Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

I remembered talking to Gerard Philipe about it several years before,as I had about Jean Giono's wonderful Le Hussard sur Ie toit, anotherconsequence of my old weakness for epidemics and plagues. Philipelistened with only half an ear, since at the time he was more interestedin "political" films like La Fih monte a El Pa* well-made movieall in all, but one about which I've nothing much to say.The Monk was soon abandoned, however, and in 1966 I accepteda proposal from the Hakim brothers to make a film based on JosephKessel's Belle demur. The novel is very melodramatic, but well constructed,and it offered me the chance to translate Severine's fantasiesinto pictorial images as well as to draw a serious portrait of a youngfemale bourgeois masochist. I was also able to indulge myself in thefaithful description of some interesting sexual perversions. (My fascinationwith fetishism was already obvious in the first scene of Eland the boot scene in Diary ofa Chambermaid.) In the last analysis,my only regret about Belle de jour was that the proprietor of thefamous Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon refused to allow me to shootthe opening scene on the premises. It's a spectacular restaurant onthe second floor of the railroad station, designed around 1900 by agroup of painters, sculptors, and decorators who created a kind ofopera-house decor devoted to trains and the countries they can takeus to. I go there often when I'm in Paris and always sit at the sametable, which overlooks the tracks.Belle de jour also brought me together again with Paco Rabal, ofNazarin and Virzdiana, a man and an actor of whom I'm very fondand who calls me "won oncle. " He needs very little direction. In fact,now that we're on the subject, I don't use any particular techniquewhen I work. My direction depends entirely on how good the actorsare, on what they suggest, or on the kind of effort I have to make ifthey're not suited to their roles. In any case, all direction dependson your personal vision, a certain something you feel strongly butcan't always explain.One other thing I do regret about this film are the cuts I had tomake to please the censors, especially the scene between Georges