Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

would stop. For many years I argued that Potemkin was the mostbeautiful film in the history of the cinema, although today I'm notso sure. (I also remember being struck by Pabst's films, as well asMurnau's The Last Laugh.)The films that influenced me the most, however, were FritzLang's. When I saw Destiny, I suddenly knew that I too wanted tomake movies. It wasn't the three stories themselves that moved meso much, but the main episodethe arrival of the man in the blackhat (whom I instantly recognized as Death) in a Flemish villageand the scene in the cemetery. Something about this film spoke tosomething deep in me; it clarified my life and my vision of the world.This feeling occurred whenever I saw a Lang movie, particularly theNzbeIungen films and Metropolis.To be sure, making movies was a lovely idea, but how was a verydifferent story. I was Spanish and a free-lance critic~and I hadabsolutely no connections. The one name I did know, however, frommy years in Madrid, was Jean Epstein, who wrote for L'Esprit Nouw.Along with Abel Gance and Marcel 19Herbier, Epstein, originallyfrom Russia, was one of the best-known directors of the Frenchcinema. When I found out that he ran an acting school, I immediatelyenrolled, only to find that all the other students were WhiteRussians. For the first few weeks we did exercises and improvisations,on the order of "You are all condemned to death. It's the night beforeyour execution." Then Epstein would ask a student to act desperate,another pitiful, another casual or insolent. He also promised that thebest of us would have small parts in his films. He was just finishingThe Adventures of Robert Macaire, too late for me to be given a part;but one day, when the film was completed, I took a bus out to theAlbatros Studios in Montreuil-sous-Bois, where I knew he was gettingthings ready for Maupat."I know you're making another movie," I blurted out, "and Ilove film, but I know absolutely nothing about it. I can't do much,but you don't have to pay me. Just let me sweep the floor, runerrands~whatever you want, I don't care!"