The critic of Àlex Gorina (age 72) in the seventies of the last century was a prominent client of Mr. Belvedere () a Frames. It signed “Un Gorilla que no es Morgan Disfrazado” and was very followed by the cinephile tribe. Figueras also settled there, who took him to work at Círculo A, an art and essay film programming company founded by Figueras himself, Antoni Kirchner and Pere Fages. Even, for a few months, Gorina, from the same with Pablo López, he played Mr. Belvedere, in one of the stages in which Figueras left it. In 1978, he began working in the media, always talking about cinema. It passes through Peninsular Radio, through the then legendary Radio Juventud, opens the cinema section at the Leisure Guide and finally arrives at Catalunya Ràdio. “I was called by Toni Moreno to collaborate on Breakfast with diamonds. We did it in a toilet, me sitting on the toilet bowl. The first movie I talked about was Hail Mary (1985), by Godard. Reactionary groups organized a scandal and… it had to be defended”. And on January 11, 1987, he directs and presents The prying windowthe oldest program of Catalunya Ràdio, which continues to be broadcast, now in other hands. Gorina has retired. “I’ve been self-employed all my life, so I’ve been able to do other things that interested me, like directing the Sitges festival.”
Ask: Figueras refused to be treated as a critic. He defines himself as a chronicler.
Response: I have been a critic and a chronicler. On the radio it is difficult to be critical because it requires exposure time.
P. What is being critical?
R. Making an assessment of a film based on your knowledge, on the research you have been able to do on that title… It is giving yourself the right to an opinion that can never be completely objective nor can it be completely subjective. The fact that you have the right to do this is because someone has given you confidence, they value that you are a qualified person. I do not mean that the only one who can be critical is a specialist. The critic makes himself. Spontaneous opinion is highly valued today. From a perspective of freedom of expression everyone can say what they think. However, I believe that a respectable film critic must be a person with judgment, some minimal knowledge, some principles about art, and I hope also an ability to express what he wants to say or write. Criticism is and is not essential. It’s a tool… Opinion is a right. Getting published is lucky and being noticed is a choice. There are two concepts of criticism. The one that says: this is good, this is bad. And the one who explains why she likes or dislikes a film. I prefer this second, less dogmatic one. There have been times when criticism has had power in the media and influence on the mores of the viewer and the practices of the industry. This is gone. Now it has no repercussions. What’s more, no one under 40 cares at all about cinema, even though there is a great consumption of images.
P. Don’t you think that Catalan cinema, since they are few and everyone knows each other, has had a lenient critic?
R. And Spanish cinema, too. I have always said what I thought about Spanish cinema. About Catalan, too, but I expressed myself carefully. It is a cinematography with difficulties to exist that mysteriously was not part of the country’s collective imagination, with few exceptions, until recently. And the Catalan governments have been very much to blame. They have created a caste system about what culture is and what culture we are interested in defending. Cinema has been excluded. They are only interested in the language factor, but the industrial, cinematographic, creative factors… they ignore them.
P. He has lived more than forty years doing radio. What changes have you seen?
R. When I started, always in a shoe and an espadrille, the radio was chatty. Little by little, in a non-conscious or planned way, I explored the way of making films on the radio: working the sound material intentionally, setting the scene, making a sequence shot. Now the chatter is back. It’s a fight of voices to occupy the sound space and a remarkable amount of ingredients that could be used to create a narrative has been lost.
P. And how has the look on cinema changed?
R. Frames It was a boldness that I miss. During the Transition there was a period of twenty to thirty years with citizens willing to make discoveries. Film libraries are opened, authors, works are discussed… Now, everything that a cinema could be as a tool of progress, of culture, that was part of a society that was growing and was brave, has ended diluting The founders of a modern cinema with values are discredited. Ignorance reigns, a ferocious consumerism and banality, which occupies all the spaces of life. Live proudly.
P. He also has good experience in television. I remember, however, with special satisfaction The great illusiona story about cinema in Catalonia that was supposed to have 14 chapters and seven were made. He co-directed it with , from the Filmoteca.
R. It was a project of mine that I defended because I believed that public television had to explain that in this country there has been a cinema that people don’t know about. Riambau joined as co-director and we had the support of the station’s director, Mònica Terribas. The idea was to make seven episodes and, depending on the response, finish the series. But they changed direction and the new ones weren’t interested. Although the premiere was a success, they kicked out the show at 33, a few hours that were totally inconvenient. Thanks to the insistence of the external production company Costa Est, the project has now resumed. Neither Riambau nor I will be there. They told me, but I didn’t want to. It is carried by trustworthy people. Lluís Salgado worked with Figueras in Cinema 3 and Mai Balaguer, without being the producer, will be there to give a homogeneous air to the whole series.
P. This is the week of the . Do you think they make sense, this kind of guild parties? Years ago, the Oscars were given on very studied dates. The domestic exploitation of American films had ended, and before the export began, this huge announcement was made. But now distribution times have changed and platform windows impose their schedule…
R. I detest the fair of vanities and the red carpet, the use that is made of women, as in the chimes of the televisions, etc. In any case, it has been observed that the Gaudís are a commercial lever. Now we live in false optimism. There have been a couple of films that have made exceptional collections, but it is circumstantial. There is no industrial cushion, there is talent, but you have to do what Televisió de Catalunya likes. The 47 i House in flames are examples of this. They have technical, interpretive values… but there is a submission to certain ingredients that are what we celebrate in this country in an artificial way. There is mediocrity of ambitions. It is very difficult for Catalonia to have a Pasolini or a Fassbinder. We have Albert Serra, but it’s a shame that a producer like Lluís Miñarro didn’t have the chance to make the films he could have made. We have given up being transgressors, to distance ourselves from the culture favored by Catalan television. It is an ethical failure of the country. With an education that dispenses with humanism and culture, it is impossible for people to leave schools who are able to practice the culture of demand. I continue to be an academic of Catalan cinema and a voter, but I do not want to be part of this panorama.
P. One of his last appearances on TV3 was to report that he was raped by three sergeants while on duty.
R. If I have done it, it is because I wanted to do it. And it has to do with what I think there is: a setback in the citizen struggle. The wolf will take out its claws again, and those who don’t see it don’t want to see it. When you are violated by defenders of the homeland, fascists, and you do not react against these abuses, I realize that a deep hypocrisy persists. And John Charles I, and now Felipe VI, as top heads of the army, are responsible. Impunity returns. It has to be said.
