Regarding Buñuel (2000) - full transcript

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."