My Last Sigh

by Luis Bunuel

  Our first project was an adaptation of a play by Arniches called Don Quintín el Amargao, which turned out to be a huge commercial success. (I bought two thousand square meters of land in Madrid with the profits.) The play is about an arrogant and bitter man, an amargao, who’s hated and feared by everyone. He abandons his baby daughter in a sailor’s cabin by the side of a road, and twenty years later he suddenly sets out to find her. There’s a nice dramatic scene that takes place in a café where Don Quintin is sitting at a table with a couple of friends, and his daughter (whom he doesn’t recognize, of course) is sitting at another table with her husband. Don Quintin eats an olive and tosses away the pit, which happens to strike the daughter in the eye. Without a word, the couple gets up and leaves. As Don Quintin’s friends are congratulating him on his bravado, the husband reappears, marches up to his table, and forces him to swallow the pit.

  Later, Don Quintin combs the town for the young man, seeking revenge. In the end, as we were shooting a very melodramatic confrontation between father and daughter, I remember shouting to Ana-María Custodio, the star: “You have to get more sentimental bullshit into all this!”

  “For heaven’s sake,” she shouted back. “How can anyone ever work seriously with you.”

  The second production, which was also a big commercial success, was a horrendous musical melodrama entitled La hija de Juan Simón. Angelillo, who was the most popular flamenco singer in Spain, played the male lead; the female star was a novice named Carmen Amaya, a young gypsy who went on to become a famous flamenco dancer. (My third production, Quién me quiere a mí?, was my only commercial failure, and a pretty dismal one at that.)

  These were strange times, however. I remember one evening when Giménez Caballero, the editor of La Gaceta Literaria, gave a banquet in honor of Valle Inclán. There were about thirty guests, including Alberti and Hinojosa. At the end of the dinner, we were asked to say a few words.

  “Last night, while I was sleeping,” I began, “I suddenly felt something scratching me. When I turned on the light, I found I was crawling with tiny Valle Incláns!”

  Alberti and Hinojosa spoke every bit as graciously, but, curiously, there were no protests. Our speeches were received in total silence. When I ran into Valle Inclán on the Calle d’Alcalá the following day, he raised his hat and greeted me very amiably, as if nothing whatsoever had happened.

  In Madrid, I worked in an office on the Gran Vía and lived in a seven-room apartment with my wife, Jeanne, and our infant son, Juan-Luis. Ironically, since the Republic had adopted an exceedingly liberal constitution, the right wing had been able to gain power legally. In 1935, however, new elections restored power to the left—to the Popular Front and men like Prieto, Largo Caballero, and Azaña. As prime minister, Azaña had to deal with an increasingly confrontational labor movement. After the infamous repression in 1934 of the popular insurrection known as the Asturian Revolt, which was led by the right wing with the help of the Spanish army with its guns and planes, Azaña finally had to order his troops to fire on the people, despite the fact that he was a leftist. In a town called Casas Viejas in Andalusia, the workers threw up barricades and were attacked by the police, who used grenades. Many insurgents were killed in the battle, and thereafter right-wing polemicists began calling Azaña “the assassin of Casas Viejas.”

  In this climate of continual and violent strikes, of attacks by both sides, of church burnings (it seems that the people instinctively begin with their age-old enemy), I contacted Jean Grémillon and proposed that he come to Madrid and work with me on a comedy about the military called Centinela alerta. I’d met Grémillon in Paris and knew how much he loved Spain; in fact, he’d already made one movie here. He accepted my offer, on the condition that there be no written contract between us, which was fine with me, since I never signed contracts, either. I directed a few scenes in his place, as did my friend Ugarte, on the days when Grémillon didn’t feel like getting out of bed. During the shoot, the situation in Spain grew steadily more desperate. In the final months before the war, the air was unbreathable; just as we were preparing to shoot a scene in a church, it burned to the ground; and as we edited, guns were exploding all around us. The film was released in the middle of the war and was very successful; but, true to form, I didn’t make any money on it.

  Urgoiti was delighted with our collaboration and proposed other projects; all in all, we made eighteen films together.

  13

  Love and Love Affairs

  IN THE 1920s, while I was living at the Residencia, there was a strange suicide in Madrid that fascinated me for years. In the neighborhood of Amaniel, a student and his young fiancée killed themselves in a restaurant garden. They were known to be passionately in love; their families were on excellent terms with each other; and when an autopsy was performed on the girl, she was found to be a virgin.

  On the surface, then, there seemed to be no obstacles; in fact, the “Amaniel lovers” were making wedding plans at the time of their deaths. So why the double suicide? I still don’t have the answer, except that perhaps a truly passionate love, a sublime love that’s reached a certain peak of intensity, is simply incompatible with life itself. Perhaps it’s too great, too powerful. Perhaps it can exist only in death.

  As a child, I felt intense love, divorced from any sexual attraction, for both boys and girls. As Lorca used to say, “Mi alma niña y niño”—I have an androgynous soul. These were purely platonic feelings; I loved as a fervent monk would love the Virgin Mary. The mere idea of touching a woman’s sex or breasts, or that I might feel her tongue against mine, repelled me.

  These platonic affairs lasted until my baptism in the traditional Saragossa brothel, but these platonic feelings never gave way entirely to sexual desire. I’ve fallen in love with women many times, but maintained perfectly chaste relationships with them. On the other hand, from the age of fourteen until the last few years, my sexual desire has remained powerful, stronger even than hunger, and usually far more difficult to satisfy. No sooner would I sit down in a railway carriage, for example, than erotic images filled my mind. All I could do was succumb, only to find them still there, and sometimes even stronger, afterwards.

  When we were growing up, we instinctively disliked homosexuals, as my response to the innuendoes about Lorca would suggest. Once I even played the agent provocateur in a public urinal in Madrid, a role that in hindsight seems absurd and embarrassing. While my cohorts waited outside, I entered the cubicle and began baiting whoever was inside. One evening, a man responded; I ran outside, and the minute he emerged, we gave him a sound thrashing.

  At that time in Spain, homosexuality was something dark and secret. Even in Madrid, we knew of only three or four “official” pederasts. One of them was a marquis whom I met one day while waiting for a streetcar. I’d bet a friend of mine that I could make twenty-five pesetas in five minutes, so I went up to him, fluttered my eyelashes, and began to talk. We made plans to meet the following day for a drink, and when I hinted that I was very young and that school books were very expensive, he gave me twenty-five pesetas. I didn’t go to the rendezvous, of course; but a week later, when I ran into him again in the same streetcar, I gave him the finger.

  For many reasons—my timidity, for starters—most women I was attracted to kept their distance. Undoubtedly, there were many who simply didn’t find me irresistible; but, on the other hand, one of the more unpleasant situations in life is to be pursued by someone you don’t like. It’s happened to me more than once, and it’s very uncomfortable; I’ve always preferred loving to being loved.

  I remember one affair in Madrid, when I was a producer. I’ve always despised movie moguls who take advantage of their power to seduce aspiring young actresses, but I too found myself in this situation, much to my embarrassment. In 1935, I met a very pretty fledgling actress whom I’ll call Pepita. She was eighteen at most, and I fell in love with her. Clearly an innocent, she lived with her mother in a small apartment. We began seeing ea
ch other occasionally—a picnic in the mountains, a dance in Bombilla near Manzanares—but our relationship remained absolutely chaste. I was twice her age, and, although desperately in love (or perhaps because I was in love), I respected her. So I held her hand, I hugged her, I often kissed her cheek; but despite my desire we remained on platonic terms for an entire summer.

  The day before we were leaving for an excursion, a friend of mine in the movie business came to see me in the morning, a short and wholly unremarkable man, but with the reputation of being quite the rake.

  “You going to the mountains with Pepita tomorrow?” he suddenly asked, in the middle of a business conversation.

  “How did you know?” I exclaimed.

  “We were in bed together this morning and she told me.”

  “This morning?”

  “Yes. At her place. I left around nine o’clock, and she told me she couldn’t see me tomorrow because she was going somewhere with you.”

  I was dumbfounded. He’d obviously come by only to tell me the news, but I couldn’t believe it.

  “Impossible,” I protested. “She lives with her mother!”

  “Who sleeps in another room,” he replied calmly.

  “And I thought she was a virgin!” I groaned.

  “Yes,” he replied evenly. “I know.”

  Pepita dropped by that afternoon, and, without revealing anything of my morning encounter with her lover, I made her an offer.

  “Listen, Pepita,” I began, “I’ve got a proposition for you. I like you a lot and I want you to be my mistress. I’ll give you two thousand pesetas a month, you can go on living with your mother, but you make love only with me. Is it a deal?”

  She seemed surprised, but accepted readily enough. I helped her off with her clothes and held her naked in my arms only to find myself paralyzed with nervousness. I suggested we go dancing; she got dressed again, and we got into my car, but instead of going to Bombilla, I drove out of Madrid. Two kilometers from Puerta de Hierro, I stopped and made her get out.

  “Pepita,” I said, “I know you’re sleeping with other men. There’s no point denying it, so let’s just say goodbye right here.”

  I turned around and headed back to the city, leaving Pepita to fend for herself. After that, I still saw her frequently at the studio, but we never spoke. And thus my abortive love affair came to an end, although I still blush when I think of how I behaved.

  When we were young, love seemed powerful enough to transform our lives. Sexual desire went hand in hand with feelings of intimacy, of conquest, and of sharing, which raised us above mundane concerns and made us feel capable of great things. Today, if I can believe what people say, love is like faith. It’s acquired a certain tendency to disappear, at least in some circles. Many people seem to consider it a historical phenomenon, a kind of cultural illusion. It’s studied and analyzed and, wherever possible, cured.

  I protest. We were not victims of an illusion. As strange as it may sound these days, we truly did love.

  14

  The Civil War (1936–1939)

  IN JULY 1936, Franco arrived in Spain with his Moroccan troops and the firm intention of demolishing the Republic and re-establishing “order.” My wife and son had gone back to Paris the month before, and I was alone in Madrid. Early one morning, I was jolted awake by a series of explosions and cannon fire; a Republican plane was bombing the Montaña army barracks.

  At this time, all the barracks in Spain were filled with soldiers. A group of Falangists had ensconced themselves in the Montaña and had been firing from its windows for several days, wounding many civilians. On the morning of July 18, groups of workers, armed and supported by Azaña’s Republican assault troops, attacked the barracks. It was all over by ten o’clock, the rebel officers and Falangists executed. The war had begun.

  It was hard to believe. Listening to the distant machine-gun fire from my balcony, I watched a Schneider cannon roll by in the street below, pulled by a couple of workers and some gypsies. The revolution we’d felt gathering force for so many years, and which I personally had so ardently desired, was now going on before my eyes. All I felt was shock.

  Two weeks later, Elie Faure, the famous art historian and an ardent supporter of the Republican cause, came to Madrid for a few days. I went to visit him one morning at his hotel and can still see him standing at his window in his long underwear, watching the demonstrations in the street below and weeping at the sight of the people in arms. One day, we watched a hundred peasants marching by, four abreast, some armed with hunting rifles and revolvers, some with sickles and pitchforks. In an obvious effort at discipline, they were trying very hard to march in step. Faure and I both wept.

  It seemed as if nothing could defeat such a deep-seated popular force, but the joy and enthusiasm that colored those early days soon gave way to arguments, disorganization, and uncertainty—all of which lasted until November 1936, when an efficient and disciplined Republican organization began to emerge. I make no claims to writing a serious account of the deep gash that ripped through my country in 1936. I’m not a historian, and I’m certainly not impartial. I can only try to describe what I saw and what I remember. At the same time, I do see those first months in Madrid very clearly. Theoretically, the city was still in the hands of the Republicans, but Franco had already reached Toledo, after occupying other cities like Salamanca and Burgos. Inside Madrid, there was constant sniping by Fascist sympathizers. The priests and the rich landowners—in other words, those with conservative leanings, whom we assumed would support the Falange—were in constant danger of being executed by the Republicans. The moment the fighting began, the anarchists liberated all political prisoners and immediately incorporated them into the ranks of the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo, which was under the direct control of the anarchist federation. Certain members of this federation were such extremists that the mere presence of a religious icon in someone’s room led automatically to Casa Campo, the public park on the outskirts of the city where the executions took place. People arrested at night were always told that they were going to “take a little walk.”

  It was advisable to use the intimate “tu” form of address for everyone, and to add an energetic compañero whenever you spoke to an anarchist, or a camarada to a Communist. Most cars carried a couple of mattresses tied to the roof as protection against snipers. It was dangerous even to hold out your hand to signal a turn, as the gesture might be interpreted as a Fascist salute and get you a fast round of gunfire. The señoritos, the sons of “good” families, wore old caps and dirty clothes in order to look as much like workers as they could, while on the other side the Communist party recommended that the workers wear white shirts and ties.

  Ontañon, who was a friend of mine and a well-known illustrator, told me about the arrest of Sáenz de Heredia, a director who’d worked for me on La hija de Juan Simón and Quién me quiere a mí? Sáenz, Primo de Rivera’s first cousin, had been sleeping on a park bench because he was afraid to go home, but despite his precautions he had been picked up by a group of Socialists and was now awaiting execution because of his fatal family connections. When I heard about this, I immediately went to the Rotpence Studios, where I found that the employees, as in many other enterprises, had formed a council and were holding a meeting. When I asked how Sáenz was, they all replied that he was “just fine,” that they had “nothing against him.” I begged them to appoint a delegation to go with me to the Calle de Marqués de Riscál, where he was being held, and to tell the Socialists what they’d just told me. A few men with rifles agreed, but when we arrived, all we found was one guard sitting at the gate with his rifle lying casually in his lap. In as threatening a voice as I could muster, I demanded to see his superior, who turned out to be a lieutenant I’d had dinner with the evening before.

  “Well, Buñuel,” he said calmly, “what’re you doing here?”

  I explained that we really couldn’t execute everyone, that of course we were all very aware of Sáenz�
��s relationship to Primo de Rivera, but that the director had always acted perfectly correctly. The delegates from the studio also spoke in his favor, and eventually he was released, only to slip away to France and later join the Falange. After the war, he went back to directing movies, and even made a film glorifying Franco! The last I saw of him was at a long, nostalgic lunch we had together in the 1950s at the Cannes Festival.

  During this time, I was very friendly with Santiago Carrillo, the secretary of the United Socialist Youth. Finding myself unarmed in a city where people were firing on each other from all sides, I went to see Carrillo and asked for a gun.

  “There are no more,” he replied, opening his empty drawer.

  After a prodigious search, I finally got someone to give me a rifle. I remember one day when I was with some friends on the Plaza de la Independencia and the shooting began. People were firing from rooftops, from windows, from behind parked cars. It was bedlam, and there I was, behind a tree with my rifle, not knowing where to fire. Why bother having a gun, I wondered, and rushed off to give it back.

  The first three months were the worst, mostly because of the total absence of control. I, who had been such an ardent subversive, who had so desired the overthrow of the established order, now found myself in the middle of a volcano, and I was afraid. If certain exploits seemed to me both absurd and glorious—like the workers who climbed into a truck one day and drove out to the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus about twenty kilometers south of the city, formed a firing squad, and executed the statue of Christ—I nonetheless couldn’t stomach the summary executions, the looting, the criminal acts. No sooner had the people risen and seized power than they split into factions and began tearing one another to pieces. This insane and indiscriminate settling of accounts made everyone forget the essential reasons for the war.