Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

meaning for them, some kind of affinity. When I came back in, I'dtry to guess who had chosen what, an exercise in concentration,intuition, and perhaps a little telepathy. (In New York during thewar, I used to try this with a group of expatriate surrealists--Andr6Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy-nd I nevermade a mistake.)In this vein, I have one last memory to expiate: I was having adrink with Claude Jaeger at the Select in Paris one evening andkame so outrageously rowdy that all the customers left. Only onewoman remained behind. Not exactly sober, I made my way to hertable, sat down, and started talking, announcing to her that she wasRussian, that she'd been born in Moscow . . . and after a string ofother details, we both simply stared at each other openmouthedwe'dnever seen each other before!Movies have a hypnotic power, too. Just watch people leaving amovie theatre; they're usually silent, their heads droop, they havethat absentminded look on their fxes, unlike audiences at plays,bullfights, and sports events, where they show much more energyand animation. This kind of cinematographic hypnosis is no doubtdue to the darkness of the theatre and to the rapidly changing scenes,lights, and camera movements, which weaken the spectator's criticalintelligence and exercise over him a kind of fascination. Sometimes,watching a movie is a bit like being raped.Since I'm on the subject of my friends in Madrid, I want tomention Juan Negrin, the future Republican prime minister. Negrinstudied in Germany for several years and was a superb physiologyprofessor. I remember trying to intercede on behalf of Pepin Bello,who kept failing his medical exams; but Negrin never made allowancesof that kind. There was also the great Eugenio d'Ors, a philosopherfrom Catalonia and apostle of the baroque, which he sawnot merely as a passing historical phenomenon, but as a findmentaltendency in life as well as art. He was the author of a line I oftencite against those who seek originality at the expense of everythingelse. "What doesn't grow out of tradition," he used to say, "is