Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

From Spain to Mexico to France ( I 96~-I 977) 247students to wait until Ferwdndo and I were sitting side by side in acd6, at which point the students were to come up to me, one byone, and ask for my autograph. They were instructed to ask only meand to ignore Fernando. When the scene was finally set, the firstyoung man appeared and asked for my autograph, which I gave himhappily. As soon as he walked away, without so much as a glance atFernando, a second student arrived and did exactly the same thing.As the third stepped up, Fernando burst out laughing. When I askeahim how he'd figured it out, he replied that the idea of someoneasking me for an autograph and not him seemed so utterly impossiblethat he knew it had to be a joke.When I finished work on Tristanu, I returned to Silberman's fold,rediscovering Paris, my old Montparnasse hangouts, the Hdtel I'Aig-Ion where my windows overlooked the cemetery, my early lunchesat La Couple or La Palette or the Closerie des Lilas, my daily walksand my solitary evenings. One day, when Silberman and I weretalking about uncanny repetitions, he told me a story about the timehe'd invited some people for dinner but had forgotten to tell hiswife, In f ~t, he forgot that he'd been invited out to dinner himselfthat same evening. When the guests arrived, Silberman wasn't there;his wife was, however, but in her bathrobe, and since she had noidea anyone was coming, she'd already eaten and was about to go tobed. This incident became the opening scene in Tbe Dfsmett Charm4th Bowgeoiste, and from there we repeated the pattern, inventingall sorts of situations where a group of friends keeps trying to havedinner together but can't seem to manage it. It was long, hard work,particularly because it was crucial to maintain a sufficient degree ofrealism in the midst of this delirium. The script went through fivedifferent versions while we tried to combine realism-the situationhad to be familiar and develop logically-and the accumulation ofstrange, but not fantastical, obstacles. Once again, dreams helped,particularly the notion of a dream within a dream. (I must confess,too, how happy I was to be able to include my personal recipe forthe dry martini.)