Tristana

Infobox Film | name = Tristana


caption = original French film poster
director = Luis Buñuel
producer = Robert Dorfmann
Luis Buñuel
writer = Julio Alejandro Luis Buñuel Benito Pérez Galdós (novel)
starring = Catherine Deneuve
Fernando Rey
Franco Nero
Lola Gaos
music =
cinematography = José F. Aguayo
editing = Pedro del Rey
distributor = Mercurio Films S.A.
released = flagicon|Spain March 29, 1970 flagicon|France April 19, 1970 flagicon|USA September 21, 1970
runtime = 105 min
language = Spanish
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
imdb_id = 0066491

"Tristana" (1970), by Luis Buñuel, is a film based upon the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, featuring Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and shot in Toledo (Spain). In the U.S., it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish. "Tristana" is Spanish-Franco-Italian co-production.

Plot and Differences with novel

Tristana is an orphan adopted by nobleman Don Lope Garrido. Don Lope falls in love with her and thus treats her as daughter and wife from the age of nineteen, a bit of a scandal, but, by age twenty-one Tristana starts finding her voice, to demand to study music, art and other subjects with which she wishes to become independent. She meets the young artist Horacio Díaz, falls in love, and eventually leaves Toledo to live with him.

Here, the film varies from the novel, wherein she sees him as a possible means of leaving Don Lópe's house, but never lives with Horacio. When she falls ill, she returns to Don Lópe. The illness results in her losing a leg, which changes her prospects; here, the film substantially varies from the novel.

Lópe inherits money from his sister, Tristana eventually marries him, and, when Lópe is ill, Tristana finishes him off by feigning calling the doctor and opening the window to the winter cold. By then she has become jaded like Lope. In the novel she resignedly marries him in order for Lope to receive his inheritance. Also different from the novel is Saturno's the increased role (barely mentioned in the novel), but in the film is Tristana's third love interest.

This portrait of a strong woman who wishes, against her time's prevailing norms, to be independent, evolved from the influence on Pérez Galdós of the strong women who were his lovers, including Emilia Pardo Bazán and Concha Ruth Morell. Tristana is part of a feminist movement; the novel being one of many changes in the Spain of the 1890s, and the film part of Spain's awakening upon the death of Generalísimo Franco.

Cast

*Catherine Deneuve : Tristana
*Fernando Rey : Don Lope
*Franco Nero : Horacio
*Lola Gaos : Saturna
*Antonio Casas : Don Cosme
*Jesús Fernández : Saturno
*Denise Menace :Armanda
*Vicente Solar : Don Ambrosio
*José Calvo : Bellringer
*Fernando Cebrián : Dr. Miquis