Carlos Saura was considered a living legend. The Spanish director didn’t just shoot – he photographed, painted, wrote novels, staged operas – and spoke to his country’s conscience.
Even in old age, Carlos Saura didn’t want to put his feet up. “I just can’t sit still,” legendary Spanish film director Saura (“Carmen”), just approaching his 90th birthday, told journalists on the sidelines of the San Sebastián Film Festival, where he is presenting a new short film in 2021. “You have to have projects, they breathe life into you,” he said at the time.
This Saturday Saura was to be awarded a Goya prize in Seville. The artist has also been working on a new project since last year, a highly anticipated film about legendary Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, whose death will be celebrated in April 2023. The project must probably be completed by someone else. Because Saura died on Friday at the age of 91, as announced by the Spanish Film Academy on Twitter.
Projects – Saura had so many of them that he could easily have lived 100 or 120 years without running out of work. Since beginning in 1955, he has directed more than 50 feature films and numerous short films. In Germany, alongside “Breed Raben…” (1975), “Carmen” (1983) was a hit. Regarding the ballet film about a performance of Georges Bizet’s famous opera of the same name, which got flamenco fever all over Europe at the time, Saura said a few years ago: “It’s crazy how well “Carmen” was received in Germany at the time. And the film is still shown on television , while here in Spain he has already been totally forgotten.”
He won the Goya several times
Music and dance films were the great passions of the son of a lawyer, who was born in Huesca not far from the Pyrenees in north-eastern Spain. In addition to flamenco, to which he dedicated several films, he also paid tribute to the jota dance of his native Aragon, the Argentine tango and fado from Portugal. Why so many musical films? The answer is simple: “My mother was a concert pianist, I’m a frustrated musician, but I have a great understanding of music. And there’s a demand.”
The awards just flew to the director. He received the Silver Bear twice in Berlin (1966 and 1968), and in 1981 the Golden Bear for “Los, Tempo!”. He won the Goya several times, the highest Spanish film award, in Cannes he received, among other things, the Grand Jury Prize in 1976 for “Breed Raben…”, in 1985 the Bafta Award for “Carmen” as best foreign language film and in 2004 for his Lifetime Achievement the European Film Prize.
In 2021, his music film “El rey de todo el mundo” (The King of the Whole World), shot in Mexico, was released in Spain. In addition to the Picasso project, Saura’s other plans included a film adaptation of his first novel “Dieses Licht” and a sequel to his film “Elisa, mein Leben” (1977).
The social conscience of Spain
But Saura was not only a film genius, he was also something like the social conscience of his homeland. Already in his first longer films he dealt critically with the Spanish bourgeoisie and the Franco dictatorship. The man, who was influenced by communist filmmakers, German expressionists, neo-surrealists and above all by his friend and teacher Luis Buñuel, who was over 30 years his senior, was always a tireless social critic.
Saura pilloried many things in his home country: corruption, the alleged lack of cultural awareness among the Spaniards (“We are a barbaric and lazy country”), the behavior of top politicians, who often behave like “bar bullies”, and also television, practices “indirect censorship” and avoids uncomfortable topics.
Always have the camera with you
As a young man, Saura had studied engineering and painted before trying his hand at film at the suggestion of his older brother, the famous painter Antonio Saura, who died in 1998 at the age of 67. But Saura’s favorite pastime was photography. He always carried a camera with him to public appearances and kept a collection of more than 600 devices at his home in Collado Mediano in Madrid’s Guadarrama Mountains. He regularly exhibited his multiple award-winning photo collections.
But that’s not all: between 1997 and 2004 he published three novels, wrote several screenplays and also published books on photography. He also staged the opera “Carmen” several times (he made his debut in Stuttgart in 1991) and directed it in theaters in Madrid.
Saura’s private life was just as eventful as his artistic and professional life. With four partners he fathered seven children. Among other things, he was in a relationship with the US actress Geraldine Chaplin for ten years until 1979. Since 1993 he has been with Spanish actress Eulalia Ramón, who is 28 years his junior. (dpa)