\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSet in 1580 Seville, Spaniard Alberto Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s 2017 series \u201cThe Plague,\u201d a milestone in Spanish TV history, depicted how Spain took a wrong turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tInspired by Javier Cercas\u2019 non-fiction book, starring Alvaro Morte (\u201cMoney Heist\u201d) and acclaimed at September\u2019s San Sebasti\u00e1n world premiere, Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s \u201cAnatomy of a Moment\u201d tells how over 1976-81, Spain finally got it right, and how its hard-won young democracy also hung by a thread.<\/p>\n
\n\tA \u201cportrait of power and freedom, or at least how to maintain freedom for the future,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez (\u201cPrison 77\u201d) tells\u00a0Variety,\u00a0<\/em>the high-stakes thriller begins with the titular \u201cmoment\u201d: a posse of some 200 Civil Guards breaking into Spain\u2019s Congress, led by the pistol-brandishing Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, who spray the semi-circle with bullets. Most congressmen unceremoniously scramble to duck behind their benches. Three figures, however, \u2013 and the scene was caught on live on national TV \u2013 sit upright in their seats, refusing symbolically to bow before the coup\u2019 d\u2019\u00e9tat, convinced that they are going to die anyway: outgoing Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Su\u00e1rez, Santiago Carrillo, head of the Spanish Communist Party, and armed forces chief Manuel Guti\u00e9rrez Mellado who, though a frail near-70, got up to order the rebel Guards to lay down their arms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe series then dedicates one episode a piece to all three: Ep. 1, how Su\u00e1rez, Spanish Prime Minister from July 1976, persuaded Franco\u2019s parliament to vote itself out of existence; how Santiago Carrillo, head of the Spanish Communist Party, returns to Spain and secures its legalization, and Guti\u00e9rrez Mellado\u2019s battle to modernize of the army, removing its most radical elements. \u201cThese are figures,\u201d says Rodr\u00edguez, of \u201cShakesperian stature.\u201d The series portrays them in their grandeur, contradictions, traumas, chain-smoking and betrayal of the castes they came from.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThis is the story of three traitors. Su\u00e1rez went against his proclaimed fidelity to the Principles of the National Movement, Franco\u2019s political system; Carrillo turned his back on the guiding principles of Spain\u2019s Communist Party; Guti\u00e9rrez Mellado betrayed fellow Francoist officers with whom he had fought for Franco in the Spanish Civil War who were intent 40 years later on preserving a Francoist world order. A final episode returns to the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, why it failed, and the subsequent court martial of its leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tA fiction series, \u201cThe Anatomy of a Moment\u201d is shot with flair, from its use of ellipsis \u2013 in Ep. 1, to portray S\u00faarez\u2019s dramatic rise in Francoist ranks, as a young Falangist Su\u00e1rez guides a general into the office of the governor of Segovia: cut to its interior, where Su\u00e1rez, now himself installed as governor, receives another general \u2013 and accompanied by a trenchant voice over, mostly written by scribes Rafael Cobos and Fran Ara\u00fajo, explaining intricacies of characters and historical through-lines. \u201cYour friend has only one political ideal, to thrive,\u201d Alfonso Armada, head of the royal household, tells King Juan Carlos, when he names Su\u00e1rez Prime Minister. \u201cAnd he was entirely right,\u201d the voice over runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tEach episode channels a sense of genre: political comedy as Su\u00e1rez buys Franco\u2019s parliament, offering its members anything from a family cruise; espionage intrigue as Carrillo enters Spain incognito; court drama in the last, tinged with a note of melancholic elegy, as S\u00faarez is forgotten and, suffering Alzheimer\u2019s, forgets who he was himself.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tVariety<\/em>\u00a0sat down with Rodr\u00edguez at San Sebasti\u00e1n where \u201cThe Anatomy of a Moment\u201d celebrated its world premiere, acclaimed by El Mundo\u201d as \u201cmagnetic\u201d and by El Correo as \u201cthe series of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tYour Goya best picture winning film \u201cMarshland\u201d is set in 1980 during Spain\u2019s 1975-82 transition from dictatorship to democracy. Why return to the period?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tDomingo Corral and Jose Manuel Lorenzo said: \u2018Read Javier Cercas\u2019 book, and then let\u2019s talk.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0I did, and found it fascinating. First off, it re-orders reality, creating what could be regarded as a fantastic fiction. Them there\u2019s the gutting ending, which is about oblivion, how everything disappears, including our referents. History ends up forgotten. In his prologue, Cercas quotes a poll carried out in the U.K. that a significant percentage of people thought Churchill didn\u2019t exist, that he was a figure of fiction.<\/p>\n \n\tAlso, the book, as your series, is structured around three figures when the essence of TV drama, its largest appeal to make viewers return to a second season, is its characters.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tYes, the three, Su\u00e1rez, Carrillo and Guti\u00e9rrez-Mellado were extraordinary figures, with pronounced dramatic arcs, highly complex characters. Su\u00e1rez was many things at the same time, Carrillo also. They were extremely personable, above everything around them. These are figures of a Shakespearian stature.<\/p>\n \n\tOne of the key scenes in the series is when Su\u00e1rez arranges a clandestine first meeting with Carrillo, when he\u2019s returned to Spain. Against all odds, they immediately jell\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a moment when Su\u00e1rez says to Carrillo: \u2018Don Santiago, you and I are the only real politicians in this country. Each sense the others\u2019 weakness: Their egos. These are multi-faceted characters, with many layers, faces.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother thing that stands out in the series is its voiceover, which can be highly ironic, or poetic and but also draw through lines from the present and future.\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMaybe 15% is drawn from Javier Cercas\u2019 book. The rest comes from Rafa [Rafael Cobos] and Fran [Ara\u00fajo]. It attempts to clarify the major guidelines of the story. The book is 500 pages long. We had to condense a lot.<\/p>\n \n\tYou draw extraordinary performances from the actors, especially, perhaps, \u201cMoney Heist\u2019s\u201d Alvaro Morte, as Su\u00e1rez.\u00a0<\/strong>The first time \u00c1lvaro put on the\u00a0\u00a0prosthetic nose, it was as if he was another person. He studied a lot videos and other references. And Su\u00e1rez was elegant. He would put on a suit and was elegant in any situation. \u00c1lvaro has that elegance too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnd if you had to say what the series is about?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a portrait of power and freedom, or at least how to maintain freedom for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Set in 1580 Seville, Spaniard Alberto Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s 2017 series \u201cThe Plague,\u201d a milestone in Spanish TV history, depicted how Spain took a wrong turn.\u00a0 Inspired by Javier Cercas\u2019 non-fiction book, starring Alvaro Morte (\u201cMoney Heist\u201d) and acclaimed at September\u2019s San Sebasti\u00e1n world premiere, Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s \u201cAnatomy of a Moment\u201d tells how over 1976-81, Spain finally got<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[16616,16617,2511,90,16618,6642,1164],"class_list":{"0":"post-27909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alberto","9":"tag-alvaro","10":"tag-anatomy","11":"tag-moment","12":"tag-morte","13":"tag-rodriguez","14":"tag-starring"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}