Sonatas (film)
Sonatas is a 1959 Mexican-Spanish historical drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and starring María Félix, Francisco Rabal and Aurora Bautista. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival, it is based on novels written by the Spanish author Ramón del Valle-Inclán. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Francisco Gunther Gerszo; some location shooting took place in Galicia as well as various locations around Mexico. The film was shot in Eastmancolor. María Félix as La Niña Chole Francisco Rabal as Marqués Javier de Bradomín Aurora Bautista as Concha Fernando Rey as Capitán Casares Carlos Rivas as Juan Guzmán Ignacio López Tarso as Jefe de guerrilleros Carlos Casaravilla as Conde de Brandeso David Reynoso as Teniente Elizondo Nela Conjiu as Joven loca Manuel Alexandre as Teniente Andrade Ada Carrasco as Nana José Torvay as Segundo sargento Matilde Muñoz Sampedro as Candelaria Rafael Bardem as Juan Manuel Montenegro Enrique Lucero as Militar prisionero José María Prada as Molinero Micaela Castejón as Madre abadesa Manuel Dondé as Campesino Noé Murayama as Teniente Gaviño Xan das Bolas as Tercer centinela José Chávez as Primer sargento Manuel Peiró as Estudiante Manuel Arbó as Coronel Josefina Serratosa as Molinera Edmundo Barbero as Hermano Lope Porfiria Sanchíz as Bruja Roberto Meyer as Macario Salas, viejo prisionero Mario Berriatúa as El Rubio Rogelio'Frijolitos' Jiménez Pons Rufino Inglés as Doctor Agustín Fernández as Guerrillero José Manuel Martín as Primer centinela Scott L. Baugh.
Latino American Cinema: An Encyclopedia of Movies, Stars and Trends. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Sonatas on IMDb
Javier Bardem
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. Bardem won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in the 2007 Coen Brothers film No Country for Old Men, he has received critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Boca a boca, Los lunes al sol, Mar adentro, Skyfall, for which he received both a BAFTA and a SAG nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Bardem has won a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya Awards, two European Film Awards, a Prize for Best Actor at Cannes and two Volpi Cups at Venice for his work, he is the first Spanish actor to be nominated for an Oscar, as well as the first Spaniard to win one, for Best Supporting Actor in No Country for Old Men, 2008. He received his third Academy Award nomination, second Best Actor nomination, for the film Biutiful. Bardem was born in the Canary Islands, Spain, his mother, Pilar Bardem, is an actress, his father, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague, was a businessman involved in environmental work.
The two separated shortly after his birth and his mother raised him alone. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors dating back to the earliest days of Spanish cinema. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors, he comes from a political background, as his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films. Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother; as a child, he spent time on film sets. At age six, he made his first film appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómez's El Pícaro, he played rugby for the junior Spanish National Team. Though he grew up in a family full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business. Painting was his first love, he went on to study painting for four years at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Oficios. In need of money he took acting jobs to support his painting, but he says he was a bad painter and abandoned that career pursuit. In 1989, for the Spanish comedy show El Día Por Delante, he had to wear a Superman costume for a comedic sketch, a job that made him question whether he wanted to be an actor at all.
Bardem has confessed to having worked as a stripper during his struggling acting career. Bardem came to notice in a small role in his first major motion picture, The Ages of Lulu, when he was 20, in which he appeared along with his mother, Pilar Bardem. Bigas Luna, the director of Lulu, was sufficiently impressed to give him the leading male role in his next film, Jamón Jamón in 1992, in which Bardem played a would-be underwear model and bullfighter; the film, which starred a teenaged Penélope Cruz, was a major international success. He starred again in Luna's next film Golden Balls. Bardem's talent did not go unnoticed in the English-speaking world. In 1997, John Malkovich was the first to approach him a 27-year-old, for a role in English, but the Spanish actor turned down the offer because his English was still poor, his first English-speaking role came that same year, in with director Álex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango, playing a santería-practicing bank robber. After starring in about two dozen films in his native country, he gained international recognition in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls in 2000, portraying Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas.
He received praise from his idol Al Pacino. For that role, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first for a Spaniard. After, he turned down the role of Danny Witwer in Minority Report which went to Colin Farrell. Instead, in 2002, Bardem starred in The Dancer Upstairs. Malkovich had Bardem in mind for the role of the detective's assistant, but the movie's taking so long to obtain financing gave Bardem time to learn English and take on the lead role of the detective. "I will always be grateful to him because he gave me my first chance to work in English", has said Bardem of Malkovich. Bardem won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role in Mar Adentro, released in the United States as The Sea Inside, in which he portrayed the quadriplegic turned assisted suicide activist Ramón Sampedro, he made his Hollywood debut in a brief appearance as a crime lord who summons Tom Cruise's hitman to do the dirty work of dispatching witnesses in the crime drama Collateral.
He stars in Miloš Forman's 2006 film Goya's Ghosts opposite Natalie Portman, where he plays a twisted monk during the Spanish Inquisition. In 2007, Bardem acted in two film adaptations: the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, the adaptation of the Colombian novel Love in the Time of Cholera with Giovanna Mezzogiorno by Gabriel García Márquez. In No Country for Old Men, he played Anton Chigurh. For that role, he became the first Spaniard to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, he won a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2008 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Supporting Actor. Bardem's rendition of Chigurh's trademark word, "What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?" (in respo
Welcome Mr. Marshall!
Welcome Mr. Marshall! is a 1953 Spanish comedy film directed by Luis García Berlanga, considered one of the masterpieces of Spanish cinema. The film highlights the stereotypes held by both the Spanish and the Americans regarding the culture of the other, as well as displays social criticism of 1950s Spain; the film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. A small Castilian town, Villar del Río is alerted to an upcoming visit of American diplomats. Hoping to demonstrate the side of Spanish culture with which the visiting American officials will be most accustomed, the citizens don unfamiliar Andalusian costumes, hire a renowned flamenco performer, re-decorate their town in Andalusian style. A flamenco impresario who spent time in Boston advises the locals to think of what they will ask from the Americans. On the eve of the Americans' visit, three of the central characters dream of stereotypical American culture and history, based uniquely on their lives and experiences; the mayor dreams of a Western-like bar brawl, the hidalgo dreams of the arrival of a conquistador on New World shores, the priest sees the hoods of a Holy Week procession turn into Klansmen dragging him before the Committee on Un-American Activities accompanied by jazz music.
A poorer man dreams that the Americans, shown as the Three Kings, fly over his field and parachute a new tractor into his field. The day of the Americans' visit arrives - and the whole town is prepared to put on a show. However, the American motorcade speeds through the village without stopping; the locals are left to remove the decorations and pay for the expenses with their personal belongings - including the flamenco impresario, who gives up a gold ring given to him by the Americans in Boston. It was intended as a comic vehicle for the flamenco singer Lolita Sevilla, but Berlanga decided to give it a deeper meaning; the title is mentioned in discussions of American investment in Spain as a caveat against delusion. An example is the 2012-2013 Eurovegas project. Fernando Rey as Narrator José Isbert as Don Pablo, the mayor, a hearing-impaired old man Lolita Sevilla as Carmen Vargas, a flamenco artist from Andalusia Alberto Romea as Don Luis, the hidalgo Manolo Morán as Manolo, the scheming agent for Carmen Vargas Luis Pérez de León as Don Cosme, the priest, concerned about the American heretics Elvira Quintillá as Miss Eloísa, the teacher Félix Fernández as Don Emiliano, the doctor Nicolás D. Perchicot as the pharmacist Joaquín Roa as the town crier Fernando Aguirre as the secretary José Franco as the general delegate Rafael Alonso as the enviado José María Rodríguez as José Elisa Méndez as Doña Raquel Matilde López Roldán as Doña Matilde Bienvenido Mister Marshall on IMDb
1955 Cannes Film Festival
The 8th Cannes Film Festival was held from 26 April to 10 May 1955. The Golden Palm went to the US film Marty by Delbert Mann; the festival opened with Du rififi chez les hommes by Jules Dassin and closed with Carmen Jones by Otto Preminger. Until the 1954 Festival, the whimsical way various prizes were being awarded had drawn much criticism. In answer to this, from 1955 onwards, the Jury was composed of foreign celebrities from the film industry. In 1955, the first Palme d'Or was awarded, as the highest prize of the Festival; the following people were appointed as the Jury of the 1955 competition:Feature films Marcel Pagnol Jury President Marcel Achard Juan Antonio Bardem A. Dignimont Jacques-Pierre Frogerais Leopold Lindtberg Anatole Litvak Isa Miranda Leonard Mosley Jean Nery Sergei Yutkevich Short films Jacques Doniol-Valcroze Herman van der Horst Marcel Ichac Karl Korn Jean Perdrix The following feature films competed for the Palme d'Or: The following films were selected to be screened out of competition: Italia K2 by Marcello Balbi Les trésors de la Mer Rouge by Michel Rocca The following short films competed for the Short Film Palme d'Or: The following films and people received the 1955 awards: Palme d'Or: Marty by Delbert Mann Best Director: Jules Dassin for Rififi Sergei Vasilyev for Heroes of Shipka Tribute: Hill 24 Doesn't Answer by Thorold Dickinson Best Acting Award: Spencer Tracy for Bad Day at Black Rock Jury Special Prize: Lost Continent by Leonardo Bonzi, Mario Craveri, Enrico Gras, Angelo Francesco Lavagnino and Giorgio Moser Best Dramatic Film: East of Eden by Elia Kazan Best Lyrical Film: Romeo and Juliet by Lev Arnshtam and Leonid Lavrovsky Distinction to two children: Kumary Naaz for her child actress performance in Boot Polish Pablito Calvo for his child actor performance in Marcelino pan y vinoShort films Short Film Palme d'Or: Blinkity Blank by Norman McLaren Special Distinction: Zolotaya Antilopa by Lev Atamanov Best Short Documentary: Isole di fuoco by Vittorio De Seta Prix du reportage filmé: La grande pêche by Henri Fabiani FIPRESCI Prize Death of a Cyclist by Juan Antonio Bardem Roots by Benito AlazrakiOCIC Award Marty by Delbert Mann Special Mention: The Miracle of Marcelino by Ladislao Vajda Institut National de l'Audiovisuel: Opening of the 1955 Festival INA: Last moments of the 1955 festival 1955 Cannes Film Festival Official website Retrospective 1955 Cannes Film Festival Awards for 1955 at Internet Movie Database
Death of a Cyclist
Death of a Cyclist is a 1955 social realist Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and starring Italian actress Lucia Bosè, dubbed into Spanish by Elsa Fábregas. It won the FIPRESCI Award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. While returning to Madrid after an illicit tryst, a wealthy socialite housewife and a university professor accidentally strike a bicyclist with their car. Although they see that he is still alive after the accident, they know they cannot summon help for him without their affair being revealed, they leave him to die. After the bicyclist's death is reported in the newspaper, the pair deal with ever-rising tension, borne from their fear that their deeds will be exposed. Lucia Bosè as María José de Castro Alberto Closas as Juan Fernandez Soler Otello Toso as Miguel Castro Bruna Corra as Matilde Luque Carlos Casaravilla as Rafael "Rafa" Sandoval Manuel Alexandre as cyclist Film critic Robert Koehler wrote of the director's goals when shooting the film, "With the economy of Tourneur and Walsh, Bardem establishes in the opening frames of Death of a Cyclist not only the incident to which the title refers, but more crucially, that lovers Juan and Maria José are doomed...
The Rafa-Maria José-Miguel interplay is sprinkled with irony and suggestion, comes to a boil with the help of social satire, revenge and suspicion. It’s quite a soup, Bardem has fun dipping into it. Contrary to the film’s reputation as a stark rebuke of Franco-era hypocrisy and corruption, Death of a Cyclist is most surprising and memorable for this half-terrifying, half-comical roundelay of three people caught in a web of misunderstanding and distrust. Film critic Mark Mesaros discussed the stylistic aspects of the film, writing, "Death of a Cyclist is a polemical tale that borrows the grammar of the Hitchcockian murder mystery as well as the forbidden romance of film noir to achieve its ideologic ends... Beginning with the techniques that are most efficacious, it's necessary to emphasize Bardem's brilliant use of cuts and dissolves throughout. What will be remembered most by viewers is the way the film jump cuts effortlessly between the primary melodrama and scenes of so-called'social realism'.
At first the cuts are employed between bourgeois and working class milieus, but more abstract associations will be made. It's apparent that our pair of privileged sinners lie outside of'social reality': when their sports-car hits the cyclist we do not see his twisted frame, only the twisted frame of the bicycle, the reactions of Juan and María José. Through the course of events Juan will be forced to interlope within the reality of the cyclist and his family, while María José will be further ensconced in the delicate net of her delusion." When first released in the United States in the 1950s though the film was hailed in Europe, The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, panned the film and its style, writing, "Aside from the fact that Señor Bardem has not chosen an novel theme or given his treatment of it any new or surprising twist, he has confused it with weird plotting and a wild, choppy cinematic style. Señor Bardem's cinematic syntax has no punctuation marks, he jumps from one scene to another without terminal dissolves.
You have to be awfully attentive to figure out where you are... Maybe they have cut this Pathé picture, the English subtitles are poor, but Señor Bardem will have to do better to make his laurels look deserved." Wins Cannes Film Festival: International Federation of Film Critics, Juan Antonio Bardem. The film was released in the United States by The Criterion Collection. Death of a Cyclist on IMDb Death of a Cyclist: Creating a Modern Spanish Cinema an essay by Marsha Kinder at the Criterion Collection Death of a Cyclist opening film clip on YouTube by Film-O-Tech Death of a Cyclist film review by Felicia Feaster at Turner Classic Movies Death of a Cyclist film clip on YouTube
Rafael Bardem
Rafael Bardem Solé was a Spanish film actor whose career stretched from the 1940s through the 1960s. Born in Barcelona, he was the grandfather of Javier Bardem and father of Juan Antonio Bardem and actress Pilar Bardem, his wife was actress Matilde Muñoz Sampedro. Rafael Bardem died in Madrid in 1972, aged 83. Rafael Bardem on IMDb
Pilar Bardem
María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz better known as Pilar Bardem is a Spanish film and television actress. She is a younger sister of the renowned film director Juan Antonio Bardem and the mother of Academy Award-winner Javier Bardem. Born to performers Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro in Seville, Pilar began her screen career in 1965, she was a regular in the television series Compuesta y sin novio, Hermanas, El Inquilino, Amar en tiempos revueltos. Bardem is the recipient of the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Premios ACE for Best Supporting Actress, the Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actress, two Spanish Actors Union Awards for her performances. Pilar Bardem is called "La Bardem", is well known in Spain not only as an actress, but for her outspoken left-wing political views, she has toiled for "labor rights for actors, civil rights for women", "a more liberal Catholic Church". Bardem identifies her long struggle, working several jobs at once to raise her children, as not uncommon.
She was just "one of so many". Opposed the Spanish government's decision to send troops to Iraq together with other Spanish actors. Accompanied her son, Javier Bardem, to the 80th Annual Academy Awards. After winning the Best Supporting Actor award, Javier dedicated his Oscar to her in Spanish, she is a FC Barcelona supporter. Good Morning, Little Countess The Rebellious Novice Variety The Doubt La descarriada as Lucila Entre rojas Pilar Bardem on IMDb
