?" "That's great." "I don't systematically look for eroticism or subversion or anything." "I'm just like that." "Everything except the breakdown was done in advance." "He did that on the last day." "He'd arrive with his view-finder," "He never used a written breakdown, and never changed anything in the script, it was completely coherent down to the last detail before filming started." "Laurent Terzieff Actor We'd be filming for about two weeks and he'd say with that great accent," ""It seems you were good on film."" "I was surprised and asked, "Why 'seems?" "'"" ""The film editor told me."" "Because he never went to see the filmed material." "Jean Pierre Cassel Actor He was talking to the cameraman, and I heard them." "I think he wanted me to." "He was asked," ""What kind of lens do I use?" "A 50?"" ""A 50." "If the actor's good, put on a 75."" "Of course, I was very good and got a close-up." "Bulle Ogier Actress Whoever walked fastest got the close-up, they'd get to the camera first." "Everyone went very fast, because all actors love close-ups." "He had a curious theory that the worse a Mexican actor was, the more he'd move his head." ""Tell your mama I brought her some tamales."" "The best actor was the one whose neck was stillest." "He taught me something very important:" "not to move my eyebrows, because I was always, "What?" "What?"" "In Mexico, they use..." ""I'll kill you..."" "...their eyebrows a lot." ""Less eyebrows, less nodding." That's all he'd say." ""Cut!" "Good, Paco, good." "A little exaggerated." "I'll imitate you." "'Is this my father?" "It's just too much'." I said," ""Right, now I've got it." "You want me to be indifferent."" ""But you don't know how."" ""Come on!"" "So we do another take," "I say, "Is this my father?" "Too much..."" ""Cut." "Very good, Paco." "Very good this time,"" ""You see?" "I knew it."" "And he says, "Print the other one."" "Hitchcock said actors were cattle." "So Carole Lombard had a stable built on the set and when" "Hitchcock arrived, the actors were in the stable mooing." "I tell Luis about this, and he says, "Cattle?" "They're cockroaches!" "I'll smash them with a newspaper!"" "A lazy person's profession." "I'd like to do that." "In another life, a lazy person's job." "I get to the studio, get made up..." "it's uncomfortable, but I'm well-paid." "I sit down and the director says," ""Close up." "You say, 'I won't go to the dance.'" "Camera." "I won't go to the dance."" ""Don't talk with your hands." "Take two."" ""I won't go to the dance." "Over-acted." "Take three."" ""I won't go to the dance." "Fine."" "It's the easiest thing in the world." "He said, "Right before I say 'Action', tell Fernando his feet stink."" "I never would have thought that, right then" "I was thinking about love." "I said, "Fernando, sorry, but your feet really smell."" ""Action!"" "Fernando's face was red the whole scene." "I don't know if he was still acting or not." "It was a beautiful scene." "When it was over we started laughing and Fernando knew something was up." "Conchita." "Where are you going, Conchita?" "Conchita." "Conchita!" "It's not the kind of idea that comes out of nowhere." "We were doing the last version of the script in San Jose de Purua, and we began to talk about how the character of the woman in" ""The Woman and the Puppet"" "doesn't really exist." "The character is completely unpredictable, and we thought we could have two actresses play the same role." "As if the man had an ideal of a woman who wasn't that particular woman." "We could have one actress who was elegant, discreet, refined." "A little haughty." "The other one would be more common, cheerful, and apparently easy." "He said, "You're not the only actress."" ""Really?" "No, a Spanish actress is coming to audition with you."" "Bunuel had started filming with one actress, then he saw that wouldn't work for some reason." "He called Silberman, and he must have remembered the work we'd done." "I wasn't there that day." "And that possibility of dividing the role was taken up again." "So he selected two of the actresses who'd done the audition," "Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina." "I wanted that role so much I'd have shared it with four, six, eight, or twelve actresses!" "The fusion of two women in one was perfect," "Carole gave the character what I couldn't." "Angela wanted to talk to him constantly." "I was shyer, less experienced." "She'd tap him on the back and say," ""Don Luis"." "He would..." ""What did she say?" And he'd leave." "Carole had a big notebook full of questions and she'd say to him," ""Don Luis, I have some questions..."" "He'd say, "No, none of those actor questions."" "His eyes were laughing the whole time." "His eyes were watching everything, but they were never serious." "He was like a child always ready for mischief." "One day I went to his room, and found him dead." "When I say dead, I mean sprawled out on the floor, his shirt undone, one foot on the table." "I was shocked, but it was just a joke." "I decided to play a joke on Bunuel." "He'd ordered 20 bicycles." "I added a few zeros and made it 20,000 bicycles." "The production people didn't know what to do." "20,000 bicycles?" "They went to ask him if he could get by with 200 bicycles." "He said, "I only ordered 20."" "Surprised, they said," ""The order of the day asks for 20,000."" "He realized I'd done it." "Bunuel was a child." "A naughty child, a rascal." "So the next day he started to say," ""Poor Lucia, what a shame!" "And she wants a child, too..."" "Everyone said, "What?" "She's happy." And he said," ""Haven't you heard?" "The bullfighter was gored and now he's impotent." He paid back the joke." "Once we were in a hotel lobby, sitting waiting for someone." "It was in Spain." "We saw a man come through who was very, very old." "He walked like this, very slowly, with a cane." "Bunuel watched him and said to the people next to him, that he didn't know," ""Did you see Bunuel?" "Look at Bunuel." "A year ago he was fine, but look at him now,"" "Another thing before I die, the will." "I'll die, and ten days later the lawyer will call my sons and Jeanne for the will." "My immense fortune is in the will." "The lawyer will call them, those named are Dona Juana Bunuel, Jose Luis, Rafael..." "We can't start because Mr. Nelson Rockefeller said he'd be here at 12:00 and..." "So Nelson comes and the will is read:" ""I leave my fortune and leave my family penniless."" "So I die and my corpse is spat on by my friends, my wife, my kids..." "An ugly way to scorn humanity, dying spat on by all my friends." "He wrote me a beautiful letter saying that his last few years had appeared quickly and terribly, and all he had left was to wait for death." "He said it very lucidly." "Elena Poniatowska Writer and friend At the end, the one who he talked to most... and he lived in a Franciscan cell with a cot for a bed... was Father Julian." "He wasn't afraid of death." "He was obsessed with it, but not afraid." "He was more afraid of physical deterioration." "He held me in his arms for his despedida (farewell), a Spanish word that is a lovely word." "When I held him in my arms, I felt his bones." "He was thin, close to death." "I could feel it." "He looked at me, then turned without a word and left." "That was the last time." "Father Julian and I went out together, and Julian said, I remember, "Hard, isn't it?"" "He felt he was going to die." "He made some martinis." "He called for his wife and sons." "He took out his will and read it." "Since he couldn't drink, he moistened his fingers and put them on his lips." "3 days later, he went to the hospital, where he died." "He had the death he wanted." "I mean, he wouldn't have wanted to die unconscious." "He wanted to feel himself die as the last action of his life." "As Jeanne told us, his last words were, "I'm dying now."" "Everything that happens disappears in the end." "You come, you go." "I'll always live with Bunuel near me." "It was 20 years, the best years of my life." "I didn't think I'd make films without him." "I didn't want to after him." "When I did, it was because Kurosawa made me." "I loved..." "I loved Luis as a human being..." "It's strange..." "That's life." ""I only regret one thing:" "not knowing what will happen." "Leaving the world when it's moving, like in the middle of a novel." "I'll make a confession:" "as much as I hate information," "I'd like to be able to rise from the dead every ten years, walk to a newsstand, and buy a few newspapers." "I wouldn't ask for anything more." "With my papers under my arm, pale, brushing against the walls," "I'd return to the cemetery and read about the world's disasters before going back to sleep satisfied," "in the calming refuge of the grave.""