For Storaro, as for Saura, Goya in Bordeaux comes at the end of a long road which fellow artists have travelled before him. “I now believe that we are extracting conclusions from what all the artists in the world have ever done,” he says. “And not only film artists: I mean painters, writers and musicians. For a cinematographer like me, painters are my direct inspiration. When I visited Madrid in 1960, I went to the Prado and the Quinta del Sordo paintings were a revelation for me, a shock.”

It was scarcely surprising, therefore, that Storaro should have responded to the Spanish director’s invitation to work with him on the project. “Saura told me that his dream, which had been a constant inspiration to him throughout his career, was to make a film about Goya,” he says. “That struck a chord with me, because I remembered that my first contact with Spanish culture had been through Goya and the poetry of Lorca.”

One of Goya's ‘Visions of War’

And the new film would be a logical extension of what has been one of the great artistic collaborations of the nineties, “With Flamenco, we created a modern vision of flamenco music in Spain,” says Storaro. “In Taxi, we took a trip around today’s world, around the intolerance that exists everywhere. Goya is a journey around the history of the visual arts.”

Saura on set with Jose Coronado

And how does Saura himself feel about the experience, now that his dream of a lifetime has been fulfilled?

“Goya has pursued me throughout my whole life,” he says. “I’ve always felt a powerful attraction for his painting and his personality. But both are still a mystery to me.”