Hiya

Another quick update tonight. First a report from Iker on the Spanish coverage of the Goya premiere last night. Unfortunately Nat wasn’t there and the Spanish aren’t exactly doing cartwheels over it.

Since Milos Forman presented the press conference of “Goya’s Ghosts” yesterday in Madrid, about a thousand Spanish newspapers must be offering the news today.

“El Correo” published today a couple of interviews with Milos Forman and Javier Bardem about the film. This newspaper also reports that neither Natalie nor Bardem attended the premiere. According to Forman, “Natalie’s publicist has forbidden her to come to Spain.” Apparently, that’s all he knows about this matter.

Further reports say that the press didn’t like the movie. Forman has always been very concerned about the possibility of disappointing the Spanish audience, since “Goya’s Ghosts” doesn’t show a very bright point of view about Eighteenth-Century Spain.

Forman thinks that his film talks about “the conflict between pragmatism and fanaticism.” “Around the end of the XVIII Century, one out of every five Spaniards lived from the Church’s charity” Forman says, “so when the Church stopped feeding them, the famine came and caused a reaction against the French saviors”.

Forman understands the character of Goya as an observer that depicted the objective reality of an era in his paintings. “Goya probably wouldn’t have survived in the XXI Century;” he says, “nowadays it’s really hard to be an observer without being punished for not being in one side or another.” “Goya didn’t annoy the powerful too much.” “It is known that he was summoned by the Inquisition, and he should have told them something to get free of their wrath.”

“Goya’s Ghosts” will be released next Thursday in Madrid and next Friday in the rest of Spain with a total of 375 copies.

Forbidden to come? Unless she can’t get away from filming Boleyn, I really can’t see what the problem could be.

To break the funk, here is a Goya featurette, which includes some interview footage of Natalie. Thanks to Celiana.

Night