Interview to Benito Zambrano

Benito Zambrano is one the most interesting directors of the current Spanish scene. Among his creations, we find Solas, Padre Coraje, Habana Blues and La voz dormida. His films have excellent scripts, superb film direction and they convey thought-provoking stories, since Zambrano is a master of social realism. Interview by Montse de la Cal Psychologists and sociologists say that cinema has significantly influenced the way of understanding love. For instance, the habit of kissing on the lips came to Spain through American films. Does cinema manipulate our feelings? It’s not that cinema manipulates, but rather that it has to manipulate. Is there any artistic discipline that doesn’t manipulate our feelings? By playing with the emotions, feelings and the intelligence of the spectator, reader or any receiver or art, art makes people change, improve or give a different meaning to their lives. In my opinion, any art that doesn’t manipulate is bad art and I don’t believe in it. There are studies that say that the suicide rate decreased after Life is Beautiful was released. Can a film change our life to such an extent? More than any other art form? Yes, that is why cinema has become such a mass phenomenon. The receiver makes less of an effort than he or she would have made reading a book, observing a painting or reading poetry. Cinema drives many things; it transmits ideologies, feelings, and ways of seeing life. If not for those things, Americans would not have created the film industry and the marketing and merchandising that they put into practice. So is it much easier to see a film than to read a book? Some people say that reading makes us think deeper and have more freedom. And that is why there is no interest in us reading books. It takes one or two weeks or even a month to read a book, as you let it rest and think through it. It has nothing to do with films. The success of American commercial cinema of adventures and escape lays on a one-and-a-half-hour rollercoaster ride, in which you have no time to process anything, you just feel. What you do with the embers that the film might have left inside you is a different issue. That might change you in the long term. Another example: statistics show that after As Good As It Gets, psychological consultations on obsessive-compulsive disorders boosted in the US. Could we affirm that cinema, for better or worse, is a mass communication tool? I think it is definitely a very powerful tool. If the Americans have used it over the years, that means it is important. Hitler also noticed that at some moment. When the world was at war, the American cinema knew how to make films fostering patriotism. Just in the same way that when they want to modify the public opinion and spend more money on weapons, they make awesome films about aliens invading the Earth and then they advertise them as much as possible. Cinema is the most important advertising medium that has ever existed. In 2011, Coppola said: “Whoever controls the world will have the artists working for him”. And added: “Art always fights for the truth and we want the public to see a film where they can actually see their role and where it leads them”. As a filmmaker, do you feel that responsibility? I feel that what I narrate must be worth it. I don’t want any spectator to go see a film of mine and lose two hours of his life and seven euros. And I also need to feel that what I do helps me learn and be a better person. And then I want all that to reach as many people as possible, since it is a huge effort that costs me more than three years. We worked for four years on The Sleeping Voice until it was released. I want my film to be seen, to work out, and that people have fun with it. As the great Buñuel said, as long as we don’t bore anyone, the rest can happen: intelligence, emotions, etc. I think we must take the responsibility of doing something useful with cinema. Do Spanish filmmakers recognise the power and manipulation that cinema has? Sometimes I teach scriptwriters, actors, directors… And I always assume that we are all communicators of stories, feelings and emotions. If a communicator doesn’t know that he is manipulating, he is a fool. What is more: the spectator pays to see “your vision” of your manipulated reality; you tell him a story from your own perception. Michael Haneke, the winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2013, said: "Cinema is considered as being more guilty than any other art form. Its dangerously efficient propaganda has put the destiny of thousands of people at risk". He mentioned examples such as Leni Riefenstahl (filmmaker head of the Nazi party) and Eisenstein (he glorified the Soviet totalitarianism). Haneke said that "honesty is essential in cinema". But both Riefenstahl and Eisenstein were honest with the cinema they made because they agreed with what was happening at that moment... Does that redeem them? It is clear that any country that controls and governs a stage in history makes use of as many edges and advantages as possible in order to spread its ideology. There isn’t any American film in which the American flag doesn’t appear. In my opinion, art has generally always been left-wing, since it must take a step forward, explore new paths and provide new opportunities. However, the economic power is more conservative, more right-wing. That is the reason why there are some huge contradictions in American cinema: some directors spread an ideology that is very different from their lives. Let’s think of those films with perfect families and perfect people, but what about their lives? What were the lives of Hollywood artists like? There is a great contradiction between what you are, what you do, and what you want to sell. I try to be as coherent as possible with my work. I think that sometimes we make films in order to try to be better than we actually are. Except for Hollywood, I think that most of filmmakers try that. Now, if I had lived in the Nazi time and Hitler’s project had convinced me, I would have surely put my talent at his service, just in the same way that now I try to put it at the service of my beliefs. Which films have influenced you the most? I must say that I am not a big cinephile. I see films as everybody else. I come from a small village of Seville called Lebrija. When I was 10, my mother would give me 10 pesetas to go to the cinema. I would see what was on at that time: all the films about Samson against the mummy, the 10 gladiators against something, the masked saint against the Amazons, Tarzan, and so on. There were five screens at my village, but they closed when I was 14, so my culture comes from television. I watched all the great series; the ones that had the biggest impact on me were Mazinger Z, Marco and Heidi. I can’t remember what age I was back then. I started to watch and study films when I moved out to study at the School of San Antonio de los Baños. I was already a big boy: I was 27. So I can’t say any director or film that has had a special influence on me. When I am working, I watch interesting films related to what I am filming. And do you have any favourite kind of films now? I like all kinds of films, except for terror films and gore. I enjoy western films and I have watched all those by John Ford. I like adventure and science fiction films as well. And I love musicals; actually, I would like to direct a musical someday. In Spain, do directors have any kind of pressure when choosing to shoot a film or another? The economic pressure. Making films is getting harder. In addition, we have the misfortune that Spanish cinema depends basically on three TV channels. When those channels choose some projects instead of others, they are conditioning filmmaking. Could other projects get ahead? It would be very difficult indeed. For instance, complicated and ambitious period projects with a budget of more than three, four or five millions cannot be made without international funding. And you don’t get that funding unless you film in English and have international actors. So you know that now you have to make minor films set at present, and be careful not to make it too dramatic or the TV channel might... Fortunately, I am working on projects I like, although conditioned by the present situation. You denounce social topics in your films. Is that usual in Spain? And what about in the United States? I am not sure about the United States. When I am immersed in the creation of a film, I am very concentrated on my work I and I don’t know what is happening out there. In Spain it is certainly not usual, not even on TV. These topics are covered, but in a superficial way generally. We are not making social-humanist films dealing with the dramatic situations we are experiencing. The problem is that making films is a slow process, whereas reality is much faster. We would need to be some kind of Filmmakers without borders NGO that would react immediately to what is happening; we would be the spokespeople of events. But there are still many burdens on the film industry that does not allow that yet, even though cameras are much lighter now. Cinema changes feelings such as love, hatred, solidarity and politics. But above all, it changes history. Is your film The Sleeping Voice a contribution to Spanish recent history? I would like to think so, that I have done my bit to help. Since the moment I read The Sleeping Voice by Dulce Chacón and I did some research, I had the impression we don’t know much about what happened and we relate it wrong. Luckily for my village, the civil war did not get there, but repression did. We used to say: “We go to bed as republicans and we wake up as Franco’s soldiers”. There wasn’t any battle, they just came one day, they took the village, they killed many people and we didn’t have enough time to organise a resistance effort. The idea our elderly relatives passed to us is that the Civil War was dreadful, that they killed each other and that what they really needed was peace and work. And the idea that they were all guilty for that terrible war among brothers spread out. When I started doing my research, reading testimonies and talking to people that lived though it (I had the privilege to talk to some women who were in prison during the war), I realised that not even the 25% of what happened has been told. We haven’t faced the facts, they haven’t been analysed. It was all about “let’s just wipe the slate clean and go to transition”. And those who had suffered stayed the same, whereas those who had fun making money and being complicit in Francoism and torture were awarded with silence and oblivion. There is no interest in reviving the past, since many important people who benefited from that with their businesses are still alive. Do policies supporting the film industry take into account the messages conveyed in films when deciding the assignment of grants? To be honest, I don’t know much about that. I know there is a selection committee and all depends on who is in it. I suffered that with Solas. In 1997 we presented the projected in order to get grants for new directors, but they didn’t give me anything. In 1998 the selection committee changed and they gave us the grant. Given the results of Solas, it seems the committee was wrong. If the committee had not changed in 1998, they would have denied us the grant again and Solas would have remained in the pending box. Because no director would take a risk with a film about an old fucked up woman, an old man who pees himself and an alcoholic girl, so it depends a lot on the committees. I don’t think there is any rule about what type of cinema must be made, but those who give the grants can choose a certain committee according to the type of films they like... I guess we’ll have to trust in the seriousness and rigour of the those people. What is your opinion about the films that children and teenagers watch? I don’t know, this week we are hearing a lot about Violeta and seeing Violeta and a dancing show about Violeta is being organised... Something similar happened with Toy Story, a film that I love, and Shrek, which I think is great. There is an awesome animation film industry with great ideas. The values they transmit is a different issue; in the end, they are the same as those conveyed in films for grown-ups. They want kids to behave, love their friends, fight for justice and truth... the problem is how they tell that. Plus, children watch TV too much. There are many things that should change; the whole educational system, in fact. Should we pick the films that our children watch? That’s a good question. I don’t know if it’s better that they watch anything they want, o rather selecting films and becoming some kind of censor, I’m not sure about it. Sometimes I think that my parents were not worried about this because they were not aware of it. My parents were almost illiterate and they had no idea about what I watched in cinema, and at home we watched whatever was on TV. But some parents who would not allow their children to watch Midnight Express don’t realise that their children do watch aggressive and violent American films, and films conveying stereotyped man/woman roles or films whose sole purpose is quick success, money and corporal beauty. Yes, that’s the way it is. There are no limits on that. TV channels, which are supposed to have ethic committees, should start censoring publicity. The values sold by publicity are more stereotyped and insistent than those of the film or program you were watching before the publicity break. We all feed on each other: cinema feeds on publicity, and publicity on cinema and TV. We would get into something big, since we would have to modify the whole system, not just killing the messenger, which would be the audiovisual media, cinema and TV. What matters is the dialogue between the parents and their children so that they understand the information they access. This way they will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Prohibiting and removing are words that I don’t like. If you censor something, they will see it at their neighbour’s house or on YouTube.