Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Spain and France (193 1-1 936) 139surrealists that cooled my ardor for the movement, but also theirincreasing snobbery, their strange attraction to the aristocracy. Iremember my astonishment when I saw the large photographs ofBreton and Eluard prominently displayed in the window of a bookstoreon the boulevard Raspail when L'lmmacdie conception came out.When I questioned it, they claimed they had the right to publicizetheir work any way they liked.In addition, I wasn't too happy with the surrealist journal Mznotaure,which had become increasingly slick and bourgeois. Over aperiod of time, I gradually stopped going to meetings until finallyI left the group as simply as I'd joined it. On a personal level,however, I kept up my old friendships. Now, of course, there arevery few of us left-Aragon, Dali, Andre Masson, Thirion, JoanMirO.For a few days in 1933, I was busy with a film project, a Russianproduction of Gide's The Vatican Swindle (Les Caves du Vatican).Aragon and Paul Vaillant-Couturier, a marvelous man who used tovisit me on the rue Pascal accompanied by two plainclothesmen whopaced up and down the street under my window, set up the schedule.Gide told me how flattered he was that the Soviet government hadchosen his book, but suddenly the Russians changed their minds andbacked out. I was disappointed, but not for long, as I was soon tomake another of my own films.This time, however, the filming was in Spain. In Estremadura,between Caceres and Salarnanca, lies a desolate mountain regionpopulated only by rocks, scrub, and goats. Once upon a time, thehigh plateaus of Las Hurdes were settled by bandits, and by Jewswho'd fled the Inquisition. I'd just read a book about the region,written by the director of the French Institute in Madrid, and wasfascinated by it. Back in Saragossa, I talked to Sanchez Ventura andRamon Acin about the possibility of making a documentary."I'll tell you what," Acin said. "If I win the lottery, I'll put upthe money!"Sure enough, two months later, he won-and he kept his word.He was a committed anarchist who taught art at night to workers.