Buñuel: Up the Academy
Above: In disguise and pretending to be producer Serge Silberman, Buñuel accepts the 1972 Best Foreign Film Oscar for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, muttering to the Academy, “thank you…my English is not very good.”
Below: That same week, George Cukor hosted a special luncheon for Buñuel in Hollywood. The esteemed guests are listed below…
Below: That same week, George Cukor hosted a special luncheon for Buñuel in Hollywood. The esteemed guests are listed below…
Click image to enlarge
Standing from left to right: Robert Mulligan, William Wyler, George Cukor, Robert Wise, Jean-Claude Carrière, Serge Silberman. Seated: Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Rouben Mamoulian.
Labels: Luis Buñuel, Luis Buñuel Blogathon
posted by Ray Young at
9:51 PM
5 Comments:
Holy crap! That Oscar picture is great! This actually occurred?! If so, it's automatically in my top five favorite Oscar moments ever.
These two photographs are such fun. The first is especially wicked because of Buñuel's admitted love for disguise. Even though it was a felony punishable by five years in jail, Buñuel enjoyed dressing up as a Catholic priest. Frequently he posed as a military officer and once he even scolded artillery men for not saluting him. If he wanted to be invisible and unnoticed, all he had to do was pose as the working lower class. "Disguise is a fascinating experience," he wrote in My Last Sigh, "because it allows you to experience another life. When you're a worker, for instance, sales people immediately suggest you buy the cheapest things; people are always cutting in front of you in line, and women never look at you. Clearly, the world simply isn't made for you at all." (2003:227)
"Much later in Mexico," he added, "while Louis Malle was shooting Viva Maria, I put on a wig and walked onto the set, right past Malle, who had no idea who I was. No one did—neither my technician friends nor Jeanne Moreau (who'd made a movie with me) nor my son Juan-Luis, who was one of Malle's assistants." (Id., at p. 227)
As for the group shot, it is an alternate from the one published in My Last Sigh, excluding Charles Champlin and Rafael Buñuel. Since I'm quoting from that volume as my contribution to this blogathon, here's what Buñuel had to say about that event: "One day, I received an invitation to lunch with George Cukor, whom I'd never met. In addition to Serge Silberman, Jean-Claude Carrière, and my son Rafael, there'd also be some 'old friends,' he told me. In the end, it turned out to be an extraordinary gathering. We, the Buñuel party, were the first to arrive at Cukor's magnificent house, followed close behind by a large, muscular black man half-carrying an elderly gentleman with a patch over one eye. To my surprise, it was John Ford, who sat down next to me and told me how happy he was to know I'd come back to Hollywood (a strange thing to say, since I didn't know him and assumed he'd never heard of me). As we talked, he outlined his plans for another 'big western,' but unfortunately he died just a few months later.
"At one point during our conversation, we heard footsteps shuffling behind us, and when I turned around, there was Alfred Hitchcock, round and rosy cheeked, his arms held out in my direction. I'd never met him, either, but knew that he'd sung my praises from time to time. He sat down on the other side of me, and, one arm around my shoulders, he proceeded to talk nonstop about his wine cellar, his diet, and the amputated leg in Tristana. 'Ah, that leg … that leg,' he sighed, more than once.
"The other guests included William Wyler, Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Rouben Mamoulian, Robert Wise, and a young director named Robert Mulligan. After drinks, we went into the great, shadowy dining room, lit at midday by enormous candelabra. It was strange to see this incredible reunion of phantoms who'd gathered in my honor; they all talked of the 'good old days,' from Ben-Hur to West Side Story, Some Like It Hot to Notorious, Stagecoach to Giant—so many truly great films at that table. After lunch, someone called a newspaper photographer, who arrived to take the family portrait, a picture that eventually became the collector's item of the year. (Unfortunately, John Ford had already left. His black slave came to get him in the middle of lunch, whereupon he bid us all a faint goodbye and left, stumbling against the tables. It was the last time any of us were to see him alive.)
"There were many toasts, and among them I remember George Stevens raising his glass to the 'wonderful thing that despite our differences in origin and belief united us around the table.' I stood up and clinked glasses with him, but, ever suspicious of cultured solidarity, replied, 'I'll drink to that, even though I have my doubts….' " (2003:1995-196)
Maya,
Superb quotes. I'd try to write something witty, but I'm too busy laughing!
The story I remember about the Academy awards goes like this. Journalists came to Bunuels home in Mexico when he was nominated for Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie. They asked him if he thought he would win. 'Of course" he said. "We paid the $5000, and the Americans always keep their word in these matters" When the film actually won the journalists went crazy with the news of a bought award. Just another Bunuelian prank.
Even my normally-reliable source for Oscar information, Mason Wiley & Damien Bona's Inside Oscar, was fooled by Buñuel's disguise!
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