Luis García Berlanga

Luis García Berlanga

Birth : 1921-07-12, Valencia, España

Death : 2010-11-13

History

One of the best known filmmakers in the world and director of some of the most famous films of Spanish cinema, tender in his vision of the characters, but satirical to the point of biting in his social analysis, clearly critical despite the censorship of the Franco regime. He was born in 1921 into a wealthy Valencian family. After the Second World War, he studied at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (IIEC/EOC), where he would later become a professor. There he met Juan Antonio Bardem, and together they made their first film. His narrative ability, together with the sharpness of his satire, bordering on nonsense, made him a popular filmmaker, but also valued by critics. Nevertheless, within his comic line he oscillates between tenderness and the grotesqueness of his choral comedies. Between both extremes are his first films, written in collaboration with Rafael Azcona, in which he develops a black humor, characteristic of both, corrosive denunciations of social hypocrisy and the death penalty. In recent years he was president of the Filmoteca Nacional de España and director of a collection of erotic novels and short stories.

Profile

Luis García Berlanga

Movies

El joven Berlanga
Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
The early days of the future genius of Spanish cinema Luis García Berlanga, from his birth in Valencia in 1921 to his departure to Madrid in 1947 to become a filmmaker.
The Invisible Half: Luis García Berlanga's The Executioner
Interviewee
Documentary about Spanish director Luis García Berlanga's "The Executioner" (1963)
Enrique Herreros
Himself - Filmmaker (archive footage)
The story of Enrique Herreros (1903-1977), cartoonist, advertiser, poster designer, talent manager, actor, producer and filmmaker, and the most daring of mountaineers; the man who, along with his companions from the so-called “other Generation of '27,” brought Hollywood to Madrid's Gran Vía, turning a grey and sinister post-war city into the capital of an incipient and ambitious cultural industry.
Por la gracia de Luis
Himself
A walk through the work of Luis García Berlanga (1921-2010) that is neither a documentary nor a narrative movie, but a tribute to one of the greatest directors of Spanish cinema. Anything can happen: the performers are not themselves, but their characters; there are no interviews, but greetings; a series of entrances and exits. A joyful reunion, a celebration of life.
Calle Bardem
Interviewee
A documentary on the revolutionary life and career of director Juan Antonio Bardem, including interviews with many of his colleagues, including Luis Garcia Berlanga.
Filmmakers vs. Tycoons
Himself
How the cinema industry does not respect the author's work as it was conceived, how manipulates the motion pictures in order to make them easier to watch by an undemanding audience or even how mutilates them to adapt the original formats and runtimes to the restrictive frame of the television screen and the abusive requirements of advertising. (Followed by “Filmmakers in Action.”)
From Kuleshov to Berlanga
Himself
El sueño de la maestra
Writer
The teacher explains to her students, step by step and with full details and live examples, how are the different types of execution: the electric chair, the garrote, the gallows ..
El sueño de la maestra
Director
The teacher explains to her students, step by step and with full details and live examples, how are the different types of execution: the electric chair, the garrote, the gallows ..
La ley del cholo II
París-Tombuctú
Writer
The frustration and vital weariness of Michel des Assantes, a prestigious plastic surgeon in Paris, is unbearable: he has a wife whom he does not love, a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life. One day, he buys a bike from a bizarre cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the journey: then, Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land.
París-Tombuctú
Director
The frustration and vital weariness of Michel des Assantes, a prestigious plastic surgeon in Paris, is unbearable: he has a wife whom he does not love, a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life. One day, he buys a bike from a bizarre cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the journey: then, Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land.
Everyone Off to Jail
Writer
A prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. The reunion proves more raucous than the organizers intended.
Everyone Off to Jail
Story
A prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. The reunion proves more raucous than the organizers intended.
Everyone Off to Jail
Director
A prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. The reunion proves more raucous than the organizers intended.
Moors and Christians
Screenplay
A peculiar family, which owns a nougat factory, decides to set out on a trip to Madrid in order to advertise its products in a Food Fair. Besides the disapproval from the family head and company founder, events are not as expected.
Moors and Christians
Director
A peculiar family, which owns a nougat factory, decides to set out on a trip to Madrid in order to advertise its products in a Food Fair. Besides the disapproval from the family head and company founder, events are not as expected.
A la pálida luz de la luna
Himself
Carmen leaves her husband Julio to go live with an intellectual who has made a career in the United States. While, Julio goes away to live of rent to house of an aristocrat come to less. After meeting several colorful characters, Julio decides to recover Carmen.
The Heifer
Story
During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.
The Heifer
Screenplay
During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.
The Heifer
Director
During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.
De mica en mica s'omple la pica
Peris
National III
Writer
In order to solve economic problems, "Leguineche" family decide to move to France with their limited belongings.
National III
Director
In order to solve economic problems, "Leguineche" family decide to move to France with their limited belongings.
National Heritage
Writer
The monarchy has returned. The Leguineche, too.
National Heritage
Director
The monarchy has returned. The Leguineche, too.
A Tied Blasé
Erotic Stories
Hombre del metro
A set of nine stories whose central theme is eroticism. The different directors of the film deal from philosophical aspects to others that are almost pornographic, but always with a common denominator: sensuality.
The National Shotgun
Screenplay
A catalan manufacturer of intercoms travels to Madrid, accompanied by his mistress, to attend a hunt that he has organized. Its main purpose is to mix with people of high society to improve their business. All seems well until the owner of the farm shows full authority over James, who is the real organizer of the meeting. The celebration is diverse characters who live next to absurd situations.
The National Shotgun
Director
A catalan manufacturer of intercoms travels to Madrid, accompanied by his mistress, to attend a hunt that he has organized. Its main purpose is to mix with people of high society to improve their business. All seems well until the owner of the farm shows full authority over James, who is the real organizer of the meeting. The celebration is diverse characters who live next to absurd situations.
Una noche embarazosa
Writer
An Italian taxicab driver is used as a "breeding man" to save the inheritance of a wealthy family in Mexico.
To My Dear Mother on Her Birthday
Original Story
Count Fernando, called Didino, a shy and sexually repressed man, lives under the oedipal authority of countess Mafalda, his bloodsucking and over-controlling mother, until their family hires a new young maid that changes his life.
Life Size
Writer
When Michel gets the life-sized sex doll he ordered, shipped directly from Japan, he is only intrigued by it at first. Then the silent unresponsiveness of the thing begins to haunt him, and he finds himself reacting to it as if it were an equally unresponsive living woman. As time passes, more and more of his life is spent trying to satisfy or placate its relentless silence, and he goes somewhat mad. He dresses the doll and takes it with him wherever he goes. When his usually very tolerant wife discovers what is going on, her jealousy knows no bounds and she attempts to imitate this threatening love-object. The light-hearted quality of this addle-pated fantasy darkens quickly when various neighborhood men attempt to put the doll to its originally intended use.
Life Size
Director
When Michel gets the life-sized sex doll he ordered, shipped directly from Japan, he is only intrigued by it at first. Then the silent unresponsiveness of the thing begins to haunt him, and he finds himself reacting to it as if it were an equally unresponsive living woman. As time passes, more and more of his life is spent trying to satisfy or placate its relentless silence, and he goes somewhat mad. He dresses the doll and takes it with him wherever he goes. When his usually very tolerant wife discovers what is going on, her jealousy knows no bounds and she attempts to imitate this threatening love-object. The light-hearted quality of this addle-pated fantasy darkens quickly when various neighborhood men attempt to put the doll to its originally intended use.
Long Live the Bride and Groom
Writer
Leo Pozas, native from Burgos and high bank clerk, arrives to a town on the Costa Brava, with his mother to marry Loli. Unexpectedly, Leo's mother died. This may mean the suspension of the wedding, a year of mourning and, perhaps, another relief, so that Leo and Loli hide the corpse of the old betrothal until after the wedding...
Long Live the Bride and Groom
Director
Leo Pozas, native from Burgos and high bank clerk, arrives to a town on the Costa Brava, with his mother to marry Loli. Unexpectedly, Leo's mother died. This may mean the suspension of the wedding, a year of mourning and, perhaps, another relief, so that Leo and Loli hide the corpse of the old betrothal until after the wedding...
Sharon vestida de rojo
Víctor
Tuset Street
Aparicio
Barcelona 1967. The pop culture revolution. Jordi (Patrick Bauchau) is a rich playboy who runs around with a bunch of high-end hippies, smoking, drinking, dancing and daydreaming about Tuset Street, an effort to develop a popular street in the newer section of Barcelona after the models of Haight Ashbury Street in San Francisco and Carnaby Street in London. Jordi and his gang represent the new Barcelona, wealthy, artificial and striving for imported sophistication. On the older side of the city is El Paralelo, the theater district. At El Molino, one of its many music halls, performs Violeta (Sara Montiel), a showgirl in the old style tradition who supplements her singing income with prostitution. Somehow Violeta represents the old values, the "real world" living along side an artificial creation such as Tuset.
Días de viejo color
Mr. Marshall
In the Easter holidays of 1967, three friends come to Torremolinos willing to flirt and experience strong emotions. Contact with a new environment, in which while some find the lies that hide behind the luxury and splendor and dangers that accompany life easier, others find true love.
No somos de piedra
Guardia urbano
Lucas, typical average Spaniard, shy, gray and repressed, is married to sanctimonious Enriqueta, so he is always aware of other women, although the couple are already parents of nine children, which is why Lucas will do the unspeakable to convince his wife to take the contraceptive pill, something practically sinful for a practicing Catholic like Enriqueta.
Las pirañas
Screenplay
Ricardo is an executive who has great success with women and behaves almost like a play-boy. His wife, Carmen, an attractive housewife without children, it feels ignored by him and seeks solace from her mother, who proposes Carmen a change in the way she acts in order to do not lose permanently her husband or even fall into madness.
Las pirañas
Film Buff
Ricardo is an executive who has great success with women and behaves almost like a play-boy. His wife, Carmen, an attractive housewife without children, it feels ignored by him and seeks solace from her mother, who proposes Carmen a change in the way she acts in order to do not lose permanently her husband or even fall into madness.
Las pirañas
Director
Ricardo is an executive who has great success with women and behaves almost like a play-boy. His wife, Carmen, an attractive housewife without children, it feels ignored by him and seeks solace from her mother, who proposes Carmen a change in the way she acts in order to do not lose permanently her husband or even fall into madness.
October in Madrid
Initially a made-to-order documentary on Spain, the film becomes an open-ended work-in-the-making about the creative process. “Settling in the Spanish capital to make a documentary, Hanoun sketches out for us the different steps involved in making a film. The author turns his hesitations, his doubts and difficult working conditions into the constituents of his work”. (Raphaël Bassan)
Strange Voyage
Idea
In a small town near Madrid, Paquita and her brother Venancio, both single and with a childish personality, live under the shadow of their bossy older sister, Ignacia, a grumpy old maid.
The Executioner
Screenplay
An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.
The Executioner
Director
An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.
La muerte y el leñador
Director
3 Fables of Love
Director
"Les quatre vérités" aka "The Four Truths" is a movie anthology that consists of four segments, all loosely parodying fables from the 17th-century French poet Jean de la Fontaine. The US cut usually features only 3 segments.
Placido
Screenstory
In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.
Placido
Screenplay
In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.
Placido
Director
In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.
Streetcar for Sale
Writer
This excellent short film written by the magnificent filmmaker duo of Luis García Berlanga and screenwriter Rafael Azcona was to be part of a series entitled Los Pícaros (The Rogues) which was never continued. These two artists were responsible for such masterpieces of Spanish cinema as Plácido and El verdugo (The Executioner). Here, Berlanga and Azcona collaborated for the first time, setting the stage for the post-war "Berlanguiana" vision that would develop. José Luis López Vázquez plays Julián, a seedy swindler, who with his cronies tries to sell a streetcar to a rich but naive farmer, a newcomer to the city. High jinx ensue. With this film begins the great stage of Berlanga's filmmaking in which he mixes a little social criticism and notes of anti-clericalism with a great deal of farce.
Streetcar for Sale
Comprador de la baliza aerostática (uncredited)
This excellent short film written by the magnificent filmmaker duo of Luis García Berlanga and screenwriter Rafael Azcona was to be part of a series entitled Los Pícaros (The Rogues) which was never continued. These two artists were responsible for such masterpieces of Spanish cinema as Plácido and El verdugo (The Executioner). Here, Berlanga and Azcona collaborated for the first time, setting the stage for the post-war "Berlanguiana" vision that would develop. José Luis López Vázquez plays Julián, a seedy swindler, who with his cronies tries to sell a streetcar to a rich but naive farmer, a newcomer to the city. High jinx ensue. With this film begins the great stage of Berlanga's filmmaking in which he mixes a little social criticism and notes of anti-clericalism with a great deal of farce.
Tenemos 18 años
Associate Producer
Comedy about the surreal holiday of two teenage Spanish girls, where they meet a bizarre assortment of villains and new friends.
Familia provisional
Writer
Miracles of Thursday
Screenstory
In Fontecilla, a Spanish village in decline, the mayor and other illustrious citizens hatch a crazy plan to revitalize tourism.
Miracles of Thursday
Screenplay
In Fontecilla, a Spanish village in decline, the mayor and other illustrious citizens hatch a crazy plan to revitalize tourism.
Miracles of Thursday
Director
In Fontecilla, a Spanish village in decline, the mayor and other illustrious citizens hatch a crazy plan to revitalize tourism.
The Rocket from Calabuch
Screenplay
Professor Hamilton, a naive Nuclear scientist who once thought bombs were good for humanity, realizes his mistake and runs away from his inventions. He hides in Calabuch, a beautiful seaside town where people still believe in humor and friendship.
The Rocket from Calabuch
Director
Professor Hamilton, a naive Nuclear scientist who once thought bombs were good for humanity, realizes his mistake and runs away from his inventions. He hides in Calabuch, a beautiful seaside town where people still believe in humor and friendship.
Boyfriend in Sight
Screenplay
In 1914, a young woman is taken to a coastal resort by her parents to find her a suitable husband.
Boyfriend in Sight
Director
In 1914, a young woman is taken to a coastal resort by her parents to find her a suitable husband.
That Happy Couple
Screenplay
Juan and Carmen are a humble couple living in Madrid. She does the housework and he works as an electrician in a film studio. Their dreams of wellness come true when they win a contest sponsored by a soap brand.
That Happy Couple
Director
Juan and Carmen are a humble couple living in Madrid. She does the housework and he works as an electrician in a film studio. Their dreams of wellness come true when they win a contest sponsored by a soap brand.
Welcome Mr. Marshall!
Screenplay
A small Spanish town, Villar del Río, is alerted to the upcoming visit of American diplomats and its ruling townsmen begin preparations to impress the American visitors, in the hopes of benefiting under the Marshall Plan. Hoping to demonstrate the side of Spanish culture with which the visiting foreign officials would be more familiarized, the Castilian citizens don unfamiliar Andalusian costumes, hire a renowned flamenco performer, and re-decorate their town in Andalusian style, meantime waiting for their uncertain arrival.
Welcome Mr. Marshall!
Director
A small Spanish town, Villar del Río, is alerted to the upcoming visit of American diplomats and its ruling townsmen begin preparations to impress the American visitors, in the hopes of benefiting under the Marshall Plan. Hoping to demonstrate the side of Spanish culture with which the visiting foreign officials would be more familiarized, the Castilian citizens don unfamiliar Andalusian costumes, hire a renowned flamenco performer, and re-decorate their town in Andalusian style, meantime waiting for their uncertain arrival.
El circo
Director
Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.
Paseo por una guerra antigua
Screenplay
Madrid, Spain. A mutilated man, a war veteran, walks, leaning on a crutch, through the stadium of the Ciudad Universitaria, a place that still preserves in walls and buildings the terrifying traces of one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War.
Paseo por una guerra antigua
Director
Madrid, Spain. A mutilated man, a war veteran, walks, leaning on a crutch, through the stadium of the Ciudad Universitaria, a place that still preserves in walls and buildings the terrifying traces of one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War.