Satan Loves You
Screened the delirious SIMON OF THE DESERT for students this week, in a double-bill with Lindsay Anderson’s THE WHITE BUS, two films deprived of wide distribution due to their unconventional running times (the Bunuel film ran out of money so wound up half feature-length, the Anderson was part of a compendium film that didn’t come together). Lots of good laughs, and I’m intrigued by the mainly female hysteria produced by Sylvia Pinal’s first appearance as the Devil. Women seem to enjoy the way she outrageously torments Simon atop his lonely column, and then they LOVE the transformation —
Now these are young women. Perhaps they’ll feel differently in a few years or decades. But on the other hand, both Pinal and her elderly alter ego are rather refreshingly shameless, vigorous and enthusiastic about their work, and there’s something very positive about that.
shadowplay 
November 26, 2009 at 11:05 am
Wasn’t the film financed by Pinal’s wealthy husband/lover/whatever? All the more wonderfully perverse to have her portrayed as a polymorphous Satan…
November 26, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Bunuel manifested profound sympathy for the devil well before it became fashionable. Especially interestig is the final part when Satan finally comes atop the pillar and both of them realize that they have a lot in common. Simon is trying to be near God, Satan is damned to punish sinners because God kicked him out. So a Saint has more in common with Satan ultimately. And then in the coda, Bunuel makes the bitter ironic point that in a world of atomic conflict, these two might not matter much at all.
November 26, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Sternberg’s film was called The Devil is a Woamn bt Bunuel took that title seriously for Simon of the Desert. The notion of a female Satan is simple, but it took someone of Pinal’s sexual star power to put it over.
The White Bus is of course a whole ‘nother thing. It’s a major Anderson film, and it’s a shame it isn’t better known. Ideally it would make a great double-semi-feature with Albert Finney’s Charlie Bubbles — which also has a Sheilah Delany screenplay and conerns a trip to the North.
It’s a genuine shame that Charlie Bubbles remains Finney’s only directorial effort. it’s not likely that he’ll get another chance now haveing settled into being an American supporting player in a system that has no place for the likes of his only film.
November 26, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I have wanted to see The White Bus for a while, I might get an opportunity soon. I plan to re-visit Anderson soon especially If… and O Lucky Man!
November 26, 2009 at 8:00 pm
The White Bus is the missing link between the two. And Britannia Hospital should not be overlooked.
I *think* Pinal’s husband had something else in mind. Possibly he suggested another short film which could be packaged with Simon to make a feature. I can’t quite remember how that went.
November 26, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Senor Pinal was Gustavo Altratriste who produced most of the great Mexican films of Don Luis and Viridiana. So certainly an important collaborator. Simon of the Desert as such marks the end of the Mexican period. And after that it was Serge Silbeman, Jean-Claude Carriere and Europe.
For me the film is gorgeous visually, probably Gabriel Figueroa’s most visually expressive work for Bunuel. Bunuel forbade beauty in his films(though Nazarin and Los Olvidados are beautiful films) but this film is really expressive. But it’s also not as interesting as the other key Bunuel religious films – Nazarin, Viridiana and the film which it foreshadows The Milky Way.
November 26, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I think it would have been major, had it been completed. It already seems to be going in very interesting directions, and is very funny and visually beautiful, and then it has a brilliant abrupt halt.
I heard that Alatriste was anxious that Bunuel might be tempted to go permanently to France, so he offered to make whatever LB wanted, and rushed into Simon before he’d fully sourced the funding. Another rumour was that he cut short Simon to push Don Luis into making Sylvia’s pet project. Which would be very crafty and rather risky — he lost basically his whole investment that way. So I think the bad luck explanation is more charitable and more likely.
November 27, 2009 at 12:17 am
I use a clip from Britannia Hospital in this entry
November 27, 2009 at 1:58 am
Towards the end of filming Simon of the Desert as money became low, I believe Bunuel and Pinal became keen on the idea of making it the first part of a compendium film with two other directors – Fellini and Dassin – directing the other two parts. The link between the films would be Pinal starring in each… Naturally Fellini wanted Masina to star in his, and Dassin his-soon-to-be wife Melina Mercouri; so it all fell apart. It would have been interesting to see what they both came up with.
November 27, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Indeed! That’s the story which was on the tip of my brain. Thanks.
There was also a suggestion, I think from Bunuel, that the film might be distributed with Renoir’s Une Partie de Campagne, another long short which couldn’t really be distributed commercially. This was perhaps a last desperate suggestion, as the Renoir film had been shot before WWII and editing after the war, and by now had done all the festivals and was officially “old.” But it would have bumped the package up to feature length, and made quite an odd double bill.