I agree. This was weird. He grew up without a father, with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mother who was clearly not making much. But he has the apartment, the tech, international trips, and an expensive hobby. What he doesn’t have is a job. Maybe this one play he had put on years ago made him some money, but he said the play was unsuccessful. How many years could that payout have lasted?

I was also amused by the part where a female American Hispanist (khm, khm) is treated like a celebrity on her visit to Spain. She’s traveling with an assistant who is running around changing her plane tickets whenever she feels like it and without thinking of the cost.

An American Hispanist who wrote a foundational book about Federico García Lorca, like the character played by Glenn Close, is actually a regular reader of this blog. Maybe he’ll tell us how much of a celebrity status this conferred on him.

The 2017 storyline reads like it was written by a completely different person from the rest of the movie.

Thank you for the questions. I truly appreciate the opportunity to talk about the movie.

6 responses to “Q&A about Rich Graduate Students in La bola negra”

  1. pizzagracefullyab9c1ab0ed Avatar
    pizzagracefullyab9c1ab0ed

    Yeah. No celebrity status for American Hispanists in Spain. We are not even famous for the other Spanish Hispanists. Just normal professional acknowledgment, which is all you would expect any way. And definitely no assistant to make our travel arrangements.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      Wouldn’t it be great, though? People flocking to us for autographs, and we dismiss them, with a fatigued, ” I’m sorry, I have a plane to catch.”

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  2. pizzagracefullyab9c1ab0ed Avatar
    pizzagracefullyab9c1ab0ed

    By the way, I hate Conejero and anything to do with finishing a Lorca play, as he tried to do. It is sacrilege and I will die on that hill.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      I deeply respect your feelings. I would feel murderous if somebody tried to “finish” the novel that Chiribes started shortly before his death.

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  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    The Glenn Close character is obviously unrealistic. Maybe it symbolizes, from Spain, a certain image of American power?

    You reader’s comment about the unrealistic apartment is true, but the filmmakers, giving where they used to live, could not imagine a poorer apartment. The “casa de los Javis” is well known in Spain.

    Ol.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      I only now read online that the actress playing that horrible singer Nené is Penelope Cruz. Either she did not age well, or she really did not age well.

      I never liked her.

      I also heard that the Javis broke up during the making of the movie. Which is understandable. I can’t imagine many relationships surviving working on a project this ambitious.

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