Spanish Fiesta
About Spanish Fiesta
On a festival day in a small Spanish town, lifelong friends Miguélan and Réal both come back for the dancer Soledad. She cares for neither of them and tells them to fight to the death for her. While the two men struggle, she goes after Juanito, a young man swept up in the festival.
Cast & crew
More about Spanish Fiesta
Germaine Dulac directed Louis Delluc's scenario, produced by Serge Sandberg and Louis Nalpas and released by Union-Éclair. Paul Parguel and Georges Raulet were the cameramen, and shooting ran from late August to November 1919. Critics saw it on 17 March 1920; published dates for the public opening are 31 March and 7 May 1920.
Themes
In film history
In French Film (Falcon Press, 1953), Georges Sadoul named it as the picture that ushered in French impressionist cinema. The praise at the time fell more on Delluc than on Dulac.
Making
Delluc later called the shoot a rare case of complete cooperation in French cinema. The pace of the 217 scenes was meant to accelerate through the festival day.
Reviews
Henri Langlois called it the key film of French film history, as important as Eisenstein's Strike. Ève Francis wrote of its staggering effect, from the speed of the cutting and the poetic movement.
Audiences
The public largely ignored it.
Look
Paul Parguel and Georges Raulet shot the festival crowds in Nice and Hondarribia, in a film Delluc built as 217 short scenes.
Preservation
Henri Langlois acquired nitrate negative fragments from Éclair in 1938. They were copied to safety film in 1948. About eight minutes of the 67-minute film remain, and the Cinémathèque Française showed them in the 2012 festival Toute la mémoire du monde.
Notes
- Ève Francis plays Soledad, Jean Toulout plays Miguélan, Gaston Modot plays Réal, and Robert Delsol plays Juanito. Anna Gay is the old woman Paguien, and Gabriel Gabrio is also in the cast.
- Francis introduced her fiancé Delluc to Dulac. He read her a scenario called Le Fandango, written on a cut-up paper tablecloth.
- Delluc's script is 217 numbered scenes. It was published in 1923 in Drames du cinéma.
- Ève Francis had already appeared in Dulac's 1918 serial Âmes des fous.
- The film was banned in Portugal.
- Only about eight minutes survive, in three or four disconnected stretches.
Scenes
- Soledad tells Miguélan and Réal to fight to the death, then leaves them for Juanito.
Influenced by
- Louis Delluc's scenario Le Fandango
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (La Fête Espagnole (1920).webm)
