Retrospective: Goya in Bordeaux (1999)
Dennis Schwartz
GOYA IN BORDEAUX (GOYA EN BURDEOS) (director/writer: Carlos Saura;
cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro; editor: Julia Juaniz; cast:
Francisco Rabal (Goya), Jose Coronado (Goya as a Young Man), Maribel
Verdú (Duchess of Alba ), Dafne Fernández (Rosario), Eulalia Ramón
(Leocadia), Joaquín Climent (Moratin), José María Pou (Godoy);
Runtime: 105; Sony Pictures Classics; 1999-Spain)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A visually pleasing but unmoving homage biopic of the 18th-century
Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The director, Carlos Saura, has had
trouble with the storytelling part of his films in the past, as his
great craftsmanship skills seem to far exceed his other abilities as a
filmmaker.
The film opens in a surreal manner as a cow's carcass seems to be
dragging itself over a dirt red field to a scaffold and then raises
itself up as its flesh opens and its insides are exposed. It was Goya's
belief that man without imagination is only an animal, and this is the
first lesson we are taught in this pedantic film study of him. From the
cow's insides, the appearance of a dying 82-year-old Goya (Rabal)
emerges, startled that he's lying in bed, living in exile in Bordeaux,
France's wine region.
He goes out in the street in his nightshirt, and is thought of as a
crazy foreigner by the passers-by, as he calls out for his dead former
lover Cayetana (Maribel Verdú), seeing her ghost in the street. She is
the hot-blooded beauty he loved the most of all his many women. He is
soon watched over by his lovely young daughter Rosario (Dafne Fernández)
and brought back to bed, where he's forced to drink a cup of valerian.
The artist is dazed but anxious to tell someone of his past and chooses
to tell it to his daughter, as we will learn of his life from these
flashbacks, and he will also reveal his nightmares, the gossip of the
times, the politics, the history, his romances, and his intellectual
opinions.
The flashback will begin by taking us to Osuna's salon, where the best
minds and aristocracy of Madrid met. Goya (José Coronado) is in his
mid-40's, a womanizer, fortunate through his connections to be the court
painter in Charles IV's court, which is ruled by ignorance, corruption,
and calumny. This gig enables him to get more commissions than he could
handle and to live in luxury. He is seen talking to his treacherous
friend Godoy (José María Pou), admiring the pretty woman he wants to
meet, the Dutchess of Alba, Cayetana. We learn about the romance between
her and him, as a dialogue ensues between the ailing octogenarian and
himself at this more youthful age. It was at that time that Goya nearly
died from an unexplained illness that left him permanently deaf. His
recovery from that illness resulted in an artistic breakthrough, whereby
his subject matter became more realistic, resulting in his gruesome
series of engravings "The Disasters of War."
In the film's most telling moments, he tells his daughter the truth
about why he fled Spain. It has to do with the charismatic Dutchess,
whose radiant beauty and excitable temperament led to dangerous actions
on her part. She was part of a plot to assassinate the Spanish queen,
Maria Luisa. But the jealous queen of the Inquisition instead had her
poisoned to death with the help of the ambitious and scheming royal
secretary Godoy, who was the lover of both women. The liberal Goya
wisely saw the handwriting on the wall and fled his oppressive country,
looking for comfort from the French intellectuals of the enlightenment
but was in the end disappointed by France's government, whose designs on
Spain were mercenary and of self-interest.
In the final death scene, the artist calls out not for his current lady
companion Leocadia but for Cayetana, as he succumbs and her dark shadow
emerges from a painting he did of her and covers him in death.
The film never touched base with the painter and his great works of art.
It seemed like a dry lecture, with the artist's paintings laboriously
put on display, making for some gorgeous framed shots, but not offering
a film that is emotionally touching. What we learn is that Goya was a
flawed man, feeling himself to be cowardly and weak-spirited at times,
whose great influences to overcome his shortcomings were, Velázquez,
Rembrandt, and his imagination tied to reason. But the film itself does
not let on why we should assume Goya was a great painter, it seems to
have failed the artist in that sense. The film ends with the quote from
Andre Malraux: After Goya, modern painting begins. I was left with the
impression that if this film would continue in its pedantic way of
telling the story, it is possible in part 2 that we would know why that
was so.
REVIEWED ON 4/12/2001 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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