07 cata 05 corr-v5 - bilboquet

« épouvantable », dont il était semble-t-ilplus responsable lui-même que le cinéaste.Les coupes de la censure ne firent qu’aiguiserl’âpreté et la brusquerie bougonne dufilm, qui, mal distribué et mal reçu, ne rencontra,en bonne logique, aucun succès public.Personne n’aime se voir représenté sousles traits d’un ingrat, ni être accusé de briserses idoles et de les abandonner ensuite àleur triste sort. Personne n’aime voir projetéce qui peut l’attendre à la fin de sa vie, sansmême être célèbre ni bien riche. Le publiclui tourna le dos, béni par une bonne partiede la critique, qui accusa Summers de«cruauté» et même «d’exploiter» ces pauvrespetits vieux, qu’étaient devenus Paulino Uzcudun,Gorostiza, Nicanor Villalta, Le GrandGilbert, Pacorro, Roman Alís.Miguel MaríasWhat happens to a filmmaker who suddenlydecides to stake his professional future onone card? Manuel Summers, like others,showed ambitious, promising and interestingbeginnings (Del rosa... al amarillo, 1963,La niña de luto, 1964), admittedly flirtingwith conformity and routine (El juego de laoca, 1965) as his instinct for survival guided.Yet, breaking with all commonly admittedprofessional rules, he decided to make a documentary,and a tough one, that had littleto do with his previous works and even lesswith his subsequent films, which–as the flopof Juguetes Rotos portended–went downand down qualitywise.Manuel Summers was not only a cinema directorand occasional actor, but also a “vignette”drawer. His drawings were somewhatchildlike and innocent (in appearanceonly), initially critical to later become reactionaryand cynical. Although he went baldyoung, he looked like an underfed child and,right up to the end, he seemed to cling tothe nostalgia of childhood and the remainsof a bitter-tainted longing to return to thefilmmaking of his early days, even thoughwe have to admit that his repeated attemptsended in caricature.One day, he wondered what had become ofsome of his childhood idols, those public figures(toreros, boxers, footballers, singers,circus performers) who had been carried tothe heights of fame and wealth, loved andadmired by all, but who had since fallen intoa deep and heavy silence. They were tooyoung to be dead, he thought. So he set outto find them. After all his enquiries, he eventuallyfound them… in hospital, an old people’shome, a shabby boarding house… Theyare alone and abandoned, penniless, friendless,forgotten, in bad health, crazy or oldbefore their time. One is humiliated and depressed,another haughty and disappointed,whilst another is lost in the hazy unreality ofalcohol-pickled memories, yet another embitteredand sour.Filled with indignation at this highly depressingdiscovery, he decided not just to letthem express themselves and film them, butalso to expose the injustice that led to societycasting them aside, like broken toys thata child has no more use for.This panorama of a depressing Spain, oldage in a state of abandon and thewidespread ingratitude towards former starswas not particularly appreciated by the censors,as Spain was now being sold to touristsas a “different”, joyful and sunny place.Summer’s film underwent eighty cuts. Onemember of the Censorship Committee, acritic for a pious daily newspaper, even wentas far as to criticise the film editing (amongother things), for which he was apparentlymore responsible than the filmmaker.This cutting and censorship only exacerbatedthe bitterness and grumpy rudeness of thefilm, which understandably met with nopublic success, being poorly distributed andbadly reviewed. No-one appreciates beingshown as ungrateful, or accused of destroyingtheir idols and abandoning them to theirsad fate. No-one likes seeing what may wellawait them at the end of their life, wealthand fame aside. The public shunned the film,with the blessing of most critics, who accusedSummers of “cruelty” and even “exploiting”the poor old folk that PaulinoUzcudun, Gorostiza, Nicanor Villalta, TheGreat Gilbert, Pacorro and Roman Alís hadbecome.Miguel MaríasCuadecuc-Vampir(1970)Réalisateur : Pere Portabellaavec Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Klaus Kinski,Jack Taylor, Soledad MirandaProd. Films 5935 mm, n. et bl., 75 mnBarcelone, 1970. Jesus (Jess) Franco tourneson adaptation du Dracula de Bram Stoker.L’immense Christopher Lee incarne le vampire,vieil homme qui rajeunit en se repaissantdu sang de jeunes filles… Horreur etvampirisme se font métaphore de l’oppressionfranquiste devant la caméra de Portabella.Car il ne s’agit pas là d’un « makingof », ni d’un journal de tournage, mais d’unedeuxième lecture du « réel cinématographique». La fiction en train de se faire (avecses projecteurs, ses accessoires, ses maquilleurs)serait-elle le masque d’un documentairesur les vampires ? A la fin du film,Christopher Lee lit les premières phrases duroman de Bram Stoker, texte de passageentre réel et cauchemar.Barcelona 1970. Jesus (Jess) Franco shot hisadaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Themasterful Christopher Lee plays the vampire,an old man who brings his youth back bysucking the blood of young girls... Portabellatransforms the exercice of filming a shootinto an essay on the horror film and vampirism,as a metaphor of the Franquist oppression.Pere Portabella(Figueres, 1929-)Cinéaste, scénariste et producteur, figuremajeure d’un cinéma indépendant et clandestindans l’Espagne franquiste, compagnondes débuts de Carlos Saura ou MarcoFerreri, comme du Viridiana de Luis Buñuel,il s’engage comme cinéaste dans une ambitionesthétique exigeante, avec notammentCuadecuc-vampir et Umbracle (1972), et dansle cinéma politique (Informe general, 1977).Director, scriptwriter and producer, he was amajor figure in independent and undergroundcinema during Franco’s regime. Asa producer, he accompanied the early filmsof Carlos Saura and Marco Ferreri, as well asLuis Buñuel’s Viridiana. As a filmmaker, he iscommitted to rigorous aesthetic standards,as seen in Cuadecuc-vampir (Vampir-Cuadecuc,1970) and Umbracle, 1972, and to politicalcinema with Informe general, 1977.Bibliographie :Ecole de Barcelone (1965-1970) et Hommageà Pere Portabella .- Musée du Centre Pompidou,2003. Programmation : Olimpia PontChafer, José Maria Conget, Jean-Michel BouhoursEsteve Riambau et Casimiro Torreiro.- La Escuelade Barcelona : el cine de la gauche divine.- Madrid, Anagrama, 199968