- Vicente Aranda
Infobox Actor
name = Vicente Aranda
caption =
birthname = Vicente Aranda Ezguerra
birthdate = birth date and age|1926|11|9
location =Barcelona ,Spain
occupation =filmmaker
yearsactive = 1964 - present
academyawards =
baftaawards =
cesarawards =
goyaawards = Best Director for "Amantes "
Best Film for "Amantes "Vicente Aranda (born on
9 November 1926 inBarcelona ), is a Spanishfilm director ,screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the
Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the big screen. Aranda is famous for exploring difficult social issues and variations on the theme of desire that employs the codes of melodrama.Love as uncontrollable passion, eroticism and cruelty are constant themes in his filmography. The frank examination of sexuality is one of the trademarks of his work as can be seen in his most internationally successful film: "
Amantes " (1990) "(Lovers)".Early life
Vicente Aranda Ezguerra was born in
Barcelona on 9 November 1926. Vera, "Vicente Aranda", p. 13 ] He was the youngest son in a large and impoverished family who had emigrated fromAragón to Barcelona twenty years before he was born. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 14 ] TheSpanish Civil War , in which his family took the side of the losing Republicans, marked his childhood. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 14 ] Thinking that the war was going to be more bearable in a small town than in Barcelona the family moved early in the war toPeñalba , his mother's native village. The dire situation there forced them to come back to Barcelona in 1938. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 115 ]After the war ended, Aranda spent a lot of time in the local movie theatre, much against the wishes of his parents, who took to smelling him on his return for traces of the disinfectant that was sprayed in cinemas of the time. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 114 ] He never finished his studies. At age thirteen, he had to begin to work in order to help his family. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 115 ] He had a number of different jobs in his home town, trying a multitude of trades before following his brother to
Venezuela in 1952 Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 1148 ] . He emigrated for economical and political reasons. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 115 ] In Venezuela, Aranda worked as a cargo technician for an American shipping business and later became responsible for programs at an important electronic company. After seven years, he came back toSpain in 1959.Wealthy and married upon his return, he had the initial desire to become a novelist, but found that he lacked enought talent as a writer. He fell in with the cultural elite of
Catalonia and was encouraged to try his hand at filmaking, even after being denied acces to the School of Cinema inMadrid because he never graduated from high school Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 1148 ] . In Barcelona and completely self-taught, Aranda found the way to direct his first feature film.Aranda started directing films late in life, at almost forty and did not reach international success until his 60s, nevertheless, he has had a long and prolific career making twenty-six films in more than forty years as director. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 11 ] Vicente Aranda is married to Teresa Font, his second wife, editor of his movies since the mid 1980s; they have two daughters.
Film career and later life
Early films (1964- 1974)
Aranda made his directorial debut with the low- budget "
Brillante Porvenir " (1964) (Brilliant Future), co directing with screenwriter Román Gubern. Loosely adapted fromthe Great Gatsby , the film was naive in its appropiation of the aesthetic of theneorealism for a portrait of the Catalan middle class. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 114 ] "Brillante Porvenir ", cut by censors, was received coldly by public and critics, but it served to redirect Aranda towards the more fantastic ambit of film making. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 114 ] .His second film, "Fata Morgana" (1965), an unusual work in Spanish Cinema, is an experimental film, based on a script written with
Gonzalo Suárez . The film took inspiration for its visual style from television commercials and comic strips. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] Ignored upon release, "Fata Morgana" would eventually be recognized for inspiring the particular kitsch aesthetic of the Barcelona School of Film, Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 114 ] anavant garde movement which sought creative renovation of Spanish films.Aranda’s work over the next decade would reveal much of the same tensions noted in "Fata Morgana", name a polarity between certain artistic pretensions and a virtual style drawn from mass media. In these films, Aranda worked within established film genres with and eye on revising and modernizing them. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] Since his first features were not widely seen, Aranda followed up with a commercial film with fantastic and erotic overtones: "Las Crueles" (1969) ("
The Exquisite Cadaver "). In it, a mysterious woman elaborates a scheme to avenge the death of her girlfriend from a callous publisher. This filmed was plagued with a series of problems: it was long in the making; Aranda suffered an accident during the shooting, which forced him to work from a stretcher and finally he had a legal battle with the producers. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 54 ] It would take Aranda many years to recover ownership of this film. The experience made him found his own production company: Morgana film, which would produce his next six films. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 55 ]In "
La Novia Ensangrentada " (1972) ("The Blood Spattered Bride)", a female vampire seeks revenge against all men. A genre film for the cultural elite, that got around the censors by virtue of its incomprehensibility. By Aranda own admission he sacrificed conventional coherence for the cinematographic and phenomenological possibilities of each action. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 114 ] The film was distributed internationally in theUnited States ,France andItaly . Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 55 ]Aranda started to employ the codes of melodrama with: "
Clara es el Precio " (1974) ("Clara is the Price"), an offbeat mix of melodrama, parody and surreal comedy. He castAmparo Muñoz , Spain’s futureMiss Universe , as an innocent adrift in a world without taboo: a young virgin bride, whose infantilised husband is impotent with her alone, and who then pursues a career as a pornographic film actress in order to fund a business project. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 115 ] The film’s imprudence was also its purpose. Like theSurrealist , Aranda’s ability to shock was itself a political statement. “ We had lived in a state of consensus and this is fatal for cinema”, he complained, “ We have become our own censors and all we want to do is forget, be silent, not speak” Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 115 ]"Cambio de Sexo" (1976)
With the fall of Francos’s regime, the Catalan director was finally able to shoot more daring films like: "
Cambio de Sexo " (1976) ("Change of Sex"), skillfully tackling the subject oftransexuality . This film was the beginning of a long collaboration withVictoria Abril , over the next three decades director and star would be paired in more than ten films that would include major triumphs for both. Made in the period called the transition, "Cambio de Sexo " is a salient example of the use of transsexualism to reflect social change. The film dramatizes the development of the destape – the period in the late 1970s and early 1980s Spain characterized by a much more open portrayal of sex in the press, literature and film."Cambio de Sexo" recounts the story of a young effeminate boy, played by Victoria Abril, who lives in the outskirts of Barcelona and escapes to the city to explore his desire to become a woman. The character of the young man with a sex identity problem is an embodiment of the changes confronted by the two sides of Spain with their opposites extremes of uncompromising orthodoxy and unrestrained anarchy. "
Cambio de Sexo " allured audiences with its controversial theme, a real novelty, and was released to critical acclaim."La Muchacha de las Bragas de Oro" (1980)
The final element in the dominant Aranda style came in 1979 when he made a clever film adaptation of the popular novel by his fellow Catalan
Juan Marsé : "La Muchacha de las Bragas de Oro " (1980) ("Girl with the Golden Panties"). D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] In it, a Falangist character, writing his memoirs accommodates his past to the new democratic realities, but he is confronted with his lies by his carefree niece who playfully stars a game of seduction.Over the next fifteen years, Aranda established himself, as Spain’s foremost adapter of popular novels into film. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] Unlike the more traditional adaptation that stressed their classical literary origins, his choices usually were guided by the centrality of an erotically defined female character, and a competemporay story emphasizing the force of the milieu on the shaping of actions. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ]
Aranda has a very special relationship with literature and a great number of his movies are based on literary works. He has been seen as a director who specializes in adaptations from short narratives to novels, including even biographies. Nevertheless for Aranda, adapting a literary work does not involve complications or absurd problems of faithfulness, or lack of the same, to the original text. For him the novel is a raw material with which to create new forms: “ As for adaptations, I feel very comfortable doing them. I don’t have problem with authorship. I don’t think I am more of an author if I write a screenplay of something I’ve read on the news papers or seen on the street that if I take a novel and make a movie based on its contents”.
"Asesinato en el Comité Central" (1982)
After democracy was installed in Spain, Aranda made a film politically charged with the aftereffects of Franco's regime: "
Asesinato en el Comité Central " (1982) ("Murder in the Central Committee"). In this thriller, a power cut interrupts the proceedings of the Communist Congress and, when the lights come back on, the leader is found death, murdered. The film was based on one of a series of novels byManuel Vázquez Montalbán that featured a hard-boiled detective calledPepe Carvalho . Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ] The intrigue runs a poor second to Aranda’s commentary on theSpanish transition to democracy . Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ] “ The truth is that I cannot think of another film that deals with this fascinating period’, he stated, there is a kind of collective amnesia about the time”. Alvarez & Frías, "Vicente Aranda", p. 130 ]Much of the film’s action is filtered through headlines and television reports in imitation of the way in which the Spanish public lived the transition. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ] The televised funeral of the Communist leader is a sly montage of mourners at the funeral of
Franco , whileLa Pasionaria ( the legendary Spanish Communist leader who passed dictatorship in exile in the Soviet Union) appears as a senile old dear who sits next to the victim but does not even realize he is dead. Like "La Muchacha de las Bragas de Oro ", this was a film about extremist coming together in a democracy, in this case in order to solve a crime. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ] Whodunnit ? it does not matter. As the interior minister exclaims: In the same way that we’ve had to forget everything, you should to the same” Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ]"
Asesinato en el Comité Central " was Aranda’s first work made in Madrid instead of his native Barcelona. The film was received with a cold commercial response. Stone, "Spanish Cinema", p. 119 ]"Fanny Pelopaja" Fanny Pelopaja" (1984)
Aranda then adapted another popular Catalan novel making a daring rewrite of Andreu Martín noir
detective novel , Prótesis, in which he transformed the male protagonist into a female retiling the work "Fanny Pelopaja " (1984). D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] The film depicts a violent love hate relationship between a delinquent woman and the corrupt police officer she wants to get even with.Co financed by French producers, the film was made in Barcelona with Spanish supporting cast and crew, but with two French actors in the lead. Dissatisfied with the French dubbing of the film, done without his oversight, Aranda tried to stopped the premiere of the film in France, were it was released with the title Á coups de crosse. As a result of this dispute Aranda sold its shares in Morgana films, the production company he had created. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 59 ] "Fanny Pelopaja" failed to find an audience when first released, but now has become one of Aranda best regarded works. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 59 ]
"El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez" (1984)
After his two previous films were received coldly by audiences, Aranda accepted to take part in La Huella del Crimen (The Trace of the Crime), a televition series consisting of six episodes depicting infamous crimes happened in Spain. Reknown Spanish film directors:
Pedro Olea ,Angelino Fons ,Ricardo Franco ,Juan Antonio Bardem ,Pedro Costa and Vicente Aranda were invited to direct, each one of them, a different episode. Vera, "Vicente Aranda", p. 152 ]Aranda’s chapter "
El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez " (1984) (Captain Sánchez's Crime), was considered the best episode of the series. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 66 ] Made in16 mm and with a very low budget, Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 66 ] the one-hour film tells a story in which incest, jealousy and death mix in Spain of beginnings of the twenty-century. The title character is a military officer, who supports his poor family and pays his gambling debts plotting an elaborate trap to swindle money from those who fall for his young daughter."Tiempo de Silencio" (1986)
It was not until his adaptation of the famed
Luis Martín Santos novel, "Tiempo de Silencio " (1986) ("Time of Silence"), that the larger, profound design of Aranda’s critical vision of Spain became apparent. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] The film had a major cast headed byImanol Arias ,Victoria Abril andFrancisco Rabal . Set in the 1940s, in the early days of the Franco’s regime, the plot follows the story of an ambitious doctor who is accused of killing a woman while performing a botched abortion. The story moves from the sordid life of shanty dwellings to the hypocrisy of the middle classes in a critic of Franco’s regime. Aranda’s themes of sexuality are used as a register to which political and historical issues can be expressed. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ] Though much criticized for his realistic approach to the narrational complexity of the Martín Santos novel, "Time of Silence" was generally well received by audiences. D’Lugo, "Guide to the Cinema of Spain", p. 119 ]"El Lute" (1987)
Aranda took a deconstructive approach to the manipulation of popular myth in his two- part biopic: ' (1987) ("El Lute, Run for Your Life"), and "
El Lute II, mañana seré libre " (1988) ("El Lute Tomorrow I’ll be Free"). Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 26 ] ' (1987) ("El Lute, Run for Your Life") concerns the legendary delinquentEleuterio Sánchez , known as "El Lute", a poor man forced by social deprivation into delinquency in the 1960s. After an early nomadic period of his life, "El Lute" moves to Madrid's slums outskirts, becomes involved in a burglary and murder, is tortured and condemn to life in prison. He becomes the target of obsessive control and punishment out of all proportion to his original petty crimes and is elevated to folk hero by way of his resistance to authoritarian injustice.Aranda’s hybrid combination of period drama, thriller and social realism reveals how the criminal career and media profile of this petty thief were manipulated and exploited by the authorities as a diversionary tactic at a time of political unrest. Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 26 ] "" (1987) ("El Lute, Run for Your Life") was one of Aranda’s most successful adaptation and became the highest grossing Spanish film in 1987. Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 26 ]
"El Lute II, mañana seré libre" (1988)
In the second part:"
El Lute II, mañana seré libre " (1988) ("El Lute Tomorrow I’ll be Free"), El Lute, now a fugitive, is reunited with his siblings. He tries to start a new life, but fails to fit in as a normal member of society. After an spectacular escape from prison, El Lute becomes the focus of an obsessive pursuit by the Francoist authorities and the object of massive popular interest by the press and public in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Compared to the strongly realistic and political tone of the first installment, "
El Lute II, mañana seré libre " took a more fictionalized, folkloric approach, adopting a more pronounced thriller profile. Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 27 ] Although the film includes numerous concessions to violence and eroticism, it delivered a resounding critique of the Franco regime and its brutal treatment of the Spanish gypsy population. Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 27 ]"Si te dicen que caí" (1989)
The frank examination of sexuality is one of the trademarks of Aranda’s work and he made his most sexually explicit film with "
Si te dicen que caí " (1989) ("If They Tell You I Fell"), an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Juan Marsé. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 184 ] With a laberyntic structure in which imaginary facts and real events are blend in a crosswords style, the main part of the story is set in the old quarter of 1940’s Barcelona during the early years of Francoist repression. The plot centers on a young man who, trying to survive in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, is hired to perform sexual acts with a prostitute for the voyeuristic pleasure of a richfalangist rendered crippled during the war. With a large cast, includingVictoria Abril playing three different characters, the film was daring an ambitious in its scope. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 188 ]"Los Jinetes del Alba" (1990)
At the request of
Pilar Miró , then director ofTVE , Aranda took on :"Los Jinetes del Alba " (1990) ("Riders of the Dawn") an adaptation of the novel by Jesús Fernández Santos about theSpanish Civil War and theanarchist movement. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 191 ]Made as a five parts TV miniseries, it centers on a young woman driven by the ambition to own the resort where she works in a small town in
Asturias . When she finally achieves her goal, there is little to rejoice about. Aranda's favorite topics: cruelty, violence and sex pervade a story framed by the tumultuous life of Spain in 1930s, the uprising in Asturias in 1934 and the Spanish Civil War. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 191 ] This is one Aranda’s most paradigmatic works. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 200 ]"Amantes" (1991)
In the 1990s, Vicente Aranda continued to make films that were commercial hits at home and were shown at film festivals worldwide. With "
Amantes " (1991) ("Lovers"), the director finally achieved wide international exposure and critical acclaim. This tragic story of forbidden passions and betrayed innocence is afilm noir , inspired by real events. In the repressive Spain during the early 1950s, a young man just out of military service is torn between his attraction for the two opposite women who love him: his girlfriend, a naïve maid and, his landlady, an attractive, scheming widow.Originally conceived as a T.V project, "Amantes", was made with few actors, a small crew and with few exteriors. Colmena, "Vicente Aranda", p. 202 ] Nevertheless, it is widely considered as the director's most accomplished work, becoming a classic of Spanish Cinema Benavent, "Cine Español de los Noventa", p. 62 ] It marked the beginning of Aranda most prolific period. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 69 ]
"El Amante Bilingüe" (1993)
Still investigating into the passion of love, Aranda directed "
El Amante Bilingüe " (1993) ("The Bilingual Lover"), also an adaptation of a story by Juan Marsé. Set in Barcelona, this is an ironic film that mixes Catalan linguistic policies,nationalism anderoticism with a pattern of double identity. The central character is a humble man who falls in love with a beautiful rich woman, they marry but his unfaithful wife abandons him later. He is horribly disfigured in an explosion and gradually adopts a new identity in an effort to lure back his spoilt ex-wife."Intruso" (1993)
Some of Vicente Aranda films present real events, things that happens on the street but that have had the appearance of the exceptional occurrences, where passion, toughness, and violence manage to acquire a tone of unreality that is almost literary as in "
Intruso " (1993) ("Intruder"). This film is a psychological thriller with much of the visual atmosphere and exacerbated passions of Amantes. Perriam, " Stars and Masculanities", p. 31 ] A middle class woman is torn between her love for her spouse and her ill ex-husband, both of which were her childhood friends. After ten years of separation, they are entangled in a tragic story."La Pasión Turca" (1994)
In almost all of Aranda’s films, a woman is the protagonist and the center around which the story turns. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 30 ] "
La Pasión Turca " (1994) ("Turkish Passion") an adaptation of the novel byAntonio Gala , is an exploration of female sexual desire where the protagonist after the failure of her marriage, is driven by her pursuit of sexual pleasure to return to her Turkish lover in a path that lead her to an obbssessive dependence, degradation and total collapse of herselfesteem . Jordan & Morgan, "Contemporary Spanish Cinema", p. 170 ] La Pasión Turca became one of Spain's highest grossing films of the 90s."Libertarias" (1996)
Aranda’s interest in the Spanish Civil War finally found an outlet in: "
Libertarias " (1996) ("Women Freedom Fighters") an epic drama, a reconstruction of the role played by anarchist women during theSpanish Civil War . Set in Barcelona at the start of the war, a young naive nun has to flee her convent and seeks refuge in a brothel, where she is recruited to the anarchist cause, along with the prostitutes. Together, a group of six women (Mujeres Libres or Free Women) face the perils of war until their idealistic dreams of utopia are brutally crushed in a devastating climax."La Mirada del Otro" (1998)
"
La Mirada del Otro " (1998) ("The Naked Eye"), with a script based on the novel by Fernando G Delgado, is an eroticpsychodrama ; a woman quest for sexual pleasure only brings her loneliness. The sordidness of the plot overpowered the credibility of the characters and the film was spurned by public and critics. Cánovas, "Miradas sobre el cine de Vicente Aranda", p. 74 ]"Celos" (1999)
A veteran explorer of life at emotional extremes, writer-director Vicente Aranda was back in familiar territory with "
Celos " (1999) ("Jealousy"), his third entrance in the love triangle trilogy formed withAmantes andIntruso . Once again the director constructed a story around destructive passions that end tragically. A truck driver is tormented by jealousy about the man who was the former boyfriend of the beautiful woman he is about to marry, launching a detective labor to find him and know the truth that he feels his fiance is hiding from him."Juana la Loca" (2001)
In recent years, Vicente Aranda, switched to period pieces, initiating a trilogy of historic costume dramas. Juana La Loca (2001) (Mad Love) is a reinterpretation of the tragic fate of the 15th century Spanish Queen, madly in love with her unfaithful husband. The film, a commercial and critical hit, was Spain's entry at the 2001
Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and it became Aranda’s biggest box-office movie."Carmen" (2003)
The director’s subsequently film was Carmen (2003), based on
Prosper Merimée ’s 1845 novella about jealousy and passion that inspired the famous Opera of the same name byGeorge Bizet . Set inAndalusia in 1830, a military officer is seduced by a striking gypsy girl who works in a cigarette factory, his love for her only brings his downfall. Carmen is a story of desire, betrayal and death as the filmography of Vicente Aranda. The film was made with high production values and was another success with audiences for the veteran director. [cite web|title = Film Affinity| url= http://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film884131.html| accessdate = 2008-09-20 ]"Tirant lo Blanc" (2006)
Aranda completed his costume drama trilogy with "Tirant lo Blanc" (2006) (The Maidens' Conspiracy), an adaptation of the seminal Catalan
chivalry novel written in fifteenth century byJoanot Martorell . The plot follows the adventures of Tirante, a knight from humble origins in theByzantine Empire who gains the favor of the ailing Emperor fighting the incursion intoConstantinople by the Turks, but later seduces the royal family's only surviving child, a young, fanciful, and impressionable princess.Made with a large budget (This is Aranda's most expensive work) the film, filled with both humor and drama, is lavish, risqué, and skillfully composed, but superficial and unsatisfying. [cite web|title = Strictly film school| url= http://www.filmref.com/journal/archives/2006/12/tirante_el_blanco_the_maidens.html| accessdate = 2008-09-20 ] "Tirant lo Blanc" did not enjoy the success of the director's two previous films.
" Canciones de Amor en Lolita's club" (2007)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
