Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

published a pamphlet slandering him, and that the Communist partyhad voted to expel him. His life had fallen apart; he'd lost everythingthat mattered. As he spoke, he paced back and forth in his studio,looking handsome and courageous and very much like a lion.By the next day everything had returned to normal-Elsa cameback, the Communist party changed its mind, and as for the surrealists,what they thought no longer mattered to him. In memoryof that day fifty years ago, I've kept a copy of Persecute Perskuteur inwhich Aragon wrote an inscription. On certain days, it said, it wasgood to have a friend to come and shake your hand "when youthought your final hour had come."Albert Valentin, Renk Clair's assistant on A Nous la Liberti, wasalso part of the group at this time."It's a truly revolutionary film," he told us over and over again."You're going to love it!"The entire group attended the premiere and was profoundly disappointed;the film was so unrevolutionary that Valentin was accusedof lying and summarily expelled. Many years later, I ran into himat the Cannes Festival, where he was quite friendly and seemed tobe nursing a grand passion for roulette.Then there was Rene Crevel, a charming man and the onlyhomosexual among us. He struggled against this tendency and triedto overcome it, but along with countless other conflicts betweenCommunists and surrealists, his personal anguish was too great, andhe committed suicide one night at eleven o'clock. I wasn't in Parisat the time, but we all mourned his loss.Andre Breton seemed the perfect gentleman, ever courteous andforever kissing women's hands. He was a very serious person, despisedany kind of vulgarity, and had a keen appreciation of dry wit. Alongwith the works of Pkret, the most beautiful literary souvenir I haveof surrealism is Breton's poem about his wife. Neither his serenitynor his beauty nor his excellent taste, however, kept him from suddenviolent explosions of temper. He reproached me frequently for notwanting to introduce my fiancee, Jeanne, to the group, insinuatingthat, like all Spaniards, I was jealous. At last I gave in and agreed*