Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

That kind of dilemma, the impossibility of satisfying a simple desire,often occurs in my movies. In L'Age d'or, for example, two peoplewant to get together but can't, and in That Obscure Object of Desirethere's an aging man who can't satisfy his sexual desire. Similarly,Archibaldo de la Cruz tries in vain to commit suicide, while thecharacters in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie try very hard to eatdinner together, but never can manage to do it.Two years after Exterminating Angel, Alatriste suggested I hakea film in Mexico on the strange character of Saint Simeon Stylites,the fourth-century hermit who spent forty years perched on top of acolumn in the Syrian desert. I'd been intrigued by this figure eversince Lorca introduced me to Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legendwhen we were both university students in Madrid. He used to laughwhen he read how the hermit's excrement, which ran the length ofthe column, looked like the wax from a taper. (In reality, since allSt. Simeon ate was lettuce leaves, it must have looked more like goatturds. )And so one very rainy day in New York, I set out for the PublicLibrary on Forty-second Street to do some research. But when Ilooked up what I knew to be the best book on the subject (by FatherFestugikres), the card was missing from the catalogue. As I turnedaround in frustration, what did I see but the man sitting next to me,who was holding the card in his hand.Finally, the screenplay was complete. But Alatriste ran into someunfortunate financial problems during the shoot, and I had to cut afull half of the film; a meeting under the snow, some pilgrimagescenes, and a visit from the emperor of Byzantium all wound upliterally on the cutting-room floor, which explains why the endingseems somewhat abrupt. Yet, such as it is, Simon of the Desert wonfive awards at the Venice Film Festival, a record unmatched by anyof my other movies.In 1963, the French producer Serge Silberman came to Spain,rented an apartment at the Torre de Madrid, and sent word that hewanted to meet me. It happened that I was living in the apartment