Juan Antonio Bardem

Born on June 2, 1922, Juan Antonio Bardem Muñoz comes from one of the longest-lived acting clans in Spain, as his great-aunt, Mercedes Sampedro, enjoyed enormous fame on stage, while his parents, Rafael Bardem , and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro , also dedicated themselves to the profession. The same would happen with his sister, Pilar Bardem , mother of Carlos , Mónica and the especially successful worldwide Javier Bardem .

Despite everything, at first the world of show business did not attract his attention, so Juan Antonio Bardem graduated as an Agricultural Engineer. Later he studied film at the Institute of Cinematographic Research and Experiences, and began to write film reviews in magazines such as “Alerta”, “Ateneo”, “La Hora”, “Alcalá”, “Objetivo” and “Film Ideal”. After becoming a close friend of Luis García Berlanga , both co-write and direct Esa pareja feliz , critical of consumerism, through the story of a humble married couple, made up of Juan, a stagehand who is fired ( Fernando Fernán Gómez ), and Carmen ( Elvira Quintilla), a housewife who wins a radio contest. Both authors receive the Jimeno Award for revelation in 1951 at the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos (CEC) Awards.

The UNINCI production company recruited the duo to prepare a film at the service of the folkloric Lolita Sevilla, who was to sing several songs. The famous playwright Miguel Mihura will write the memorable Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall with Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis García Berlanga , which the latter would direct. Criticism of the United States policy, which left Spain out of the reconstruction plans after World War II, the plot takes place in Villar del Río, a Castilian town that prepares the visit of North American diplomats, for which its inhabitants dress up with typical Andalusian costumes. He won the prize for best script and for best comedy at the Cannes Film Festival.

After signing again with Berlanga Novio a la vista , Juan Antonio Bardem made his debut as a solo director with the memorable Cómicos , which portrays the world of actors to which his family belongs, showing the hardships they go through, through the story of a A young woman who is offered a leading role by a producer in exchange for becoming his lover. In the comedy Happy Easter , Bernard Lajarrige gives life to a barber who is disappointed because he has not won the Christmas lottery as he thought.

Next, Juan Antonio Bardem shoots one of his best titles, Death of a Cyclist (1954), where María José ( Lucía Bosé ), a young man from the Madrid bourgeoisie, and her lover Juan ( Alberto Closas ), a university professor, accidentally run over, to a cyclist. The film won the Critics’ Award at Cannes, in an edition in which Bardem was part of the jury of the official section.

“The duty of realistic cinema is always to show in a language of lights, images, sounds, the authentic reality of our world, of our daily environment, ‘here and now’, in the place where we live today”, he stated in a interview Juan Antonio Bardem, who led the movement known as “dissidence cinema”. The then clandestine Communist Party of Spain, in which the filmmaker was a member, promoted the meetings known as the Salamanca Conversations, organized by Ricardo Muñoz Suay , also a communist, who managed to get Catholic and Falangist speakers to participate. For his part, Bardem presented his famous paper “Report on the current situation of our cinematography”, which outlined a bleak panorama of the Seventh Art in Spain.

In Calle Mayor (1955), Juan Antonio Bardem adapts Carlos Arniches ‘ farce “La señorita de Trévelez”, eliminating the comic parts and enhancing the dramatic elements. José Suárez plays Juan, a guy whose cronies at the casino convince him to make fun of one of the women contemptuously called spinsters at the time, Isabel, making her believe that he will marry her. Shooting in co-production with France allowed him to recruit an American star, Betsy Blair , as the female lead, who had shot the Oscar-winning Marty a year earlier .

During the filming in Palencia, Juan Antonio Bardem was arrested and transferred to the offices of the General Security Directorate accused of an “opinion” crime. There was pressure aimed at replacing him as director. He protested Betsy Blair , who refused to continue filming with another director. The Italian magazine Cinema Nuovo dedicated a monographic issue to him. Among those who signed petitions for freedom was Charles Chaplin. In the end, the authorities gave in to the pressure and freed Bardem, who has since become a symbol of the opposition. Apparently, a bad atmosphere had been created in the city due to what had happened, so the filming was moved to Logroño.

However, he appealed for national reconciliation with La venganza (1958), the first Spanish film to be nominated for an Oscar. In the 1960s, Juan Antonio Bardem shot great titles, such as At Five in the Afternoon , The Innocents , Nothing Happens  and The Mechanical Pianos . His foray into horror movies, The Corruption of Chris Miller , with Marisol for the first time detached from her image as a young singer, has not been fully achieved. From the last stage of his career, El puente (1977) stands out, a road movie that showed the reality of tourism in Spain, in opposition to the clichés shown by landismo, withAlfredo Landa as the protagonist, and Siete días de enero (1979, which reconstructs the murder of four labor lawyers from the Communist Party, in full Transition. The failed Final Result  (1997) was his last work.

Married to María Aguado Barbado, the couple had four children: Juan, Rafael, María and the director and screenwriter Miguel Bardem . With the arrival of the 21st century, the filmmaker published “And it still goes on”, his memoir. In 2002 he was awarded the Honorary Goya. That same year, on October 30, he died in Madrid at the age of 80, as a result of liver disease.