Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of The Spanish Civil War:
La
vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
Luis García Berlanga y la representación de La Guerra Civil española: La vaquilla
(1985) como esperpento cinematográco
doxa.comunicación |
nº 35, pp. 363-375
| 363
July-December of 2022
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
How to cite this article:
Sánchez López, F. (2022). Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of e Spanish Civil War:
La vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
.
Doxa
Comunicación
, 35, pp. 363-375.
https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n35a1574
Fernando Sánchez López.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Studies from the University of Salamanca and a
Master’s degree in Literary eory and Comparative Literature from the same university. Currently, he is a PhD student
at e Ohio State University, in the area of Iberian Studies. From his previous research, he has published an article on
the motif of the double in the TV show Breaking Bad. Extra academically, he is involved in the divulgation and lm
reviews in the online magazine of specialized criticism Mutaciones. e current work is based on his lecture at the
“Mediterranean, party and carnival. In tribute to Luis García Berlanga”, held at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University of
Valencia on November 18, 19 and 20, 2021.
The Ohio State University, USA
[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-1672-1799
Abstract:
e
esperpento
, beyond the literary conception coined by Ramón María
del Valle-Inclán, entails singular aesthetics which can be transferred
to other arts, as it is the case of lm. e cinematic
esperpento
, even
though it assimilates its main characteristics into the audiovisual
medium, has not had a historically well-dened path within Spanish
lm, as it did not quite t in the common waves of dissident cinema and
francoist cinema. As an answer to this problem, the aim of this essay is
to analyze
La vaquilla
(Luis García Berlanga, 1985) as a paradigmatic
example of the Spanish cinematic
esperpento
, even if it has not been
considered like that by other authors or has been generally ignored.
rough this analysis, the aesthetic functionality of the genre will be
observed and its systematically deforming approach will lead to draw
unique conclusions regarding the extremely traumatic event that
the Spanish Civil War was, which shaped the historical memory of
the nation. In this sense, the narrative possibilities of the cinematic
esperpento
and the necessity to give the genre a historical place of its
own will be vindicated.
Keywords
:
Cinematic
esperpento
; Spanish Civil War; Luis García Berlanga; Rafael
Azcona; Memory.
Resumen:
El esperpento, más allá de la concepción literaria acuñada por Ramón
María del Valle-Inclán, conforma una estética que puede ser transferida
a otras artes, como es el caso del cine. El esperpento cinematográco,
que asimila sus principales características al medio audiovisual, no ha
tenido un recorrido histórico claro dentro de la cinematografía españo
-
la, condenado a transitar entre las tierras del llamado cine disidente y
el cine continuista. Como respuesta a tal problemática, el objetivo de
este trabajo es analizar La vaquilla (Luis García Berlanga, 1985) como
ejemplo paradigmático del esperpento cinematográco español, pelícu
-
la que no ha sido considerada como tal por otros autores o incluso se ha
ignorado. A través de dicho análisis, se observará la funcionalidad es
-
tética del género y se indagará en las singulares conclusiones derivadas
de un acercamiento sistemáticamente deformador respecto a un evento
tan traumático para la memoria histórica nacional como fue la Guerra
Civil española. De este modo, se reivindicarán tanto las posibilidades
narrativas del esperpento cinematográco como la necesidad de otor
-
gar un lugar propio al género dentro de la historia del cine español.
Palabras clave:
Esperpento cinematográco; Guerra Civil española; Luis García
Berlanga; Rafael Azcona; Memoria.
Received: 15/02/2022 - Accepted: 20/04/2022 - Early access: 02/05/2022 - Published: 01/07/2022
Recibido: 15/02/2022 - Aceptado: 20/04/2022 - En edición: 02/05/2022 - Publicado: 01/07/2022
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| nº 35, pp. 363-375 |
July-December of 2022
Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of The Spanish Civil War:
La vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
doxa.comunicación
1. Introduction
1.1. Characteristics of the esperpento: concept and aesthetics
When speaking of an “
esperpento
”, beyond the common use of the word (practically inscribed in today’s everyday language) or
its etymological origin, it is impossible to avoid the allusion to Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, who thus baptized his own literary
conception around 1920. e author would grant the esperpento the capacity of deforming reality, which managed to accentuate
its most grotesque features and, in this way, could be used to answer several questions about the nature of the Spanish situation
at the time. In Valle-Inclán’s opinion, the most viable option to explain and denounce the tragic course of the grotesque reality of
his country was through the esperpento, as he dened it in the seminal work Luces de bohemia (1924). ere, through the voice
of his protagonist, Max Estrella, he establishes that “our tragedy is not tragedy” (Valle-Inclán, 1924: 154) and that, consequently,
“the tragic sense of Spanish life can only be given with a systematically deformed aesthetic” (157), for which he would use the
example of distorted reections in concave mirrors.
e genesis of the Valleinclanian esperpento is located in a context of crisis whose ramications stemmed from the loss of the
last colonies and the consequent discontent and instability of the late nineteenth century. In the midst of such a climate, there
are several authors who arm a social commitment in the writer of Luces de bohemia, beyond a mere use of original literary
resources. In other words, Valle-Inclán’s work “presents historical realities and characters with a considerable human density
that does not disappear or is not invalidated by the abundant presence of ironic and grotesque ingredients” (Fernández Oblanca,
2001: 152). e middle ground to be reconciled would be the dichotomy realism-inconventionalism, since the singularity of the
esperpento in the presentation of a given era clashed with the usual ideas of realism. is singularity stemmed from a conscious
impulse on the part of Valle, who said the following: “the word in literary creation always needs to be transferred to that plane in
which the world and human life are idealized” (quoted in Fernández Oblanca, 2001: 151). erefore, it is essential to pay attention
to the functioning of this supposed idealization in order to understand the corrosive power of the esperpento.
In this sense, Valle would speak very signicantly about the theory of the three visions in order to better conceptualize the
esperpentic notion. ere would be three ways of contemplating the world from the artistic and aesthetic point of view: “kneeling,
standing or raised in the air” (Pólak, 2009: 22). While in the rst, typical of classical tragedy, the characters are admired and in the
second, as Shakespeare did, they are observed from the same height, Valle opts for a third way. He prefers to “approach them from
the air, which is to look at them from a distance, with impassivity and superiority” (Santos Zas) and, in this way, he establishes
a gaze that considers his characters “as beings inferior to the author, with a point of irony” (Pólak, 2009: 22). Taking this into
account, it can be armed that the individuals who populate the esperpentic ctions suer a dehumanizing process, “they lose
their greatness to become dolls [...], they are reduced to lumps and simple doodles or become animalized” (Santos Zas).
As a result, the third vision, characteristic of the esperpento, must necessarily be represented through a concrete aesthetic, under
the lenses of the aforementioned concave mirrors, in order to eectively establish such a distancing gaze in relation to its pathetic
characters. In fact, the esperpentic aesthetic has been coined by several authors since several of its elements are traceable. For
example, Petr Pólak considers that it is “consisting of the systematic deformation of classical norms, by means of which the
most beautiful images become absurd” (2009: 17). Furthermore, for Francisco Ruiz Ramón, this aesthetic forms a vision of the
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world “to which the writer arrives from a specic Spanish historical circumstance and from a particular ideology, the result of a
critical stance, whose root is both individual and social” (1971: 126). is last idea reiterates what Fernández Oblanca mentioned
regarding the idea of the esperpento as an urgent intellectual exercise and not only an aesthetic one. Anthony N. Zahareas would
arm that “the
esperpento
is not simply a grotesque quality but a grotesque situation; [...] Valle-Inclán’s stylistic virtuosity is not
only a case of aesthetic gymnastics but also aesthetics of commitment” (1966: 162). Consequently, it should not be forgotten that
his formal exercise, although highly stylized, is dialectically linked to specic historical and cultural coordinates.
On the other hand, although Valle established the bases of aesthetics during part of his work, the esperpento cannot be reduced
as relative to a single art, already from its very genesis. In fact, “the comparison with Goya has [...] its origin in the declarations
of the writer himself, who now as on other occasions understands his work in dialectical relation with painting” (Ríos-Font and
Ríos-Font, 1992: 290). Again returning to Luces de bohemia, Max Estrella says that “esperpentism was invented by Goya” (Valle-
Inclán, 1924: 156), so the author is appealing to the inter-artistic component of his conception, which would already be rooted, to
a certain extent, in the Spanish tradition. With this in mind, the esperpentic aesthetic could not belong exclusively to the literary
eld and, as a result, its inuence would branch out towards other cultural manifestations, where its functioning would share
many of the traits, on the one hand, and adapt the remaining ones to the particularities of the medium in question, on the other.
Such is the case of cinema.
1.2. Esperpentic lm: an alternative modernity
It is not sucient to speak of a mere aesthetic assimilation to the cinematographic medium, since it would be reductionist to
think that there is only an intermediate transfer of themes, oral language or character construction. Likewise, the necessary
and signicant formal transemiotization must be taken into account when it comes to capturing on the screen questions of
the esperpento in terms of style and point of view. Some of the dening formal considerations of the esperpentic lm have
been reasonably grouped by Ángel Morán Paredes in his article “e cinematic esperpento: from El pisito to Crimen ferpecto”.
According to the author, its most notable characteristics are the following (2006: 12):
–
A way of narrating in which simultaneous actions prevail, with dierent characters (main and secondary) together within the
frame, which leads to a chaos of dialogues hindering each other.
–
Shots of long temporal duration, with a greater predilection for the sequence shot (colder and more distant) and a scale far
from the characters, so that medium shots are scarce and close-ups are hardly used.
With the aforementioned formal features, the esperpentic lm would achieve, from the audiovisual medium, “the demiurgic
attitude proposed by Valle-Inclán, the non-identication of the author with his characters” (Morán Paredes, 2006: 12).
However, the existence of this cinematic trend in Spain cannot be explained without the complicated post-Civil War context.
Before the Salamanca Conversations (1955), considered a turning point in the history of Spanish cinema, the industrial, social
and ideological situation of the seventh art was pitiful in the eyes of part of the sector. To exemplify this feeling, Juan Antonio
Bardem would mercilessly dene these circumstances in the following way: “Current Spanish cinema is: politically ineective,
socially false, intellectually insignicant, aesthetically null and industrially rickety” (quoted in Seoane Riveira, 2017: 195). Be that
as it may, from the Conversations, which were programmed with the aim of seeking a common commitment that would change
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July-December of 2022
Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of The Spanish Civil War:
La vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
doxa.comunicación
the situation, “between the decades of the 50s and the 60s the history of cinematographic modernity in Spain is congured”
(Seoane Riveira, 2017: 193).
In a certain sense, what such an event achieved would be the historiographical division of Spanish cinema, in the manner of
two Spains, around a pair of very dierentiated sides, “the continuists (followers of the regime) versus the dissidents (opposed
to it)” (Seoane Riveira, 2017: 197). It would remain to be dened with certainty the place where the cinematic esperpento can be
located, since, on the one hand, it is too cynical, disbelieving and rupturist to speak of “continuism” and, on the other hand, it is
often accused of an absent political commitment or of generalized cruelty to speak of “dissidence”. According to Seoane Riveira,
the esperpentic way would need to be considered “an alternative cinematographic modernity to the one consensualized from the
Salamanca Conversations of 1955” (2017: 18).
Tracing the precedents of this alternative path, several authors would agree in pointing to the famous Madrid director Edgar
Neville as a lmmaker who, to a certain extent, began to work with the esperpentic elements, whose most prolic period was the
decade of the 1940s with titles such as La torre de los siete jorobados (1944), La vida en un hilo (1945) or Domingo de carnaval
(1945). In his feature lms “we sometimes nd a deforming, almost surrealist and expressionist character [...], therefore, the
esperpentic aesthetic does not remain so far from Neville” (Morán Paredes, 2006: 7). It is therefore reasonable to consider the
director from Madrid a remarkable precedent, since “he will represent the rst step on the path of Spanish cinema towards the
esperpento with the assimilation of Valleinclanian and Quevedo’s literary techniques” (Seoane Riveira, 2017: 202). However, the
real initiator of this current was not a director, but a screenwriter.
1.3. Rafael Azcona: how a screenwriter initiates the cinematic esperpento
Before getting to the well-known and indispensable Berlanga-Azcona tandem, whose work is undoubtedly framed within the
coordinates of the cinematic esperpento presented here, it is worth emphasizing why the scriptwriter from La Rioja is considered
the genuine initiator of this genre. A humorous and extremely acid writer, Rafael Azcona ventured into cinema as a screenwriter
with Italian director Marco Ferreri, who adapted a novel by Azcona himself, El pisito (1958). is lm was to be the rst great
example of esperpentic lm, but, although he was the screenwriter, “Azcona is not the garnish, he is the real content and it is
Ferreri who serves as a ller for Azcona’s universe” (Deltell, 2011: 8). From this lm onwards, the Azconian aspect begins to be
perfectly traceable, whose elements would include “the tendency to chorality, black humor, the distancing from his characters,
irony, the presence of death” (Angulo, 2000: 35), all of them features shared with the esperpentic tradition.
is is how a very young Víctor Erice and Santiago San Miguel explained it in 1961, considering Azcona the initiator of a new
cinematic current whose bizarre realism would be linked to “the deformation of reality, monsters, the esperpento, the so-called
black humor, Spanish humor”. In this way, the scriptwriter from La Rioja would be one more continuator within the long Spanish
artistic tradition “that goes from the Picaresque to the present day” (San Miguel and Erice, 1961). More authors agree, such as
Marta Raquel Macciuci, who also does not hesitate to include Azcona in the “path of the fertile Hispanic tradition of satire and
mockery”, besides pointing out that he revitalizes practices connected “with Valle-Inclán, with Arniches, with Quevedo” (2001: 4).
His more than reasonable link with Luis García Berlanga has meant that, on occasions, the gure of the scriptwriter has remained
in the shadows. Nevertheless, it is necessary to point out the mutual inuence to which they were exposed.
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Although it is true that in Berlanga, one of the most recognized gures of Spanish cinema, there are also clear signs of the
esperpentic aesthetics in his beginnings, his rst lms tend to be framed in a more tender and sainetesque territory, although not
lacking in mordacity. Such is the case of ¡Bienvenido, Míster Marshall! (1953) and Esa pareja feliz (1953), the latter co-directed
with Juan Antonio Bardem, whose sarcasm veiled by costumbrist humor and some scenes of chaotic chorality are established as
vestiges of what is investigated in the present essay. A very important point that would indicate the change in the director’s career
when teaming up with Azcona would be the formal issue, a very signicant aspect in the conception of the cinematic esperpento,
as indicated above. In fact, the extensive shots that made the director famous were not yet part of his repertoire, since “Berlanga
did not yet use, in 1958, the long sequence shot of characters [...], the Berlangaian sequence shot appears with the collaboration
of Rafael Azcona and not before him” (Deltell, 2011: 9).
It is considered that, until Berlanga worked with Azcona, the manifestations of the esperpento would not reach their most
powerful levels. From this point on, their collaboration would extend almost throughout the rest of his career (with the exception
of Berlanga’s last lms, Todos a la cárcel, from 1993 and París Tombuctú, from 1999). Paradigmatic examples, essential lms in
the history of Spanish cinema, could be Plácido (1961) and El verdugo (1963), able to circumvent Franco’s censorship through
corrosive humor linked to the esperpento, already with a fully consolidated aesthetic thanks to the conjunction between Azcona’s
narrative potential and Berlanga’s duly orchestrated expression. Precisely, again, in that aesthetic “Azcona and Berlanga seem
to coincide with Valle-Inclán” with respect to the words of Max Estrella and the systematically deformed tragic sense already
mentioned here (González, 2008: 75).
However, the case that interests this study will be his famous lm about the Spanish Civil War,
La vaquilla
(1985), in which the
esperpentic optics would be used to analyze the conict that dened the country in the twentieth century and whose resonances,
to some extent, still persist today.
2.
La vaquilla
: esperpentizing Spain’s wounds
2.1. Summary, historical context and criticism
is collaboration between Berlanga and Azcona, as already noted, sought the grotesque representation of the most traumatic
event in recent Spanish history. To do so, it was based on a simple plot: at the front of the war, the rebel side plans to hold a party
in the nearby town, where there will be a banquet and a heifer will be fought, but the Republicans will try to thwart it by inltrating
their lines to steal the animal. From this event onwards, the spectator witnesses a systematic ridiculing of all the agents involved
in the lm’s story.
Regardless of its subject matter,
La vaquilla
, almost reaching two million spectators, “became one of the highest grossing lms
by the director of
El verdugo
” (González, 2008: 73). is fact, which could be anecdotic, takes on great importance considering
its year of release, 1985. It should be noted, as Jo Labanyi points out, that “few lms and almost no ction writing dealt with the
subject in the rst ten years after Franco’s death, when the promotion of an outrageous hypermodernity prevailed” (2007: 95).
On this point, Sánchez-Biosca also agrees, since he considers that “at the end of the 1990s, an inverse obsession is already in the
air: a compulsive need for rehistorization that goes hand in hand with a certain disappointment, at least, of the ideals formulated
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| nº 35, pp. 363-375 |
July-December of 2022
Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of The Spanish Civil War:
La vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
doxa.comunicación
in the previous decade” (1995: 181). However, the responses to the need mentioned by Sánchez-Biosca were dierent and even
antagonistic in certain aspects.
For example, quoting Labanyi again, once a certain point was reached in the eighties, some of the lms that would confront the
issue of the war would be “seemingly driven by a nostalgic desire to romanticize the Republic” (2007: 95), where she mentions ¡
Ay,
Carmela
! (Carlos Saura, 1990) and Libertarias (Vicente Aranda, 1996). Against this idealistic vision,
La vaquilla
seems to position
itself, perhaps, more in line with the spirit of the pact of oblivion, without the decision to block the past, “but a decision not to let
it shape the future” (Labanyi, 2007: 93), through a reduction of the conict to the absurd. To this end, Berlanga and Azcona’s lm
would use a polyphonic and grotesque discourse that “serves to confront the rigid and static vision of the reality of the Civil War”
(González, 2008: 78).
However, the lm that is the subject of this research has not been classied in a particular current, precisely because of the
unusual nature of its discourse. It is very curious how, in Labanyi’s articulation of two general types of cinematic approach to the
memory of the war,
La vaquilla
is left adrift. e author dierentiates two signicant tendencies when it comes to approaching
the conict: on the one hand, that which uses the realm of the fantastic and intergenerational memorial trauma, a “haunting
presence of the violent past in the present”, and, on the other hand, “those texts which opt for a realistic or documentary format”,
which would transport us “back to the past” (2007: 103).
La vaquilla
does not t any of these molds, since, although it seems to
conform a representation of that warlike past, its esperpentic premises deform any realistic pretension. In this way, something
similar to what happened after the Salamanca Conversations would be occurring, dividing the manifestations in binary terms,
relegating a possible alternative esperpentic path to dismissal.
Its coarse and cynical character contrasts sharply with the usual sacralization and dramatization with which such a traumatic event
as the Civil War is presented. In fact, in Sánchez-Biosca’s opinion, the lm is not even considered as an example of esperpentic
cinema, which would problematize the supposedly festive character of the lm when it comes to exploring the conict, due to its
innocuous eectiveness. For the author,
La vaquilla
would be permeated by the comedy of the eighties and its aesthetics would
be “’fallera’, colorful, eccentric, ‘Valencian’, to the detriment of the esperpentic tonality, of Valleinclanesque style, which once
characterized Berlanga’s lms during the fties and sixties” (Sánchez Biosca, 1995: 185). On the contrary, Sánchez-Biosca himself
arms that the script of the lm “had been written by Berlanga in collaboration with Rafael Azcona in 1956, but the censorship
had forbidden it” (1995: 184), which would indicate that the intentionality of the lm does t in the temporal coordinates of his
most remembered esperpentic works.
Even taking into account that the gestation of
La vaquilla
was censored for decades, with the inevitable changes that the script
would suer over time
1
, the lm is “the most complete approach to the civil war from the prism of the comic” (González, 2008:
73). Moreover, as will be shown below, the lm by Berlanga and Azcona does have many of the characteristics that dene the
aesthetics of the cinematic esperpento, so it should be dened as such. rough distancing formal techniques, a construction
of characters based on deformation, demythologization and chorality or a systematic situational confusion linked to the imsy,
1
His initial script, titled “No Man’s Land”, underwent changes in its progressive rewrites that eliminated some particularly grotesque scenes or characterizations.
For example, the brothel scene shows bald, toothless, near-starvation women, something that does not prevent the soldiers from trying to have intercourse with
them. Although it can be argued that the genesis of
La vaquilla
had a particularly corrosive grotesque character, this does not invalidate the idea that will be
defended below.
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almost interchangeable ideology of its inhabitants,
La vaquilla
achieves a unique commentary on the Civil War from the
esperpentic approach.
2.2. Distancing techniques, esperpentic heroes, inversion of roles and animalization-symbolism
e rst aspect to highlight is the formal question, in which we will see how the semantic sense of some of the shots in
La vaquilla
is in line with the cinematic esperpento. Already from the opening scene, which begins with the reproduction of popular music
on a record player and, therefore, signaling a tonal short-circuit between the conict and its soundtrack, the republican trench is
presented in several sequence shots. Although the comparison may seem arbitrary, if one thinks of the aesthetic approach of lms
like Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957) or 1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019), their sequence shots inside the trenches sought a total
immersion in the terror of war, as well as a greater emotional connection with the soldiers. On the contrary, in
La vaquilla
, Berlanga
uses these sequence shots in line with the esperpentic postulates of distancing and coldness with respect to the characters. us,
what is seen at the beginning is a small trench from the outside, populated by soldiers who, in comparison with the dry and hot
landscape, are almost reduced to a prop (Figures 1 and 2). is wide framing allows for the seemingly chaotic conuence of many
of the characters, who are heard interacting, but it is dicult to properly understand what about. Such empathic disconnection
and incommunication among its participants already points to a reection on the nature of war itself.
Figure 1 Figure 2
9
los personajes, a los cuales se oye interactuar, pero es difícil entender correctamente
sobre qué. Tal desconexión empática y la incomunicación entre sus participantes ya
apunta a una reflexión sobre la naturaleza de la guerra misma.
Imagen
1
Imagen 2
Fuente:
Imágenes de
La vaquilla
, (García Berlanga, L.
(1985).
InCine S.A / Jet Films. DVD es de 2013, por DIVISA HOME VÍDEO y Video
Mercury Films.
La escena acaba explicitando dicha incomunicación cuando un pregonero del bando
sublevado transmite por megafonía que las fiestas del pueblo de al lado tendrán lugar,
donde habrá un banquete, un baile y una corrida de toros. Esta forma de
desmoralización enfada al sargento interpretado por Alfredo Landa, que correrá a
transmitir desde la megafonía republicana, mientras que la interrupción entre
personajes al mismo tiempo que sigue oyéndose de fondo el anuncio franquista es
realmente confusa. Al fin, el sargento usa su transmisor para mandar callar a los del
otro bando, pero tendrá que recurrir a los gritos. A esto, el soldado que está a su lado
le dice
«
no grite tanto, mi Brigada, que distorsiona
»
(06:55). Los del mismo bando no
se escuchan, a nadie le importa lo que dice cada individuo y hacerse escuchar significa
gritar, aunque ello “distorsione” el ambiente.
El uso del plano secuencia, como es frecuente en Berlanga
-
Azcona se ve con asiduidad
en la película. Por mencionar otros ejemplos reseñables, cuando comienza el banquete
de las fiestas, en una sola toma el espectador puede asistir a la ridiculización de los
distintos personajes del bando franquista (imágenes 3 y 4). En
esta
secuencia, la
cámara se va moviendo a lo largo de la mesa, parándose en cada uno de ellos (de
1:12:00 a 1:14:00). Primero, un requeté le cuenta a la marquesa que ha administrado
mal el dinero de su marido, a lo que ésta le sugiere que diga que se lo han quitado los
rojos, pero que le dé el dinero a ella, ya que se lo dará a los curas para así ir al cielo
más rápidamente. A continuación, el cura pide por favor que el baile de las fiestas no
sea “agarrao’”, para así evitar la promiscuidad. Finalmente, el marqués le cuenta a un
militar cómo su dolencia, la gota, podría remontarse incluso a Felipe II. Así, solo en
esos dos minutos sin cortes, se pone en tela de juicio desde lo esperpéntico: la inaptitud
en la gestión y la sempiterna coartada que suponía culpar de todo a la “amenaza roja”,
la avaricia disfrazada de caridad, la rígida y rancia moral de la Iglesia, además de los
delirios de grandeza y los privilegios hereditarios de una nobleza venida a menos. De
este modo,
“
la tragedia de España se convierte en espectáculo inquietante pero
cómico
”
(Santos Zas) y
“
la
‘
historia esperpentizada
’”
demuestra que no sólo se queda
en el rasgo estilístico de lo grotesco, como se mencionaba en la introducción de este
ensayo,
sino que también es capaz
“
de una severa crítica social y de una profunda
preocupación por la tragedia nacional
”
(Zahaeras, 1967:
706).
Source: Illustrations from
La vaquilla
(García Berlanga, L. (1985). InCine S.A / Jet Films. DVD is from 2013,
by DIVISA HOME VÍDEO and Video Mercury Films
e scene ends up making explicit this lack of communication when a town crier of the rebel side transmits over the loudspeaker
that the festivities of the next town will take place, where there will be a banquet, a dance and a bullght. is form of demoralization
angers the sergeant played by Alfredo Landa, who runs to transmit from the Republican loudspeaker, whereas the interruption
between characters while the Francoist announcement continues to be heard in the background is really confusing. At last, the
sergeant uses his transmitter to command the other side to be quiet, but he will have to resort to shouting. To this, the soldier next
to him says “don’t shout so much, my Brigade, it distorts” (06:55). ose on the same side do not listen to each other, nobody cares
about what each individual says, and to be heard means shouting, even if it “distorts” the atmosphere.
e use of the sequence shot, as is common in Berlanga-Azcona, is frequently seen in the lm. To mention other notable
examples, when the banquet begins, in a single shot the viewer can witness the ridicule of the dierent characters of the Francoist
370
| nº 35, pp. 363-375 |
July-December of 2022
Luis García Berlanga and the portrayal of The Spanish Civil War:
La vaquilla
(1985) as cinematic
esperpento
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
doxa.comunicación
side (Figures 3 and 4). In this sequence, the camera moves along the table, stopping at each of them (from 1:12:00 to 1:14:00).
First, a requeté tells the Marquesa that she has mismanaged her husband’s money, to which the Marquesa suggests that she say
that the Reds have taken it from him, but give the money to her, as she will give it to the priests so that she can go to heaven more
quickly. Next, the priest asks that the dance at the festivities not be “
agarrao
’”, in order to avoid promiscuity. Finally, the marquis
tells a military man how his ailment, gout, could be traced back even to Philip II. us, only in those two minutes without cuts,
the following is questioned from the grotesque: the inaptitude in management and the everlasting alibi of blaming everything on
the “red menace”, the greed disguised as charity, the rigid and rancid morals of the Church, as well as the delusions of grandeur
and the hereditary privileges of a nobility that had fallen into disrepair. In this way, “the tragedy of Spain becomes a disturbing
but comic spectacle” (Santos Zas) and “the ‘esperpentized history’” shows that it not only remains in the stylistic feature of the
grotesque, as mentioned in the introduction to this essay, but is also capable “of a severe social criticism and a deep concern for
the national tragedy” (Zahaeras, 1967: 706).
Figure 3 Figure 4
10
Imagen 3 Imagen 4
Fuente:
Imágenes de
La vaquilla
, (García Berlanga, L. (1985). InCine S.A / Jet
Films.
DVD de 2013, por DIVISA HOME VÍDEO y Video Mercury Films.
El segundo punto a discutir, vital en la cuestión esperpéntica e iluminador en el
contexto bélico, es la articulación del héroe en este tipo de ficciones. Volviendo a la
tercera visión de la que hablaba Valle, uno de sus epicentros estaría personificado por
el héroe esperpéntico, en línea con el héroe absurdo, incapaz
“
de encarar la realidad
con honra y dignidad
”
(Pólak, 2009: 20). Este antihéroe de rasgos ridículos y
fuertemente determinado por su ambiente social sería descrito por Valle de esta forma:
“
en
la vida existen muchos seres que llevan la tragedia dentro de sí y que son incapaces
de una actitud levantada, resultando, por el contrario, grotescos en todos sus actos
”
(citado en Pólak, 2009: 20). En consecuencia, se habría dado la vuelta a los arquetipos
clásicos, ahora inútiles ante la misma fatalidad del destino que los personajes de la
antigüedad cargaban sobre sus hombros con altivez (Pólak, 2009: 21).
La vaquilla
,
desde su coralidad, asume la misma representación del héroe esperpéntico en su
regimiento republicano protagonista.
Lejos queda cualquier tipo de romantización de la guerra y sus participantes. El
heroísmo bélico,
con
historias sobre soldados valerosos capaces de gestas que los
dignifiquen,
se encuentra en el polo opuesto de lo presentado en la cinta. Esto se
ejemplifica a la perfección en los momentos iniciales de la misión, cuando deben
formar un pequeño equipo que se infiltre en la zona sublevada. La tropa, reunida en
una iglesia abandonada y destrozada, espera órdenes, y cuando el teniente busca a uno
de ellos que ayude con la caza de la vaquilla, éste intenta esconderse (16:10). No existe
predisposición alguna por parte de los soldados y queda clara su total cobardía, solo
terminada cuando un soldado que dice ser torero se ofrece para la aventura. Sin
embargo, cuando este lamentable comando de 5 hombres llega a la cuadra en la que
se encuentra la vaquilla, el torero no se atreve a atacarla, ni siquiera con amenazas
como
“
o la matas o acabas en un consejo de guerra
”
(30:25). Entre todos intentarán
acorralarla fallidamente, pero, antes de eso, el sargento se da cuenta de que el torero
se ha hecho sus necesidades encima (imagen 4). Tras salir de allí, tratará de defenderse
de forma poco convincente diciendo:
“
que conste que no ha sido el miedo, es que ayer
comí ciruelas y como estaban verdes, claro, hoy cagalera
”
(34:30). La figura del
soldado, por un lado, y la del torero, por otro, quedan simultáneamente reducidas al
patetismo escatológico. Esa vía escatológica, soez y chabacana que, indudablemente,
vertebra
La vaquilla
, es una de las causas por las que la película podría ser acusada de
ordinaria y no esperpéntica. No obstante, se debe tener en cuenta que, en el esperpento,
“
el mismo principio de subversión de las normas clásicas lo aplica al lenguaje
”
, dando
Source: Illustrations from
La vaquilla
(García Berlanga, L. (1985). InCine S.A / Jet Films.
DVD is from 2013, by DIVISA HOME VÍDEO and Video Mercury Films
e second point to be discussed, vital in the esperpentic matter and illuminating in the war context, is the articulation of the
hero in this type of ctions. Returning to the third vision of which Valle spoke, one of its epicenters would be personied by the
esperpentic hero, in line with the absurd hero, unable “to face reality with honor and dignity” (Pólak, 2009: 20). is antihero with
ridiculous features and strongly determined by his social environment would be described by Valle in this way: “in life there are
many beings who carry tragedy within themselves and who are incapable of a lifted attitude, resulting, on the contrary, grotesque
in all their acts” (quoted in Pólak, 2009: 20). Consequently, the classical archetypes would have been turned around, now useless
before the same fatality of destiny that the characters of antiquity carried on their shoulders with haughtiness (Pólak, 2009: 21).
La vaquilla
, from its chorality, assumes the same representation of the grotesque hero in its protagonist republican regiment.
e lm is far from any kind of romanticization of war and its participants. War heroism, with stories about brave soldiers capable
of deeds that dignify them, is at the opposite pole of what is presented in the movie. is is perfectly exemplied in the opening
moments of the mission, when they must form a small team to inltrate the rebel zone. e troop, gathered in an abandoned and
destroyed church, awaits orders, and when the lieutenant looks for one of them to help with the hunt for the heifer, he tries to hide
(16:10). ere is no predisposition on the part of the soldiers and their total cowardice is clear, only ended when a soldier who
doxa.comunicación |
nº 35, pp. 363-375
|
July-December of 2022
Fernando Sánchez López
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
371
claims to be a bullghter oers himself for the adventure. However, when this pitiful commando of 5 men arrives at the stable
where the heifer is, the bullghter does not dare to attack her, not even with threats such as “either you kill her or you end up in
a court martial” (30:25). Between all of them, they will try to corner it, but, before that, the sergeant realizes that the bullghter
has had his bowels done on him (Figure 4). After getting out of there, he will try to defend himself in an unconvincing way saying:
“for the record, it wasn’t fear, it’s just that yesterday I ate plums and as they were green, of course, today I had a shitting problem”
(34:30). e gure of the soldier, on the one hand, and the bullghter, on the other, are simultaneously reduced to scatological
absurdity. is scatological, vulgar and tawdry path that, undoubtedly, vertebrates
La vaquilla