220- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Benito Perojo was another popular film-maker of the early
sound era. Having cut his teeth in France and Hollywood he
returned to Spain in the early 1930s and made films likeLa
Verbena de la Paloma(1934), a folkiezarzuelaoften
considered the best Spanish talkie of the pre-war years.
Like Rey, he benefited from the short-lived Second
Republic’s support of the film industry but (again like Rey)
would back Franco in the Civil War.Luis Buñuel: the first innovator
Rey and Perojo guided Spanish
film from silence to sound, but
their work, while flavoured with
Spanish tradition, diverged little
from the patterns that were
being established across the
Atlantic or elsewhere in Europe.
It took a young Luis Buñuel to
give Spanish film its first real
shot of originality. He began
making films in France with his
college mate Salvador Dalí.Un
Chien Andalou(1929) was the
most famous. It was short, but
not short enough to avoid
showing, among other bizarre images, what appeared to
be a woman’s eyeball being sliced with a razor blade.The
Surrealists loved it.Las Hurdes:Tierra Sin Pan(1932), a
larger than life documentary purporting to highlight
wretched peasant poverty, wasn’t in theatres long before
the Republican government banned it. Most audiences had
to wait for the excellent feature films of later years to enjoy
the more palatable side of Buñuel’s talent. Although exiled
to the United States after the Civil War he would produce,
from without, some of the most important ‘Spanish’
cinema of the following decades.“I HAVE OFTEN
SAID, ALTHOUGH
NO ONE BELIEVED
ME, THAT ADOLF
HITLER WAS A VERY
ATTRACTIVE MAN.”
Imperio Argentina on
her unconventional
taste in men
The art of noise
The first Spanish film
to make use of sound
technology wasEl
misterio de la Puerta del
Solby Francisco Elías,
released with a rather
shaky soundtrack in
1929.
Two animals were
harmed in the
making of this...
Popular legend has it
that Luis Buñuel smeared
an unfortunate donkey in
honey in the making of
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin
Panin order to film it
being engulfed by bees.
He also filmed a goat
falling off a cliff...but
did she fall or was she
pushed? No one seems
too sure.