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Francisco Rabal as the octogenarian Goya
The Artists from ARAGON
Director Carlos Saura and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro explain why making Goya in Bordeaux was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for both of them.
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Maybe it’s because, like the painter, he’s from Aragon (he was born in the northern Spanish town of Huesca in 1932). Maybe it’s because his own older brother, Antonio, was himself one of Spain’s best-known painters. But mainly, one suspects, it is because Carlos Saura, like Goya, has spent the best part of his life capturing the world through colour and light that it was inevitable that their paths would eventually converge.
Whatever the reason, a film about Goya has been one of Saura’s longest-held ambitions, predating the internationally acclaimed dance films which, from Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre, 1981) and Carmen (1983) through to this year’s Oscar nominee, Tango, have marked the second major phase in the career of one of Spain’s most eclectic film-makers.
the Madrid studio, where light and space were the key elements in creating Goya.
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Now the ambition has been realised, with a little help from two of Europe’s best-known behind-the-camera artists, plus producer Andrés Vicente Gómez, working on his third film with Saura, and Fulvio Lucisano of Italian International Film, who came in on the project just after shooting started. The result is Goya in Bordeaux, which was shot in a remarkably brief nine weeks, following meticulous pre-production planning by Saura and the multiple Oscar-winning team of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and production designer Pierre-Louis Thčvenet - in the latter part of last year in a studio in Madrid.
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