Spanish director, writer defied Franco
Carlos Saura, a Spanish screenwriter-director whose powerfully disquieting films of the 1960s and ’70s challenged myths of national identity under the fascist dictator Francisco Franco and whose later work dramatized the culture of folkloric dance, died Feb. 10 at his home in Madrid. He was 91.
The Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences announced the death, which came a day before Saura was to receive a Goya award honoring career excellence. Spanish media reported the cause was respiratory problems.
The philosophical thread that bound Saura’s two cinematic legacies — his allegorically veiled attacks on the Franco regime in works such as “The Hunt” (1966), “The Garden of Delights” (1970) and “Ana and the Wolves” (1973), and his subsequent veneration of flamenco, tango and fado in exhilarating dance movies — was freedom of expression: artistic, political, social and sexual.
In a career spanning more than six decades and more than 50 films, Saura saw himself as an heir to the moviemaking tradition established by his friend and creative soul mate, Luis Buñuel.
“We shared themes about the personal suffocation caused by Spanish religion, education, family life,” Saura, who also wrote most of the films he directed, told the New York Times. “Film to me was a way to do gymnastics of the imagination to escape.”
Under Franco, who ruled the country for four decades until his death in 1975, the Spanish government sought to instill a deeply conservative national identity centered on family, church and state.
Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis García Berlanga, distinguished Spanish directors of the early Franco era, trafficked in gallows humor but avoided directly confronting the regime. Buñuel, a master of surreal imagery who aimed his mordantly irreverent plots at bourgeois values, mostly worked in exile.
But Saura remained in Madrid, wielding a formidable combination of technical skill and political savvy at a pivotal moment as Spain sought to project a more open and modern image abroad. By the 1960s, the country was desperately lagging behind France and Italy in moviemaking cachet and sought to enhance its cultural standing as a way to boost tourism.
A former photographer, Saura made films of cinematographic quality and dramatic power rarely found in Spanish studios of that era. He and his producer, Elías Querejeta, actively engaged with censors to minimize cuts to their works while also cultivating international film festival judges and audiences.
With elliptical storytelling methods, often blurring time and memory, Saura cleverly managed to maintain his artistic integrity. His breakthrough was “The Hunt,” a psychological thriller about three pro-Franco veterans of the Spanish Civil War who reunite decades later to hunt rabbits and turn against one another in murderous ways.
“Saura and Querejeta milked a strategy that allowed them to avoid being marginalized at home by censors,” said Marvin D’Lugo, author of “The Films of Carlos Saura.”