Federico Garcia Lorca - Der Tod eines Dichters

Good biography about Lorca , a great Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director . García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was executed by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War . Nickolas Grace gives a fabulous interpretation in the title role and he even bears a remarkable resemblance to Lorca . In the series appears several historical characters magnificently interpreted by notorious actors such as Miguel Littin as Fernando De Los Ríos , Manuel De Benito as Luis Rosales , Germán Cobos as bullfighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías , Núria Espert as Margarita Xirgu , Tito Valverde as Luis Buñuel , Fernando López Veloso as Salvador Dalí , Fabián Conde as Manuel De Falla , Emiliano Redondo as Juan Ramón Jiménez , among others . Evocative settings and adequate production design by Wolfgang Burmann . Imaginative as well as sensitive score by Juan Bardem . Colorful and appropriate cinematography by Hans Burmann . The series was well directed by Juan Antonio Bardem .

Adding more autobiographic details about his existence , these are the followings : García Lorca was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles west of Granada, southern Spain . Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for theatre and music than literature, training fully as a classical pianist . His milieu of young artists gathered in El Rinconcillo at the Cafe Alameda in Granada . Prestigious Fernando De Los Rios persuaded García Lorca's parents to allow the boy to enrol at the progressive , Oxbridge-inspired Residence of Students in Madrid (1919) . There he befriended Luis Buñuel (Fernando Valverde) and Salvador Dalí (Fernando Veloso) and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. He was taken under the wing of the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (Emiliano Redondo) , becoming close to playwright Eduardo Marquina . He wrote and staged his first play, The Butterfly's Evil Spell and Mariana Pineda . Early in 1922 at Granada García Lorca joined the composer Manuel De Falla (Fabian Conde) in order to promote a Contest of Cante Jondo , a festival dedicated to enhance flamenco performance . As he had begun to write his "Poem of the deep song", so he naturally composed an essay on the art of flamenco . Later on , Lorca published poetry collections including ¨Songs¨ and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), which became his best known book of poetry . Growing estrangement between García Lorca and his closest friends reached its climax when surrealists Dalí and Luis Buñuel collaborated on their 1929 film An Andalusian Dog . García Lorca interpreted it, perhaps erroneously, as a vicious attack upon himself . Aware of these problems , García Lorca's family arranged for him to take a lengthy visit to the United States in 1929–30 . As García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando De Los Rios (Miguel Littin) , they stayed mostly in New York City, where Rios started a lecture tour and García Lorca enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies . His collection ¨A poet in New York¨ , explores alienation and isolation through some graphically experimental poetic techniques and was influenced by the Wall Street crash which he personally witnessed . García Lorca's return to Spain in 1930 coincided with the fall of the dictatorship of Primo De Rivera and the re-establishment of the Spanish Republic . Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company , Teatro Universitario la Barraca (The Shack). While touring with La Barraca, he wrote his now best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of ¨Blood Wedding¨ , ¨Yerma¨ and ¨The House of Bernarda Alba¨ , which all rebelled against the norms of bourgeois Spanish society. Lorca kept Huerta De San Vicente as his summer house in Granada from 1926 to 1936 . Here he wrote, totally or in part, some of his major works, among them When Five Years Pass .Then the Spanish Civil War broke out (July 1936) with unexpected as well as tragical consequences . The Spanish political and social climate had greatly intensified after the murder of prominent monarchist and anti-Popular Front spokesman José Calvo Sotelo by Republican Assault Guards. García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken socialist views.On 18 August, his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, the leftist mayor of Granada, was shot . Lorca was arrested that same afternoon .It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936 . The author Ian Gibson in his book The Assassination of García Lorca alleges that he was shot with three others at a place known as the Fuente Grande, or Great Fountain in Spanish, which is on the road between Viznar and Alfacar.

This six-part miniseries mixes docudrama with documentary footage to trace the life of Spanish poet/playwright/activist Federico Garcia Lorca, who was executed in 1936 by supporters of the future dictator, General Franco, during Spain's Civil War.

Each episode opens with his execution by firing squad, and then flashes back to a different era of his life and Spain's political history. It traces his career, his friendship with such luminary figures as Salvador Dali, and his relationship with his family.

In an unusual move, the Spanish TV network cast British actor Nickolas Grace in the title role. At the time, he was best known in Spain for his performance in the British miniseries "Brideshead Revisited." In "Lorca," he acted his dialog in English (while everyone around him acted in Spanish), and recited Lorca's verse in British-accented Spanish. Then all of his speeches were dubbed by a Spanish actor. Strangely, the dubbing of the scenes that he acted in English works far better than the scenes where he recites Lorca in Spanish.

Grace's casting ensured the show's sale to British and American television, where it was seen under the title "Lorca: Death of a Poet."

The pacing is a bit slow at spots, and the first three or four chapters are a bit too episodic. But it's worth a look for anyone interested in this dark period of Spain's history and the life of a great artist.

Of particular interest are the final two episodes, which depict the military takeover of Spain and the bloodshed that attended the Civil War.

As so many romantics I was sure Lorca was a freedom-fighter. And of course he is, although he never fired a single shot. As one of the Falangista's (Fascists) say: this man is more dangerous with a pen than with a gun.

This bewildering film, superbly shot using all the beauty of Spain, depicts one of the atrocities of 20th century history, which pathed the way for the longest reign of any western fascist government.

Lorca is not a war-hero though, he is a poet and playwright who deservedly belongs in the line Dante, Khayyam, Shelley, Byron, Rilke, Pessoa, Neruda etc. etc. This is not a film about poetry though (that must be 'Bodas de Sangre' of Carlos Saura, adapted from a play by Lorca and also available on DVD -with English subtitles- thanks to this lovely label Suevia Films)and it is not really about war, although the fighting and executions are grim. It is about life.

Please don't missthis poet's death !! His name is still being whispered by the trees in Granada...