Writtens

Prologue to “Aventuras y desventuras del cine español”

Without the joyous emotion that Eduardo G. Maroto’s films left me with during my teenage years, I might have never thought of film making.
In those final years of the Republic my friends and I constantly hummed the songs, I think the lyrics were by Miguel Mihura, which Eduardo’s wisdom included in his shorts “Una de fieras” and “Una de miedo”, his two great hits. In those years, I already added to these choral enthusiasms the vague intuition that I would end up getting into the world of creation that Eduardo offered to me from the screen… And so I did.

It’s been a long time since those fantasies film makers like Eduardo offered to us. Fortunately, he is still with us, with his elegant and affectionate mastery but, above all, with his indestructible loyalty towards film making as an industry.

Fortunately, Eduardo G. Maroto, together with some other survivors from the time when the industrial infrastructure of Spain was born, turned what had only been guile until then into a profession. Maroto gives us an everyday lesson of what a professional who has not only explored practically all the branches of artistic creation, but has also been an example to follow by those of us who come from and live off an alleged culturalization of the cinema, should be like.

Eduardo’s lesson is clear. Those of us who make films should see ourselves simply as workers of the show industry, an industry which should be dedicated, simply, to creating the best possible stories to be seen and heard by the public. And that’s all.

That’s the greatness of this laboratory technician, operator, editor, director, scriptwriter, production manager, etc. Being above all, a cinema man, a colleague, a friend, who never left the studios, offices or professional territories to submit to the tempting offers from the, paradoxically, merchants of culture.

Above all the admirations, I envy you, Eduardo, because you have contributed to creating not only the industry we refer to, but also the fascination that accompanied you pioneers for so many years. I congratulate you for living that time with the passion you, film makers, then put into this profession, which is slowly deteriorating, sweetly and sadly anesthetized in the arms of subsidies.

I wish this book may help not only to make your work and your merits known, but also to become a way to remedy all the deficiencies surrounding our profession, a profession which I intend to keep sharing with you for a long time, despite all its shortcomings.

Luis García Berlanga

* Prologue to “Aventuras y desventuras del cine español”. Eduardo García Maroto. Plaza & Janes Editores, Barcelona, 1988.