Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

images which would flash onto the screen just for an instant, justlong enough for the audience to wonder if it had really seen them ornot. For example, when the boys pursue the blind man across theempty lot, they pass a huge building under construction. I wantedto put a hundred-piece orchestra on the scaffolding, playing soundlessly.Dancigers, his eye ever on the balance sheet, however, talkedme our of it. He also forbade me to add a top hat to the scene whenPedro's mother rejects her son after he comes home. This was, infact, a very controversial scene; one of the hairdressers quit in a rage,claiming that no Mexican mother would ever do such a thing. (Afew days later, I read in a newspaper article that a Mexican motherhad thrown her baby out of a moving train.) In any case, althoughthe team worked well, everyone was hostile to Los oluidados. I rememberone technician asking me why I didn't make a real Mexicanmovie instead of this pathetic one. And Pedro de Urdemalas, a writerwho collaborated with me on the script, refused to allow his namein the credits.The movie was made in twenty-one days, right on schedule, asusual. (Where deadlines are concerned, I've never missed a singleone, nor has it ever taken me more than three or four days to do theediting. In addition, I've never used more than twenty thousandmeters of celluloid, which in movie terms is very little.) For bothscreenplay and direction, I made the grand total of two thousanddollars~and no percentage. Although the opening in Mexico Citywas in itself uneventful, there were some violent reactions a few dayslater. One of the country's biggest problems has always been itsextreme xenophobia, based undoubtedly on a profound inferioritycomplex. Many organizations, including labor unions, demandedmy expulsion, and the press was nothing short of vitriolic in itscriticism. Such spectators as there were left the theatre looking as ifthey'd just been to a funeral. After the private screening, Lupe, thewife of Diego Rivera, refused to speak to me, while Berta, LeonFelipe's wife, attacked me nails first, shouting that it was a crimeagainst the state. With her nails hovering an inch before my eyes,