The Spirit of Lorca (Arena )
1986 BBC 75’
This lyrical film about the life and work of Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain’s greatest and best known 20th century poet and dramatist, was made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his still appalling assasination at the hands of Franco’s fascists in the first months of the Spanish Civil War. With no pre-written script, but in the safe hands of Ian Gibson, Lorca’s wonderfully articulate and passionate Irish biographer, and with many quotations from Lorca’s own work, we follow his life and development as a writer, from his home town near Granada in Andalucia to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, where he first met Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel. Along the way we hear warm testimonies from two Spanish poets who knew him, Luis Rosales and Rafael Alberti, and from his American student friend, still living in Vermont, Philip Cummings. We also meet others who loved Lorca from afar, but for whom his work has been especially important in their lives: the Cuban poet Miguel Barnet, Nuria Espert, both talking and appearing in her memorable production of “Yerma”, members of the contemporary version of “La Barraca”, the travelling theatre company Lorca first founded, and in Jimena de la Frontera a very moving Pena Flamenca, in which various villagers, from the postman to a carpenter, recite, sing and play Lorca poems and songs.
A remarkable film portrait of the great Spanish poet … [a] beautifully framed film …
Carl Gardner, The Listener
With Dibb’s mastery of visual argument, unfolding images are adorned with readings from the poetry and the result is a rich and poetic … tapestry of Spanish life.
Geoff Dyer, City Limits
… takes the tears out of art appreciation and is jolly good fun to boot.
The Times
Evocative portrait of Federico Garcia Lorca, poet and dramatist, executed at the age of 38.
The Independent
…aided by some stunning landscape photography, and including fascinating footage of modern street theatre productions of Lorca’s plays, the programme succeeds in placing his work, with its extraordinary cadences and emotional violence, within the context of his native Andalusia.
Andrew Graham-Dixon, The Independent
The crime for which Federico Garcia Lorca was executed was that of being a sentient and articulate human being. What a pity that this humanist who never joined a political party should by his death have become a martyr of the Left. The Spirit of Lorca (BBC2) completed Arena’s triptych of modern Spanish icons. Forced to be the most resourceful of the three, it turned out the most gorgeous, with the absence of primary televisual material mitigated by excerpts from Yerma, shots of the Andalusian landscape and lashings of cante jondo.
Martin Cropper, The Times
Through the recollections of friends and fellow poets, with singers and theatrical performances, in Spain, Cuba and the United States, this film evokes the passionate and potent spirit of Lorca’s work and tragically short life.
Radio Times