El "caso" "Viridiana"

• Autores: Alicia Salvador López
• Localización: Archivos de la filmoteca: revista de estudios históricos sobre la imagen, ISSN 0214-6606, Nº 47, 2004, págs. 10-47
• Idioma: español
• Títulos paralelos:
  • The Case of Viridiana
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • Luis Buñuel’s emblematic and caustic film Viridiana was a bombshell from whose explosion no one was safe at the time, except Cinema itself. Produced by the UNINCI (Industrial Cinematographic Union) and directed by one of Spain’s most prestigious and terrifying exiles, the film’s premiere in Cannes was viewed by the Franco Administration as a score for liberalism in constructing a new external image of Spain, something which was badly needed at the onset of the 1960s.

    The General Director of Cinematography, in accepting the Golden Palm award for the picture, gave official endorsement to a film which was to be condemned immediately thereafter by the Vatican as blasphemous. A political regime grounded to a large extent in the doctrines of national Catholicism could not allow this. The ensuing scandal brought about the devastatingly sudden dismissal of the General Director, and also put an end to the production company itself, which was informed that it would never again receive permission to film in Spain. From among the many vantage points from which to tackle Viridiana, the author of this paper has chosen to discuss the political ups and downs associated with the film, and the enormous, and fortunately unsuccessful attempts of the Franco Administration to do away with all traces of it both in abstract Spain and in the rest of the world.