The spirit of the beehive
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The spirit of the beehive |
| Original title | El espíritu de la colmena |
| Country of production | Spain |
| original language | Spanish |
| Publishing year | 1973 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Víctor Erice |
| script | Ángel Fernández-Santos Víctor Erice |
| production | Elías Querejeta |
| music | Luis de Pablo |
| camera | Luis Cuadrado |
| cut | Pablo del Amo |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
|
← Predecessor |
|
The Spirit of the Beehive is a 1973Spanish feature filmdirected by Víctor Erice . The title (in the original: El espíritu de la colmena ) can be understood as an homage to the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck , to whose essay The Life of Bees he implicitly refers. Although still unknown to a wider audience - especially in German-speaking countries - the film is considered a masterpiece by critics and film lovers and is internationally renowned as one of the best Spanish films of all time. It premiered on September 18, 1973 at the San Sebastián International Film Festival . It was released in cinemas on October 8 of the same year. Three decades later, in 2004, a revival took place in many Spanish halls.
Synopsis
Spain, around 1940 in the Castilian highlands. An old truck rolls over bumpy village streets into the town of Hoyuelos and is greeted frenetically by a crowd of children. As it turns out, the occupants of the vehicle bring a screen, projection device and rolls of film. On the same afternoon there will be a film screening in the community hall of the town hall: Frankenstein , the classic from 1931 with Boris Karloff in the role of the monster .
Among the audience are siblings Ana and Isabel, two school girls. Ana, the younger of the two, is the most engrossed in the story. The monster in particular preoccupies her, and the question of why his death and the infanticide he previously committed never let go of her.
One day Ana discovers a stranger, apparently on the run, in an abandoned building in an open field. The girl takes care of him. When she brings him a coat from her father, a withdrawn intellectual and beekeeper, the mysterious stranger discovers a pocket watch in it. Ana still has no inkling of the far-reaching consequences of her care ...
Casting and Production
With The Spirit of the Beehive is the first feature-length feature film by the director, who until now turned a series of short films as well as on an episodic film - Deadly Jealousy (Desafíos lot, 1969) - had participated. He also appeared as the author of the movie magazine Nuestro Cine . In addition to Erice, the directors Claudio Guerín and José Luis Egea were involved in Deadly Jealousy . After their internship at the Escuela Oficial de Cine , they were selected for this work by producer Elías Querejeta , who four years later, on his own initiative, was to produce Erice's feature film debut.
The co-writer of the script, Ángel Fernández-Santos, was another of Erice's companions as former editor-in-chief at Nuestro Cine . The cameraman Luis Cuadrado and the composer Luis de Pablo, on the other hand, were regular employees at Querejeta's production company and had previously worked on Anna and the Wolves (Ana y los lobos, 1972, R. Carlos Saura ), among others .
Fernando Fernán Gómez was the only actor to play the role of the family man from the start. At Erice's request, the mother was initially to be played by Margarita Lozano before the role was assigned to Teresa Gimpera , and the maid Milagros was finally played by Kety de la Cámara, instead of Rafaela Aparicio as originally intended. The director wanted to juxtapose the team of professional actors with a number of amateur actors, and so he went to various schools in Madrid in person to look for possible candidates for the beekeeper's two daughters and his wife. Víctor Erice himself describes what happened as follows:
«The primer day for a visitar un colegio mixto que estaba no lejos de mi casa. Había hablado ya con la Dirección y llegué directamente a la hora del recreo. Niños y niñas estaban jugando. Ninguno sabía qué es lo que yo pintaba allí. Y sucedió una cosa: la primera niña en la que reparé, la primera que atrajo mi curiosidad, fue Ana Torrent. […] Al mediodía volví a la productora y dije en voz alta: 'Ya tengo a la niña de la película, a la protagonista'. Todo el mundo pensó que bromeaba. "
“On the first day I went to a mixed [boys and girls] school, not far from home. I had spoken to the school management beforehand and came right at the break. Boys and girls played. None of them knew what I had come here for. And then it happened: the first girl I noticed, the first to pique my curiosity, was Ana Torrent. [...] At noon I came back to the studio and said loudly: "I already have the girl for the film, the leading actress". Everyone thought I was kidding. "
A filming permit was obtained in a relatively short period of time, and filming could begin on February 12, 1973. Less than five weeks later, on March 22nd, they ended. (One of the reasons for the quick conclusion may have been the fact that both Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera were only available for one week for the shoot, instead of the originally planned sixteen and ten days, respectively.) The main location was the village of Hoyuelos in the province of Segovia (Castile and León); The Renaissance palace there, which belonged to the property of the Marquise of Lozoya, was used for the interior shots. Only the pictures of the train station were taken in Parla ( Madrid ) and those of the beekeeping in Cijara ( Extremadura ).
analysis
The characters
One of the special features of the film is that the acting characters remain puzzling insofar as the viewer does not learn anything about their origins, past or other living conditions. At best, conclusions can be drawn from hints, but are never confirmed. For example, from the outset, there is a suspicion of an extramarital relationship between Teresa, presumably with the recipient of the letter, which she throws into the mail van at the train station and of which we heard a few lines in Teresa's own voice off- screen while we were writing . However, it remains uncertain who exactly the addressee is; Virginia Higginbotham, professor of Spanish at the University of Texas , vaguely sees the possibility in the room that it could be the refugee jumping off another train later: “More confusing than Ana's disappearance is the inclusion of a campfire, which is in the fireplace in Teresa's room passes over. Does this scene suggest that the wounded soldier is Teresa's letter correspondent and that she is destroying her letter for fear of possible discovery? "
Erice himself highlights the anonymous recipient of the letter as "the riddle of the film". He defines the structure of the script as “lyrical”, and this at the latest makes it understandable that the parents of the girls are not created as personages in the traditional narrative style, but are conceived from “primordial” images: “a man turned away from a balcony looking out into the twilight, [….] a woman who is writing a letter. “The figure of the father, Fernando, in particular, remains ambivalent: what drove him into the isolation under which he and especially his wife in the as of the World foreclosed place Hoyuelos suffer? His intellectual preoccupation with beekeeping suggests a kind of inner exile that may have been forced upon him because of an opposition to the Franco regime . On the other hand, this is put into perspective by a photo taken together with the writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno in the family album; As is well known, Unamuno was initially on the side of the putschists, although he soon regretted this attitude, and in fact there is nothing to suggest that the bitter introversion of the family father could not have similar reasons. Fernando Savater rightly asks himself about the rigorous destruction of a poisonous mushroom by Fernando: “Wasn't it also partly crushed like a perishable mushroom? Why doesn't he show more solidarity with his excluded brother from the plant kingdom? "
The central character of the film, Fernando and Teresa's younger daughter Ana, is played by Ana Torrent, who was six at the time . There is hardly a review that goes unmentioned the persuasiveness of their portrayal, which cast a spell over both critics and audiences. In Erice's own words:
«La fuerza de voluntad de Ana Torrent was tan grande que se sabía a la perfección los diálogos escritos, los suyos e incluso los de Isabel Tellería, su hermana en la ficción. Isabel, por el contrario, no era capaz de retener casi ninguno, y con frecuencia había que soplarselos. Por ejemplo, la conversación que ambas mantienen en la cama, después de haber visto la película de Frankenstein, no la rodaron nunca juntas. En la escena, filmada en plano y contraplano, con quien hablan en realidad cada una de ellas es conmigo. »
“Ana Torrent's willpower was so strong that she could perfectly memorize the written dialogue, both her own and that of Isabel Tellería, her sister in fiction. Isabel, on the other hand, was barely able to keep one in mind, and they often had to be prompted. The conversation that they both had from bed after the screening of the Frankenstein film was never shot together. Rather, they both speak to me in the scene filmed in opposing positions. "
According to the director, Ana Torrent is also responsible for the fact that the first names of the four main actors are ultimately identical to those of their actors: “Her identification went so far that she did not leave me before I changed the name of her character, who is not initially called that should be like her, so Ana. Only when they asked did I decide that all other characters in the story should also bear the actual name of the actor in question. ”Isabel Tellería emphasizes the portrait of the older sister less often. The following honorable mention can be found in the essay by Virginia Higginbotham: “Isabel Telleria and Teresa Gimpera give the supporting roles such a power that they no longer appear secondary. Isabel, another amateur actress, embodies the role of the diabolical, prepubescent older sister with humor and lovable cunning. "Ana and Isabel are not far apart in terms of age, but, as Roger Ebert states:" There is this crucial distance between them, because of which Ana to Unraveling secrets is dependent on her big sister. ”Isabel uses this intellectual advantage to play tricks on Ana, for example when she plays dead, only to come back to life shortly afterwards and to scare her sister out of ambush; However, this is precisely where Savater sees Isabel's active participation in Ana's initiation process: “The question of why the girl [in James Whale's film adaptation of Frankenstein ] dies was the first question that came to Ana about the story of the monster [...] . She receives no other answer than the portrayal of death itself, which her sister stages for her. So she has to endure the fear of the unfathomable, of the unjustifiable. "
In fact, The Spirit of the Beehive is above all a film about the maturation and growing up of children - including the search for identification models outside the close family circle from which one has to emancipate oneself - and thus also about the child's psyche itself. This applies to both Ana and Isabel, whose example ostensibly addresses awakening sexuality. Examples can be found in a highly regarded scene in which a hangover is literally irritated to the blood, but also in the seemingly anecdotal snapshot of the two girls in the bathroom when Isabel lets her little sister in on the secrets of her father's shaving utensils.
Camera and image creation
The drawings made by Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería and their two sisters Alicia and María to illustrate the opening credits have a multiple function: on the one hand, they tune the audience into the atmosphere of the film, which is largely told from a child's perspective, and are representative of some of the main narrative elements; on the other hand, they anticipate (albeit ironically) the importance of painting for image composition and chromatic design by the cameraman Luis Cuadrado.
Regarding the question of whether the initiative for a Vermeer- oriented composition originally came from Erice or Cuadrado, the photographer and art historian José Luis Rubio Munt refers to contradicting sources. Elsewhere he points out that Erice originally planned to shoot the film in black and white, and was only able to change his mind through Cuadrado; in this context he writes: “In addition, Cuadrado had a very precise idea of the mood and color nuances created by the appropriate light. What he had noticed with Vermeer, for example, was not only the type of interior lighting from the windows, but also the green-yellowish tint that he wanted to implement in the film. ”Whether the director or the cameraman first had the idea of aesthetically pleasing themselves To orientate towards the Dutch master is unlikely to be clarified from today's point of view; there seems to be no doubt, however, that the decision was decisive for the lighting and color design defined by Rubio Munt and Higginbotham as Chiaroscuro . (Pena, contrary to Rubio Munt's explicit rejection of this term, prefers tenebrism as an art-historical reference.) Almost all of the interior photos of the house can be used as examples, such as the photo of Teresa writing the letter with the honeycomb-shaped windows in the background. The originally colorless panes had been exchanged by Cuadrado's father, himself a restorer who specializes in glass painting, for panes colored in honey yellow before the shoot. The reference of the scene to Vermeer's letter writer in yellow , indicated by Pena and Saborit , becomes understandable at the latest when looking at Saborit's juxtaposition (as a color print) of the still image and painting.
Further influences from painting are attributed to Emanuel de Witte and Caspar David Friedrich . From that, the interior with the lady at the virginal is considered to be the inspiration for the long, light-flooded door suites of the communicating rooms of the family estate, which Saborit in turn demonstrates through a comparison. Friedrich's influence, on the other hand, is understood more generally, namely with regard to the back views of the depicted people, which are so characteristic of the romanticist , and which enable the viewer to identify with their emotional world due to the common perspective. For this purpose, Saborit uses a statue in which Ana can be seen from behind with a view of a field shed (the same one that serves as a refuge for the anonymous refugee), and for comparison Friedrich's painting The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog . In fact, the still picture gains its spatial depth from the furrows that run towards a vanishing point on the left edge of the picture, and the person in the painting who is turned slightly to the left suggests a similar orientation of perspective. Higginbotham, on the other hand, connects the exterior shots of the field shed with the surreally alienated landscapes of Salvador Dalí and illustrates this with the example of his painting Average Pagan Landscape .
In The Spirit of the Beehive , however , one will look in vain for obvious reproductions of paintings . The above-mentioned example of Vermeer's is no exception. Rather, the aim was to implement old masters' painting techniques with filmic means, and for this the yellow filters used by Cuadrado would have been completely inadequate on their own , according to Higginbotham . Rubio Munt, himself a multiple award-winning photographer, offers a very detailed description of the technical means used. Among other things, he explains: “There is no electric light. During the day the light enters through the outside windows; at night it comes from candles and kerosene lamps. In order to reproduce this atmosphere, in order to implement it believably and realistically, Cuadrado uses a diffuse, sparse, measured and spatially limited lighting. ”He also points out that he largely dispenses with potent headlights and sums up the effort made to compensate:“ His emotive ability Working with tight, natural light allowed him to control the light that was already there, more than artificial lighting. In The Spirit of the Beehive , he used four main approaches: shooting under a cloudy sky, shooting at dusk, using diffusers and using soft reflectors. “Another challenge for the cameraman was that the light of the outside shots did not create an atmospheric break in direct sunlight. For this he used overhead diffusers, placed the actors in the backlight and compensated with reflectors made of white canvas on the front. In return, he consciously accepted connection errors, which can be understood from the mushroom hunting scene: When Fernando and the two girls crouch around a mushroom, a series of opposing attitudes arise in which each actor sits against the light all physical conditions. In Rubio Munt's view, however, this is justifiable as it is generally only noticed by professionally trained viewers.
Film in film and horror as subtext
“Y por fin el monstruo llega, sin disfraz, es decir, con su disfraz más revelador. Hasta aquí, la película de Erice era compatible with el 'buen gusto' ilustrado de los expectadores; pero sacar al viejo manido monstruo, acudir a la tumba de Boris Karloff en lugar de limitarse a la pincelada impresionista, es precipitarse sin remedio al mal gusto, enajenarse a los amigos ya predispuestos a favor ... ¡Qué importante es que Víctor Erice se haya atrevido a ese detalle de mal gusto! Sin él, quizá toda la película se hubiese desvencijado hacia la estampita 'progre'. Afortunadamente, Erice es un creador, es decir, se siente tan capaz del buen gusto como del malo. Está dispuesto a confirmar, que no ha tomado el nombre del monstruo en vano. »
“And finally the monster appears, unmasked, so with its most revealing mask. So far, Erice's film has been in keeping with the 'good taste' of educated viewers; but dragging out the hackneyed old monster, this rendezvous at Boris Karloff's grave instead of a discreet, impressionistic dab of a brush, is a hopeless aberration with which one alienates friends already made ... And how important it is that Víctor Erice has dared this aberration! Otherwise, the entire film might have slipped into a pseudo-avant-garde work of art. Thank goodness Erice has enough faith in his creative spirit to be able to handle the bad taste as well as the good one. He calls the monster by its real name and stands by it. "
The realistic style of The Spirit of the Beehive crosses the line of documentary film in more than one scene, and definitely in the screening of the black and white classic Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) in front of the village audience. The unique close-ups by Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería owe their creation, according to Erice, to a spontaneous initiative by the cameraman:
«El operador de la película era Teo Escamilla, y se encargó de la primera cámara, la única insonorizada con un blimp , con la cual se hicieron los planos generales. [….] La víspera Luis [Cuadrado] me anunció que [….] Iba a traer una Arriflex suya, no insonorizada. La utilizó siempre a mano, mientras yo le iba guiando de un lado al otro del set, situándole frente al personaje que tenía que encuadrar, a la manera de un rodaje documental. Fue así como Luis captó ese plano extraordinario de Ana Torrent at the moment, crucial, en que discover al monstruo por vez primera. "
“The cameraman for the film was Teo Escamilla, and he took over the first camera, the only one that was silenced with a blimp , and used to take the long shots. [...] The day before, Luis [Cuadrado] announced to me that he [...] would bring his own, non-silenced Arriflex with him. He always used it by hand while I was directing him back and forth on the set in order to position him opposite the person to be focused, like when shooting a documentary. This is how that phenomenal shot of Ana Torrent came about at the crucial moment when she first saw the monster. "
The - felt - presence of the monster is from then on a constant in The Spirit of the Beehive and is in so far in a direct relation to the film title, as Isabel reinterprets her sister as monster to ghost . Nothing is real in a film, she explains to Ana when she asked why Frankenstein's monster murdered the girl - in the famous scene on the bank - and then was killed herself:
“'Es un truco. Además, yo le he visto a él vivo… [….] La gente no puede verle. El sólo sale de noche. ' - '¿Es un fantasma?' - 'No. Es un espíritu. [….] Si eres su amiga, puedes hablar con él cuando quieras. '"
“ISABEL: 'That's just a trick. Besides, I saw it alive ... [….] People can't see it. It only comes out at night. '
ANA: 'Is it a ghost?'
ISABEL: 'No. It's a ghost. [….] If you are his girlfriend, you can talk to him whenever you want. '"
In fact, Erice's original plans for the film, in direct reference to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus , suggest a downright genre film. He drew the inspiration for this from James Whale's film, which was shown in a thematic cycle on Spanish television in the early 1970s. The fact that his own film turned into a character study in the early days of the Franco regime - and thus in his own childhood - he partly attributes to the lack of financial resources and even more to a shift in the thematic focus:
«Desde que elegí el tema, había recortado un fotograma de la película de James Whale 'El doctor Frankenstein', y lo tenía encima de mi mesa de trabajo. La imagen, una de las más conocidas, reproducía el encuentro, a orillas de un río, del monstruo con una niña. Una mañana, al contemplar una vez más ese fotograma, sentí que allí estaba contenido todo. Aquella imagen podía resumir, en el fondo, mi relación original con el mito. »
“After my decision on the subject was made, I cut out a still image from James Whale's film 'Frankenstein' and placed it on my desk. The picture, one of the most famous, showed the monster meeting a girl on the bank of a river. When I looked at the statue again one morning, I felt that it was all there. Basically that picture could show my original relation to the myth . "
Classic, downright clichéd horror elements are abundant in The Spirit of the Beehive , but generally not parodistically exaggerated, but rather played down to subtle hints. To the motifs mentioned by Higginbotham and others - full moon, vampirism (the blood-licking Isabel), creaking doors, owl calls…. - there is a suspected, omnipresent, albeit invisible power, which is particularly intensely the case in three moments: once, when footsteps can be heard in the room above during the cited conversation between the two girls, then as Ana footsteps next to the well by the field shed discovered, and finally when Isabel stands dead across from her and the rocking chair in the same room rocks as if by magic. The disappearance of the big sister shortly afterwards triggers an increasing identification in the audience with Ana's apparently at mercy; At the latest after the moment of shock when Isabel reappears from ambush, when Ana watches the girl jumping through the St. John's fire and then stares deeply into the burned-down flames, the atmosphere of the film is so penetrated by the child's agitated emotional world that one practically does not feel her can withdraw more.
But not only the horror genre, but cinema itself is a recurring subject in Erice's debut. The arrival of the train at the train station at the beginning of the film is popular as a homage to the pioneering work of the Lumière brothers , The arrival of a train at the train station in La Ciotat (L'Arrivée d'un trein en gare de La Ciotat, 1896), interpreted. This makes all the more sense since the projection device and the film rolls for the Frankenstein screening are brought to Hoyuelos on the same morning: the metaphorically exaggerated “arrival of the film” at a place where this medium is certainly still newsworthy. After the screening, Ana and Isabel play shadow theater at home , which, along with camera obscura and laterna magica, can be considered one of the primitive forerunners of modern cinema. In doing so, recordings of a painting are cut into the action in such a way that the figures depicted on them appear to be spectators during the “performance” of the two girls. In Fernando's study, on the other hand, there is a depiction of the Church Father Jerome on the wall; one of the attributes of the saint is again a skull, and with its close-up the circle to the horror genre closes again.
In school lessons the morning after the film was shown, we made the acquaintance of "Don José", a cardboard comrade to playfully visualize the human body to which the children themselves had to attach various internal and external organs: the allusion to the monster made up of body parts could hardly be clearer. Ana is given the task of using the eyes, which indirectly brings us back to the visual medium of film.
Political-historical context: the dictatorship
Virginia Higginbotham writes in her short monograph: “With its criminal, violent intentions and a name similar to Franco , the monster can be understood as a metaphor for the Spanish dictator .” In the following paragraph she emphasizes: “Visible references to the political and economic conditions of the Post-war periods are abundant, but are presented in a subtle, inconspicuous way. "The author illustrates this using the barren landscape and the" signs of economic deficiency that suggest that rural Spain is still largely a pre-industrial society ": motorized Vehicles like the projectionist's truck are the exception, news in Hoyuelos is announced by a public crier who depends solely on the power of her voice, and Fernando sets out on a journey in a horse-drawn carriage, as in the 19th century. In addition, there were buildings damaged during the war and obvious bottlenecks in the fuel supply, which would at least partially explain the scarce use of motorized vehicles. In this sense, the absence of electric light could indicate an interrupted or restricted energy supply in general, be it as a result of the war or as a further symptom of rural underdevelopment, including the one used by Fernando for listening to the radio - operable without an external power supply and expressly designated as such in the script - " Detector receiver "would fit.
Chronologically, the plot of the film cannot be precisely determined. "Hacia 1940" it says in the opening sequence, so "around 1940". The excerpt from Teresa's letter, which we immediately get to hear off-screen in her own voice, contains the sentence: "The messages that reach us from outside are so sparse and confused ..." A mention immediately follows of the (civil) war, from which, however, it cannot be determined with certainty whether this has already ended at the given time or whether fighting is still ongoing. In any case, the Falangist symbol (a yoke crossed by five arrows) on a house facade at the entrance to Hoyuelos refers, right at the beginning, more or less indirectly to the fact that the place is in part of Spain, which has been ruled by the fascists since 1937 , and the soldier in nationalistic uniform that Teresa sees sitting on the train can be seen as confirmation that the Franco regime has already been established.
Logically, at least apparent signs of repression are an essential part of the cinematic atmosphere. A large part of the dialogues is spoken in a whisper. The married couple Fernando and Teresa hardly communicate with each other during the course of the film, which on the one hand indicates a personal alienation, but due to Teresa's reticence it can also be interpreted as a hidden accusation of guilt to the husband, about whose partisanship during the civil war we have no reliable information receive. Fernando, on the other hand, seems to pursue all intellectual activities exclusively at night, as if he had to hide an accompanying subversive attitude.
Since the film was made a good two and a half years before Franco's death, it had to be submitted to the censorship authorities before it could be released, a hurdle that all critical artists had to overcome in Spain at the time. For this Higginbotham:
“Particularly troubling for directors was the lack, for almost three decades, of any stated criteria for censorship, so that acceptance or rejection often functioned in an entirely arbitrary way. [….] Spanish film directors developed strategies to avoid detection by the censor of material that might be perceived as objectionable or subversive. Among these strategies was the use of a highly episodic or elliptical narrative, which proceeded indirectly, by inference, allusion and association. "
“A particular problem for the directors was the lack of fixed censorship criteria for almost three decades, which is why approval or rejection was often completely arbitrary. [...] Spanish film directors developed strategies to avoid the discovery of potentially offensive or subversive material. These strategies included the use of a highly episodic or elliptical narrative style , the course of which happened indirectly, i.e. by means of inference, allusion and association. "
According to Erice, however, what reads as an exact definition of the narrative structure described above as "lyrical" in The Spirit of the Beehive cannot be justified by the censorship that has to be circumvented:
«Su estilo carece de premeditación, al menos en el sentido de que no es consecuencia de una estrategia adoptada para [….] Burlar la censura de la época. It más, creo que hubiera rodado esta película del mismo modo en cualquier circunstancia, al margins de la existencia o no de una Junta de Censura. "
“[The style of the film] has no pre-determined intention, at least not in the sense that it is due to a strategy of [….] Outsmarting the censorship at the time. Rather, I believe that I would have made this film the same way under any condition, regardless of whether there was a censorship agency or not. "
In any case, it should be noted that the censors ultimately did not consider it necessary to cut out even “a single meter of the film”.
The reference to Maeterlinck
“Many of the father's poems involve the mindless churning activity of his beehives, and the house's yellow-tinted honeycomb windows make an unmistakable reference to beehives. Presumably this reflects on the Franco regime, but when critics grow specific in spelling out the parallels they see, I feel like I'm reading term papers. "
“Many of the father's poems deal with the dull, seething activity of his beehives , and the yellow-hued, honeycomb-shaped windows of the house allude to beehives in an unmistakable way. Presumably this is a reflection on the Franco regime; but when critics go into detail on the parallels they have seen, I mean reading exams. "
What Roger Ebert mistakenly perceives as a “poem” in his Great Movie review is in fact an excerpt from the third chapter of the essay The Life of Bees (1901) by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck:
«Quelqu'un à qui je montrais dernièrement, dans une de mes ruches de verre, le mouvement de cette roue aussi visible que la grande roue d'une horloge, quelqu'un qui voyait à nu l'agitation innombrable des rayons, le trémoussement énigmatique et fou des nourrices sur la chambre à couvain, les passerelles et les échelles animées que forment les cirières, les spirales envahissantes de la reine, l'activité diverse et incessante de la foule, l'effort impitoyable et inutile, les perpétuel et venues accablées d'ardeur, le sommeil ignoré hormis dans des berceaux que déjà guette le travail de demain, le repos même de la morte éloigné d'un séjour qui n'admet ni malades ni tombeaux, quelqu'un qui regardait ces choses, l'étonnement passé, ne tardait pas à détourner ses yeux où se lisait je ne sais quel effroi attristé. »
“Someone I recently showed the movement of this wheel in one of my glass beehives, which was as exposed as the gear wheel of a pendulum clock; someone before whose gaze the incalculable hustle and bustle of the honeycomb was exposed, the incessant, enigmatic and maddening waves of the wet nurses over the brood chamber, the living bridges and ladders formed by the wax bees, the overarching spirals of the queen, the varied and incessant activity of the crowd, the relentless and useless exertion, the feverish coming and going, the insomnia outside the brood cells already beset by future work, the calm of death itself, excluded from a dwelling that does not tolerate the sick or tombs; So someone who got to see all of this, after the first astonishment, immediately averted his gaze, from which I don't know what sad horror spoke. "
This paragraph (in Spanish or in the national language of the respective dubbed version) is recited in the film in Fernando's voice from the off, while the narrator copies it by hand, as it appears. The phrase “spirit of the beehive” (esprit de la ruche) is used several times in Maeterlinck's essay in the course of the second chapter, The Swarm (L'essaim), where the collective behavior of the beehive is traced in particular.
Ebert is not the only one who is skeptical of the beehive as an allegedly political and social allegory. Jaime Pena expressly points out Maeterlinck's warning that he wants to draw conclusions about human nature from the observations obtained. In a standard work of Spanish post-war literature, however, the allegory is expanded, namely in The Beehive (1951) by Camilo José Cela (like Maeterlinck winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature ). The novel is set in Madrid in the 1940s, so it almost coincides with the events portrayed in Erice's film, and presents a labyrinthine image of an urban society that destroys all individuality: " The beehive is a novel without a hero, its characters like one Live snail withdrawn in their own insignificance ", quotes Jorge Urrutia, editor of the novel, another commentator. He himself sums up: "[The more than two hundred characters in the novel] combine to form a human magma, which in turn gains in personality and represents society as a whole, the urban population." This association can be used for the villagers depicted in The Spirit of the Beehive are of course excluded. At least the adults among them find themselves thrown back on whatever justified insignificance, and so the possibility of comparison with the overwhelming uniformity of the bee colony may ultimately remain.
The soundtrack
«En el cine, it normal, manda el director de la película. El compositor hace lo que se le pide. Desde el punto de vista estrictamente musical el cine también me ha enseñado [….] A componer de prisa y eficazmente, a servir a la historia ya la image de la mejor manera posible. [….] Una película tiene sus exigencias, las que vienen del guión y las que vienen del director. The compositor es un subordinado en el cine. [….] Si la música llama demasiado la atención en una película, salvo que el director lo provoque, es mala música, distrae la atención del espectador. [….] Me he found con música eficaz en algunas películas, es buena música porque cumple su papel. Gran música es otra cosa, no sirve para el cine, destruye la película. Puede suceder que la película esté hecha para la música, pero no es frecuente. »
“With a film, the director orders, as expected. The composer delivers what is ordered from him. From a strictly musical point of view, in the film business I learned [...] to compose quickly and appropriately, that is, to serve the story and the image in the best possible way. [….] A film has certain claims that arise from the script and that are demanded by the director. The composer is a subordinate in film. [….] If the music in a film attracts too much attention - unless the director wants it to - it is bad music because it distracts the audience. [….] In some films I came across effective music, good music because it does its job. Great music is something different, it is not suitable for the cinema because it would ruin the film. It can happen that a film is made for music, but that's not often the case. "
As early as 1998, Virginia Higginbotham was surprised that so little attention was generally paid to music in The Spirit of the Beehive ; the author can only pick up on the rather derogatory remark of a “disgruntled” Julio Pérez Perucha, according to which “the music destroys the inner rhythm” (whatever is meant by it). In fact, almost half a decade later, during a symposium under the direction of the same academic , at least three authors analyze the sonorous aspects of the film in general, but without anyone mentioning the music composed by Luis de Pablo.
However, if you know de Pablo's highly pragmatic attitude towards the role of film composer as well as towards the film music itself, as expressed in an interview with the daily El País in 2010 , perhaps the very fact that the music in Der Spirit of the beehive is not or only marginally noticed by many spectators, the highest praise to be expressed. Nevertheless, Higginbotham's recognition of the “lyrical and melodic” compositions of de Pablo should be underlined at this point, the instrumentation of which is largely based around flute, piano and guitar and, with regard to the dramaturgy, around oboe (the mushroom-hunting scene), harp and synthesizer ( Ana's flight into the forest) and female chorale voices (the final scene on the balcony) is expanded. As a leitmotif , the composer uses the melody of the popular Spanish children's and traveling song Vamos a contar mentiras (“Let's tell lies”), which he recurs in variations that are now lively and now melancholy. From the children's drawings in the opening credits, this music has no less part in the film's unique mood than any other acoustic aspect, and so it is noted in at least two contemporary reviews: namely in the daily ABC , October 11th issue 1973, as well as in the film magazine Dirigido por ... , No. 9, January 1974. (See also the criticisms section below .)
Reception and aftermath
“It's to me one of the most beautiful films ever made. It combines two of my all-time favorite things: five-year-old childhood and Frankenstein. What I think is admirable about the film - but it's something I'm incapable of and am absolutely not attracted to - is its ability to be vague and sort of ethereal. What is beautiful about it is that Erice is a true poet who not only implies and suggests but basically leaves everything floating. He has four balls in the air and he's not touching any of them; they're all circling magically. ”
“For me it is one of the most beautiful films that has ever been made. He combines two things that have always been my favorite subjects: five-year childhood and Frankenstein. What I find so admirable about the film - although I would not be able to do it and it does not attract me at all - is this vagueness and somehow ethereal that is inherent in it. It's nice that Erice is a real poet who not only suggests and suggests, but above all keeps everything in suspension. He lets four balls fly and doesn't touch a single one; they are all moved by magic. "
The spirit of the beehive is considered one of the most profitable films by producer Elías Querejeta. With an official budget of 9,712,000 pesetas , the box office results were estimated at around 23.5 million pesetas just two years after the premiere (730,000 euros or 1.77 million euros as of 2004). In doing so he initially found, i. H. during its projection at the International Film Festival of San Sebastián from September 18, 1973, little resonance with the audience and polarized the press. When the jury announced its decision on September 25th to award the film (and thus the first Spanish production in the history of the festival) the highest prize, namely the Golden Shell (Concha de Oro), there were boos.
However, the tide began to turn after the public screening began on October 8 at the Conde Duque cinema in Madrid. The almost unanimously positive reception of the film, especially by the trade press, made it a main topic in the feature pages for weeks. Over the years, the appreciation grew and established Erice's feature film debut as a reference work beyond the borders of Spain. A few months before his death in November 2012, Roger Ebert took him from the Chicago Sun-Times as the fourth-last title - after Mulholland Drive , and followed by Veronika Voss , The Engagement of Monsieur Hire and The Ballad of Narayama - in his "Great Movies" section. He described it as one of the most beautiful films he had seen.
On May 6 and 7, 2004, at the suggestion of the Valencian Film Institute (Instituto Valenciano de Cinematografía), and under the direction of the film historian Julio Pérez Perucha, a seminar entitled The Spirit of the Beehive ... 31 years later (El espíritu de la colmena ... 31 años después), whose participants included the director himself. (See the bibliographical appendix.) In the same year the film was released again in Spanish cinemas.
The documentary film Traces of a Spirit (Huellas de un espíritu), made for Canal + in 1998, made an earlier contribution to the retrospective . Interviewed include the director Víctor Erice and the co-writer of the screenplay Ángel Fernández-Santos, the producer Elías Querejeta and the leading actress Ana Torrent. The setting is the original location and the production site of the 1973 film, i.e. the municipality of Hoyuelos in the province of Segovia. A special feature are the cinematic reflections interspersed in the form of re-enactments: For example, The Spirit of the Beehive is projected for the residents of Hoyuelos in the same building in which, twenty-five years earlier, the film itself was staged , also with the villagers as extras, of Frankenstein has been. The (visibly aged) public crier repeated her appearance, this time to announce the film that was shot on site. Edited with individual scenes from the original film, these recordings unfold a metapoietic potential that is otherwise unusual for documentary films . In a way, even the idea that was rejected in the final version of the screenplay is taken up again, to tell Ana's story as a flashback , that is, from the perspective of a 30-year-old woman trying to reconstruct memories from her childhood: the recordings of the now thirty-two-year-old Ana Torrent at the Arriving in Hoyuelos and visiting the locations seem to have been inspired by Erice or Fernández-Santos.
Reviews
«La música, evocadora de melodías populares que oscuramente nos hablan, es límpida, voluntariamente desnuda y penetrante. El diálogo, escaso, cotidiano, con enormes pausas que intensifican la capacidad significativa de las imágenes - y esto sí que es verdadero cine - elaboran ese universo hosco, secretísimo, lleno de pesadumbre y de sueños que comportan angustia. »
“The music, from which conjured up folk songs whisper to us, is transparent, haunting and deliberate simplicity. There are enormous pauses between the sparse everyday dialogues, which reinforce the meaningfulness of the images and from which - cinema in its purest form - this rejecting, discreet, melancholy and dreamlike-restrictive universe emerges. "
«Apartándose de los esquemas narrativos más o menos standard, Erice nos presenta una serie de pictures cuyo ritmo interno no está en función de la explicación de una historia en el sentido clásico. En efecto, cada imagen funciona como una sugerencia. [….] Toda la agilidad que podría haberse conseguido a través del montaje queda compensada por el papel que adquiere la música. La structure de la película, en definitiva, es totalmente musical [….], Pues el contrapunto de las imágenes lo constituye la admirable musica que ha compuesto Luis de Pablo, musica que queda totalmente integrada en el contexto del film y sin la cual el resultado hubiera sido muy diferente. »
“In deviation from more or less standard narrative schemes, Erice presents us with a series of images whose inner rhythm does not depend on the narrative representation in the classical sense. Indeed, there is a suggestion in every picture. [….] All the dynamics that could have been achieved through the cut are compensated for by the role of the music. The structure of the film is ultimately musical through and through [….], Since the counterpoint of the images is set by the admirable music composed by Luis de Pablo, music that is completely integrated into the cinematic context, without which the result would be completely different would."
“Erice's triumph here is not only to make the children's fantasies tangible enough for us to feel them as well, but to bend the present obsession of the Spanish cinema with macabre subjects to his own purpose; rejecting the Hammer-like horrors and Hitchcock borrowings of his fellow directors, he has created a dreamworld where, even in the darkness outside, strangers and monsters can take on a benevolent aspect and respond with love. Using imagery full of burnished yellows and browns reflecting the dry, country exteriors (finely shot by Luis Cuadrado), Erice turns even an over-familiar idea - the children listening for an approaching train on a deserted track - into a poetic event climaxed by a ravishing shot of the two tiny figures dwarfed by the flashing mechanical monster. "
“Erice not only manages to make children's fantasies so tangible for us that we can empathize with them, but also makes the current obsession of Spanish film with macabre content subservient; By denying himself hammer-style horror as well as borrowing from his fellow directors at Hitchcock, he has created a dream world in which, even outside in the dark, strangers and monsters can appear kind and respond with love. Using image material in bright yellow and brown tones to reproduce the arid landscapes (excellently captured by Luis Cuadrado), Erice even turns an overused idea - the children listening to the empty railroad track after an approaching train - into a poetic event that turns into a ravishing one Image of the two tiny figures overshadowed by the flashing, mechanical monster culminates. "
“The film can be construed in many ways but is, above all, an almost perfect summation of child hood imaginings. It is also about the pall Franco's long shadow left over Spain. Ana's father, played with understated power by Fernando Fernán Gómez, has evidently been traumatised by the civil war and is a shadowy figure [….]. The film is thus cloaked in quiet and sadness, through which its children move almost as if in a dreamworld of their own. It is brilliantly shot by the great Luis Cuadrado in atmospherically muted colors [….]. Few know that Cuadrado was going blind at the time, which makes his work all the more remarkable. There is also a memorable score from Luis de Pablo, which sums up everything while underlining nothing. It is virtually impossible to get the sight and sound of the film out of one's mind after watching it. "
“The film allows for many interpretations, but the bottom line is, above all, an almost perfect series of children's ideas. It also deals with the deadly rigidity that has cast over Spain with Franco's long shadow. Ana's father, portrayed in a reserved and haunting manner by Fernando Fernán Gómez, is obviously traumatized by the civil war and leads a shadowy existence [...]. Therefore, the film is overgrown with silence and sadness, through which the children move almost as if in their own dream world. The great Luis Cuadrado captured all of this brilliantly in subdued colors [...]. Few know that Cuadrado began to go blind at the time in question, which only makes his work appear more remarkable. And then the unforgettable score by Luis de Pablo, in which everything is included without being overdrawn. After seeing the film, it is practically impossible to banish your images and sounds from your consciousness. "
“In his debut, the director knows how to draw the few characters (and their worlds). He does not stage things in a formalistic way, rather he leaves a lot of freedom to the happening in rigid shots and thus achieves an impression that emerges above all from the unconscious play of the children. "
"The political message of the film, which is excellently interpreted by the leading actress, is difficult to decipher due to the subtle and differentiated, but very intellectual staging."
Awards
Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos, 1973:
- Best movie
- Best director
- Best Actor: Fernando Fernán Gómez
San Sebastián International Film Festival, 1973:
- Golden shell
Chicago International Film Festival , 1973:
- Silver Hugo
Fotogramas de Plata , 1974:
- Best Spanish Actor: Ana Torrent
Association of Latin Entertainment Critics (New York), 1977:
- Best film director
- Best Actress in a Film: Ana Torrent
DVD release
The film is available on DVD with German subtitles from trigon-film .
Translation references
- ↑ More puzzling than Ana's disappearing is the shot of a bonfire, which becomes the fireplace fire in Teresa's room. Does this scene suggest that the wounded soldier is the one to whom Teresa has been writing, and that she destroys her letter for fear that it may be discovered?
- ↑ Un hombre de espaldas en un balcón contemplando el crepúsculo, [….] Una mujer que escribe una carta.
- ↑ ¿No ha sido él también triturado en parte como una seta ponzoñosa? ¿Cómo no guarda mayor solidaridad con su hermana réproba del reino vegetal?
- ↑ Su identificación fue tal que no paró hasta que cambié el nombre de su personaje, ya que no estaba previsto que se llamara como ella, Ana. Así que, a raíz de su exigencia, decidí que todos los demás personajes de la historia llevaran el nombre propio, real, del actor o de la actriz que los interpretaban.
- ↑ Isabel Telleria and Teresa Gimpera give such power to secondary roles that they no longer seem secondary. Another non-professional, Isabel enacts the role of the older sister and diabolic pre-adolescent with humor and lovable deviousness.
- ↑ They form that important divide where Ana depends on her big sister to explain mysteries.
- ↑ La pregunta respecto a por qué muere la niña fue la primera que se le ocurrió a Ana sobre la historia del monstruo-espíritu. No se le da otra respuesta sino la representación misma de la muerte, que su hermana interpreta para ella. Así debe pasar por la angustia de lo inexplicable, de lo injustificable.
- ↑ Tenía Cuadrado, además una idea muy concreta sobre la ambientación lumínica y los matices cromáticos. Lo que le había llamado la atención en Vermeer, por ejemplo, no había sido sólo el tipo de iluminación interior procedente de las ventanas, sino también esa tonalidad verdosa amarillenta, que el deseaba trasladar al film.
- ↑ La luz eléctrica no aparece. Durante el día, la luz entra por los ventanales; por la noche, procedure de velas y quinqués. Para recrear este ambiente, para hacerlo creíble y verista, Cuadrado utiliza una luz difusa, parca, reglada y zonal.
- ↑ Su emotiva capacidad para trabajar con luz natural exigua le permitía, más que iluminar, controlar la luz ambiental. In El espíritu de la colmena , lo hizo básicamente mediante cuatro sistemas: rodar con cielo nublado, rodar en horas crepusculares, utilizar palios y aplicar reflectores suaves.
- ↑ As a criminal mind capable of violence, and with a name similar to Franco, the monster may be seen as a metaphor of the Spanish dictator.
- ↑ Visual references to the political and economic conditions of the postwar era abound, but are presented in a subtle, understated manner.
- ↑ [….] Signs of economic scarcity, suggesting that rural Spain is still largely a pre-industrial society.
- ↑ Aparato en galena
- ↑ “Las noticias que recibimos de fuera son tan pocas y tan confusas ....”
- ↑ " La colmena es una novela sin héroe, en la que todos sus personajes, como el caracol, viven inmersos en su propia insignificancia."
- ↑ [Los más de dos centenares de personajes de la novela] quedan agrupados en un magma humano que adquiere personalidad propia y representa la sociedad total, la población de la ciudad.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Erice / Santos, 1976: p. 164
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 40.
- ↑ a b Pena, 2004: pp. 14-37.
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 37.
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005 S. 457th
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 38
- ↑ a b Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 461
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 16
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 245 (footnote 9)
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 34
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 459
- ↑ Erice / Santos, 1976: p. 21
- ↑ a b Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 460
- ^ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 10
- ↑ a b c Ebert, 2012
- ↑ Erice / Santos, 1976: p. 22
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.97
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 109 (footnote)
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: pp. 126-27
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.114
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 31
- ↑ a b Pena, 2004: p. 70
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 101
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p 134
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.103
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 32
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p 132
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.105
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.131
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 33
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 23
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.113
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p 115
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 116 (including footnote)
- ↑ Erice / Santos, 1976: p. 25
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p 465
- ↑ Erice / Santos, 1976: pp. 140-141.
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 27
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p.247
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 20
- ↑ a b Higginbotham, 1998: p. 21
- ↑ Erice / Santos, 1976: p. 57
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 7
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p 453
- ↑ Higginbotham, 1998: p. 8
- ↑ Maeterlinck: La vie des abeilles (1901), III, 24
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 43
- ^ Maeterlinck: La vie des abeilles (1901), I, 8
- ↑ Urrutia, 1994: p. 17
- ^ El País , Nov. 22, 2010.
- ↑ a b Higginbotham, 1998: p. 35
- ↑ youtube.com (Last accessed on July 31, 2014.)
- ^ The Guardian , Nov. 26, 2006.
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: pp. 68-74.
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: pp. 199-211
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005: p. 213.
- ↑ Pérez Perucha, 2005 S. 214th
- ^ Pena, 2004: p. 33
- ↑ The spirit of the beehive. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 3, 2017 .
bibliography
- In spanish language
- Erice, Víctor / Fernández Santos, Angel: El espíritu de la colmena . (Script with a foreword by the philosopher Fernando Savater, as well as excerpts from an interview with V. Erice.) Elías Querejeta Ediciones. Madrid, 1976.
- Erice, Víctor: Encarnaciones, Alumbramientos . See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- García Santamaría, José Vicente: El espíritu de la colmena en el proyecto Querejeta . See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- Pena, Jaime: Víctor Erice: El espíritu de la colmena . Paidós. Barcelona, 2004
- Palacio, Manuel: Lluvia fina: contingencias preliminares de la recepción . See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- Parrondo, Eva: Madre, hijas y espíritu ... See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- Pérez Perucha, Julio (ed.): El espíritu de la colmena ... 31 años después. (Various authors, with an introduction by the editor.) Ediciones de la Filmoteca. Valencia, 2005.
- Rubio Munt, José Luis: Iluminar y procesar: La miel en los ojos. See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- Saborit, José: La pintura en la mirada. Notas sobre la presencia de la pintura en El espíritu de la colmena. See: Pérez Perucha, 2005.
- Urrutia, Jorge (ed.): La colmena (novel by Camilo José Cela). Ediciones Cátedra, SA Madrid, 1994.
- In English
- Higginbotham, Virginia: The Spirit of the Beehive - El espíritu de la colmena . Flicks Books. Trowbridge, 1998.
- Press
- Genover, Jaume: La película del mes "El espíritu de la colmena" de Víctor Erice. Dirigido por ..., January 1974.
- Gillett, John: The spirit of the beehive . Sight & Sound , winter 1973/74.
- López Sancho, Lorenzo: Una gran película secreta y sugestiva: “El espíritu de la colmena” . ABC , October 11, 1973 (morning edition).
- Between aspiration and compromise: The San Sebastian Film Festival. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 6, 1973.
- Online
- del Toro, Guillermo: Interview with The Guardian newspaper . theguardian.com (last accessed June 28, 2014).
- Ebert, Roger: Great Movies: The spirit of the beehive. rogerebert.com (last accessed June 22, 2014).
- Malcolm, Derek: Víctor Erice: The Spirit of the Beehive: In the shadow of Franco . The Guardian , September 16, 1999. theguardian.com (last accessed June 28, 2014).
- Online (spanish)
- de Pablo, Luis: Interview with the daily newspaper El País (Basque regional edition). elpais.com (last accessed on June 22, 2014).
- Secondary literature
- Dubroux, Danièle: La lumière et l'ombre (L'esprit de la ruche) . Cahiers du Cinéma No. 274, March 1977.
- Gubern, Román: Historia del Cine . Ediciones Lumen, SA Barcelona, 2000.
- Guía para ver: El espíritu de la colmena (collective of authors). NAU llibres. Valencia, 1998.
- Latorre Izquierdo, Jorge: Tres décadas de El éspiritu de la colmena: Víctor Erice . Ediciones Internacionales Universitarios, SA Madrid, 2006.
Web links
- The Spirit of the Beehive in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Spirit of the Beehive at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- The Spirit of the Beehive at Metacritic (English)
- The child's view of the screen and the world at www.filmundkindheit.de (German)