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A FILM BY
YVES BILLON AND
MAURICIO MARTINEZ-CAVARD
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Now that barks dog
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Now that crows cock
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and the brays burro and warbles bird
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and the whistles watchmen and grunts swine
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and the dawny rose fields the broad gilds
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I come to sigh
my heaves window your beneaths.
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This is how Colombian literature started.
I'm sure that very few people remember that.
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Colombia, March 6, 1927.
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A torrential rain is falling down
on banana plantations
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surrounding
a small village called Aracataca.
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That day,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born
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in the
tropical department of Atlántico.
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55 years later, his masterpiece is awarded
a Nobel Prize in Literature
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which makes him famous all over the world.
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ENCHANTED LITERATURE
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Macondo
was a village of twenty adobe houses,
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built on the bank of a river of clear water
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that ran along a bed of polished stones,
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which were white and enormous,
like prehistoric eggs.
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The world was so recent that
many things lacked names,
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and in order to indicate them
it was necessary to point.
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Every year during the month of March
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a family of ragged gypsies would
set up their tents near the village,
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and with a great uproar
of pipes and kettledrums
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they would display new inventions.
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From the day I was born,
I knew that I was going to be a writer.
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I wanted to be a writer.
I had the will and the inclinations.
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I had the state of mind
and the aptitude to be a writer.
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I've always written. I've never thought
I could do something else.
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And I never thought
I could make a living off it.
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I was willing to starve to death
but be a writer.
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An obstinate narrator willing to make
any sacrifices in order to write
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he created with One Hundred Years
of Solitude a new vision of the world.
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Macondo is a village in the Caribbean,
as well as a whole continent.
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But what lies in the origins of the world?
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A novel in which everything
is true and reminds of a dream.
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A horror story which doesn't scare.
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All this makes a child turn into a witcher.
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Leave your child alone.
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Let his soul guide him.
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At the origin, there was grandfather,
Nicolás Márquez, the Colonel.
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At the turn of the century,
a young man from a respectable family
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he joins the Thousand Days' War
that is ravaging the country.
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The Colonel has a friend, a dear
brother-in-arms named Medardo Pacheco.
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But one cursed day in October 1908
the two men come face to face in a duel.
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It's a matter of honor.
The Colonel kills Pacheco,
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and it's as if he had killed himself.
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His suffering is infinite. He leaves
his native town for a forgotten village
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across Sierra Nevada.
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Twenty years later, the Colonel
has a daughter named Luisa,
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the apple of his eye.
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She falls desperately in love
with the local telegraph operator.
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The Colonel and his wife Tranquilina
are fiercely opposed to the relationship.
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Eventually, the couple get married.
Louisa names her first son Gabriel.
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As if to make up for the insult to father,
the child is sent to his house.
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Until the age of 8, García Márquez lives with
his maternal grandparents in Aracataca.
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Tranquilina and the Colonel, together
with numerous women of the house
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tell him about the world.
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The important thing is that we were
the only two men in the house
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otherwise full of women.
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It was a very strange life for me
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because the women,
headed by my grandmother
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lived in a supernatural world, a fantastic
world where everything was possible
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and where the most marvellous things
were routine.
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And I got used to thinking that way too.
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But my grandfather was probably the most
down-to-earth person I've ever known.
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The stories he told were the stories
of the civil war and politics.
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And he talked to me as if I was a grown-up.
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So my life was divided
between these two worlds:
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the concrete one of my grandfather
in which I spent most of my time
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because he devoted a lot of time to me
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and the one of the women
in which I stayed alone at night.
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When it was opened by the giant,
the chest gave off a glacial exhalation.
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Inside there was only an enormous,
transparent block with infinite internal needles
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in which the light of the sunset
was broken up into colored stars.
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Disconcerted, knowing that the children
were waiting for an immediate explanation,
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00:07:31,117 --> 00:07:33,265
José Arcadio Buendía ventured a murmur:
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“It’s the largest diamond in the world.”
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“No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”
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And now, she'll delight you
by guessing the prize number.
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First prize!
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The age of Jesus Christ!
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When my grandfather died, this world ended.
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00:08:07,464 --> 00:08:12,204
My family left Aracataca and I went to live
with my parents with whom I'd never lived.
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00:08:12,516 --> 00:08:16,878
There was a different culture and
a completelly different reality there.
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But the memory that made me
want to express myself
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is the memory of my grandfather.
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And besides, he gave me
a vision of a country
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which was his country, where
he had lived during the civil war
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especially under
the command of General Uribe.
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It's hard
to forget a grandfather like that.
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Uprooted from this enchanted world
that was Aracataca
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the child plunges in his memory in search of
the faces, houses, trees, smells, stories.
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García Márquez didn't know yet that
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this nostalgy that would never leave him
was to become the source of his writing.
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Many years would pass before
an unplanned return to Aracataca
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during a decisive trip rendered him the
keys to the world that he thought was lost.
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00:09:37,285 --> 00:09:41,762
Tonight Gabriel García Márquez
will read for us the first chapter
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from his book of memoirs.
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He will also read to us the second chapter
from his inexhaustible book of desires.
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And before I could react she said:
"I'm your mother."
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"I've come to ask you to please
go with me to sell the house."
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She did not have to tell me
which one, or where,
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because for us
only one existed in the world:
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my grandparents' old house in Aracataca
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where I'd had the good fortune to be born
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and where I had not lived again
after the age of eight.
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00:10:31,577 --> 00:10:36,943
Neither my mother nor I, of course,
could even have imagined
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that this simple two-day trip
would be so decisive
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that the longest and most diligent
of lives would not be enough for me
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to finish recounting it.
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00:11:05,527 --> 00:11:08,107
There's a long way to go
before the reunion.
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00:11:08,496 --> 00:11:11,683
A new separation
comes to trouble his childhood.
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00:11:12,156 --> 00:11:18,170
Before he turns 16, he wins a scholarship
and has to leave the Caribbean.
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00:11:18,465 --> 00:11:21,755
Overcome with sadness,
he gets on board a steamboat
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which takes him along the Magdalena River
to the ridges of the Andes.
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00:11:26,906 --> 00:11:32,384
His destination is Zipaquirá with its
modest Varones National Lyceum.
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00:11:34,227 --> 00:11:38,571
A young man born in a warm climate,
he has trouble adapting to the cold
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and fog of the mountains.
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He tries to shut out nostalgia by reading.
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He reads passionately, especially poetry:
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poets of the Spanish Golden Age
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but also Rubén Darío, Porfirio Barba Jacob,
Pablo Neruda and others.
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00:11:58,584 --> 00:12:01,333
A while later, he starts
studying law in Bogotá.
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He doesn't like the city.
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00:12:03,903 --> 00:12:07,066
His Caribbean passion and zest clash
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with cold streets
full of people dressed in black.
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00:12:11,510 --> 00:12:14,668
Once again, books help him survive.
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00:12:15,063 --> 00:12:20,630
He tries to write his first books but
to no avail. Until he discovers Kafka.
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00:12:22,084 --> 00:12:26,413
I tried to write stories
but I felt that
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even though I knew the storyline,
I didn't know how to write it.
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00:12:32,715 --> 00:12:37,781
All the attempts until then were failures.
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00:12:38,044 --> 00:12:39,380
Something was lacking.
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00:12:39,868 --> 00:12:44,109
And after I enrolled on
the faculty of law in Bogotá
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one night when I came back
to the dormitory...
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00:12:53,003 --> 00:12:59,737
I had a friend who read a lot there,
and he brought a small yellow book.
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It was the only book he had at that time,
so I went to bed and started reading.
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00:13:04,802 --> 00:13:07,772
I read everything I could come across then.
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00:13:08,314 --> 00:13:09,909
So I opened the book and it read:
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00:13:10,652 --> 00:13:16,264
"One morning, as Gregor Samsa
was waking up from anxious dreams,
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he discovered that in bed he had been
changed into a monstrous verminous bug."
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00:13:20,673 --> 00:13:24,136
I remember how I almost fell
out of bed at that moment.
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00:13:25,844 --> 00:13:30,400
It was a revelation: if somethinglike this
can be done, then I'm interested in it.
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00:13:32,175 --> 00:13:36,010
Before that I probably thought
that it wasn't possible
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despite having devoured
One Thousand and One Nights.
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00:13:42,659 --> 00:13:46,310
But there was a very important thing
which was the method.
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There was a method for telling a story.
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And I didn't have it.
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It was a real revelation for me.
After that,
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I wrote a story called
La tercera resignación
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which was published in El Espectador.
I wrote it based on that reading.
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And starting from that time, in all
my writing I followed the modern novel.
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And I've stuck with it up until now.
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00:14:20,851 --> 00:14:25,665
García Márquez publishes three stories
in Bogotá's major newspaper El Espectador.
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His talent of a storyteller is noticed
by Eduardo Zalamea,
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renowned writer and critic.
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00:14:33,847 --> 00:14:38,188
From its independence, Columbia lived
in the state of almost permanent
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social and political unrest.
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00:14:40,409 --> 00:14:46,524
In late 40s, the new civil war and its
militia wreak more havoc on the country.
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00:14:52,940 --> 00:14:57,453
A popular presidential candiate
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
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is assassinated in Bogotá on April 9, 1948.
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00:15:03,265 --> 00:15:07,947
An enraged crowd lynches his murderer
and devastate the city.
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00:15:08,152 --> 00:15:13,797
The dormitory where García Márquez
lives is destroyed by fire
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and the writer sees in it the signal
for returning to the Caribbean.
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00:15:19,707 --> 00:15:24,334
I lost everything: my first typewriter
which my father gave me
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and some manuscripts which
today I'm glad were lost.
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00:15:30,569 --> 00:15:34,174
After this, I went to Cartagena
to continue my studies.
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I was
in the middle of the second year then.
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So I came to Cartagena
and finished the second year.
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But when I started the third year,
I realized I wasn't interested anymore
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because I was completely obsessed
with literature and journalism.
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00:15:54,196 --> 00:15:58,477
Once, while I was still studying,
I was looking for something to do
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00:15:59,362 --> 00:16:03,556
and I went to the office of El Universal
in San Juan De Dios Str. in Cartagena.
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00:16:04,493 --> 00:16:09,528
There, I saw a man sitting
behind the counter and writing.
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I came up to him and said...
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I don't know why but I felt very shy.
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00:16:18,133 --> 00:16:21,201
I'd always been that way
but even more so at that moment.
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00:16:21,312 --> 00:16:25,912
Besides, I was getting myself in something
that I knew nothing about.
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But I said to him, "I want to work here."
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00:16:28,819 --> 00:16:31,508
He asked, "What do you do?"
I said, "I write."
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"And what's your name?"
I told him my name.
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00:16:38,695 --> 00:16:41,926
It turned out, he'd read
my stories in El Espectador.
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00:16:41,943 --> 00:16:45,718
It was Clemente Manuel Zabala.
He said, "Sit down and write a piece."
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I was happy.
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00:16:47,887 --> 00:16:49,607
And that day I became a journalist.
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00:16:53,002 --> 00:16:55,846
Having written
numerous articles and columns,
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00:16:56,046 --> 00:17:01,383
García Márquez arrives at an original
and bold concept of a news report.
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00:17:01,756 --> 00:17:05,623
He also founds
a journalism school in Cartagena.
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00:17:06,131 --> 00:17:10,509
All the writings of García
Márquez the journalist are marked
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00:17:10,534 --> 00:17:12,255
by strong engagement -
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00:17:12,666 --> 00:17:16,418
a literary, civic and political
engagement.
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00:17:17,988 --> 00:17:24,378
I'd say I came to journalism
because I believed
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the main thing was not to write
literature but to tell stories.
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00:17:31,862 --> 00:17:34,665
And within this way of thinking
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00:17:35,268 --> 00:17:39,814
journalism, and especially the news report,
should be considered a literary genre.
197
00:17:40,490 --> 00:17:44,562
This is what I believe even though
many journalists themselves
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00:17:44,787 --> 00:17:48,532
refuse to accept a news report
as a literary genre.
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00:17:48,972 --> 00:17:53,611
Deep down they even view it as inferior.
200
00:17:56,769 --> 00:18:01,606
But I believe, a news report is a story
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based fully on real events.
202
00:18:06,067 --> 00:18:10,870
A fictional story
is also based on real events.
203
00:18:11,438 --> 00:18:17,243
No fiction is fully made up.
It's only an elaboration of experience.
204
00:18:19,263 --> 00:18:28,521
So I considered journalism
another stage in my apprenticeship
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00:18:28,821 --> 00:18:36,475
not only literary but overall development
of my ability to tell stories.
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00:19:00,776 --> 00:19:03,651
Among the stories García Márquez
wants to tell
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00:19:03,995 --> 00:19:07,314
are ones about drug cartels
and corruption in Colombia
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00:19:07,752 --> 00:19:12,129
as well as kidnappings and
murders of numerous journalists.
209
00:19:12,775 --> 00:19:17,277
He tells the story of yet another civil war
210
00:19:17,498 --> 00:19:22,239
which seems on the point of depriving
the whole country of a future.
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00:19:23,330 --> 00:19:26,419
Easy money, a narcotic more harmful
than the ill-named "heroic drugs,"
212
00:19:26,491 --> 00:19:28,526
was injected into the national culture.
213
00:19:29,850 --> 00:19:33,727
The idea prospered: The law is
the greatest obstacle to happiness;
214
00:19:33,986 --> 00:19:36,329
it is a waste of time
learning to read and write;
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00:19:36,592 --> 00:19:40,378
you can live a better, more secure life
as a criminal than as a law-abiding citizen
216
00:19:40,629 --> 00:19:46,518
- in short, this was the social breakdown
typical of all undeclared wars.
217
00:19:48,274 --> 00:19:52,266
It was my most difficult, most complicated
and most bleak book.
218
00:19:52,766 --> 00:19:58,490
But I hope that it can serve
as a mirror for Colombians
219
00:19:59,045 --> 00:20:03,111
so that we can see ourselves clearly
in order to solve our problems.
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00:20:04,367 --> 00:20:08,299
He becomes instantly famous due to
the success of One Hundred Years of Solitude
221
00:20:08,434 --> 00:20:11,506
and has to get used to fame,
sometimes embarrassing, since
222
00:20:11,531 --> 00:20:13,717
he knows it's synonymous with influence.
223
00:20:14,277 --> 00:20:17,612
He fights for human rights,
creates Habeas, a foundation
224
00:20:17,637 --> 00:20:20,093
charged with helping political prisoners
225
00:20:20,271 --> 00:20:25,369
and travels around the continent
as an emerging politician.
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00:20:25,740 --> 00:20:29,678
Meeting with top figures of the world
becomes almost routine.
227
00:20:29,778 --> 00:20:32,732
And his friendship with Fidel Castro
is already the stuff of legend.
228
00:20:32,997 --> 00:20:35,344
He publicly states his position.
As a result,
229
00:20:35,369 --> 00:20:37,767
he receives death threats
and is denied visas.
230
00:20:37,925 --> 00:20:42,799
His straightforwardness and
his leftist sensibilities cause a stir.
231
00:21:01,529 --> 00:21:04,721
Cinema was for me more
than just a hobby.
232
00:21:04,745 --> 00:21:06,322
And I wrapped up very little of it.
233
00:21:06,323 --> 00:21:10,645
And when push came to shove,
we found ouself in the crazy situation
234
00:21:10,669 --> 00:21:12,949
of making war
against mainstream 20th century culture.
235
00:21:12,950 --> 00:21:17,919
and we ended up in cinemas
that had comfy seats but no roof.
236
00:21:18,675 --> 00:21:22,153
Where you watched films beneath
the stars, with the full moon and...
237
00:21:24,654 --> 00:21:27,605
I was so into cinema that
when I came to El Espectador
238
00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:33,248
I convinced them to
let me write film criticism.
239
00:21:35,145 --> 00:21:40,101
Many years after The Blue Lobster,
his manifesto of the Caribbean surrealism
240
00:21:40,546 --> 00:21:45,345
García Márquez goes to the city
which is still the indisputable mecca
241
00:21:45,645 --> 00:21:48,223
of Latin-American cinema - Mexico City.
242
00:21:48,646 --> 00:21:51,646
He meets directors, producers and actors,
243
00:21:51,937 --> 00:21:55,447
writes scripts adapting
the stories of Juan Rulfo.
244
00:21:55,986 --> 00:21:59,025
Rulfo offers him a new freedom
245
00:21:59,378 --> 00:22:02,898
- the freedom to manipulate time
to better reconstruct it.
246
00:22:29,475 --> 00:22:33,917
However, cinema is a complicated
and risky enterprise.
247
00:22:34,413 --> 00:22:40,736
Disappointed, García Márquez gives up
cinema to dedicate himself to literature.
248
00:22:52,533 --> 00:22:56,359
I loved cinema so much
249
00:22:58,169 --> 00:23:03,858
that I thought I'd do it
as much as literature
250
00:23:04,116 --> 00:23:06,826
and as much as journalism.
251
00:23:07,026 --> 00:23:09,942
It was for me yet another way
of telling stories about life.
252
00:23:21,810 --> 00:23:25,010
In 1985 García Márquez
establishes a cinema school in Cuba.
253
00:23:36,935 --> 00:23:39,926
What happened with cinema was
254
00:23:41,252 --> 00:23:47,455
I realized that it was much more difficult
to make a movie than I'd thought.
255
00:23:48,745 --> 00:23:52,382
It seemed impossible,
given the industrial demands,
256
00:23:54,863 --> 00:24:00,326
the financial demands and the huge number
of people who have to be on the set
257
00:24:00,557 --> 00:24:05,304
to tell an intimate story,
a story of an individual soul.
258
00:24:11,004 --> 00:24:13,773
Prepared for another long, fruitless battle
259
00:24:14,105 --> 00:24:17,729
I answered with more calm
than I had shown before:
260
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:24,201
"The only thing I want in life is to be
a writer, and that's what I'm going to be."
261
00:24:25,460 --> 00:24:29,059
The train stopped
at a station that had no town,
262
00:24:29,336 --> 00:24:32,998
and a short while later it passed
the only banana plantation along the route
263
00:24:33,375 --> 00:24:37,119
that had its name written
over the gate: Macondo.
264
00:24:37,598 --> 00:24:41,121
I had already used this word in three books
as the name of an imaginary town
265
00:24:42,021 --> 00:24:44,829
when I happened to read
in an encyclopedia
266
00:24:44,854 --> 00:24:47,368
that it is a tropical tree
resembling the ceiba
267
00:24:47,706 --> 00:24:49,804
that it produces no flowers or fruit
268
00:24:50,071 --> 00:24:53,551
and its light, porous wood
is used for making canoes
269
00:24:53,575 --> 00:24:56,075
and carving cooking implements.
270
00:25:14,093 --> 00:25:17,762
The path that leads to Macondo
goes through the Barranquilla port.
271
00:25:18,096 --> 00:25:20,496
Of all the goods that flood the docks
272
00:25:20,810 --> 00:25:24,712
the most valuable ones for García Márquez
are Spanish translations
273
00:25:24,712 --> 00:25:29,328
of English and North American novelists
imported from Buenos Aires.
274
00:25:29,603 --> 00:25:34,761
His impatience to read them leads him to
become a literary advisor of a bookseller.
275
00:25:38,874 --> 00:25:46,156
So I kept developing within
the framework of this new novel
276
00:25:50,961 --> 00:25:55,682
whose principal representatives at the time
were Hemingway and Faulkner
277
00:25:56,732 --> 00:26:01,376
but there were also many others:
Dos Passos, Steinbeck, Lewis etc.
278
00:26:02,801 --> 00:26:07,189
And I really got down to studying
279
00:26:08,719 --> 00:26:10,018
how it was done.
280
00:26:11,301 --> 00:26:17,313
And I discovered a great affinity between
the novels of the American South
281
00:26:18,688 --> 00:26:21,572
and the life that I had known
back in Aracataca.
282
00:26:22,271 --> 00:26:23,556
The reason was simple:
283
00:26:24,098 --> 00:26:27,154
Aracataca was a banana-growing town
284
00:26:28,558 --> 00:26:35,476
and it had been founded
by United Fruit Company.
285
00:26:37,464 --> 00:26:45,180
And the layout of the town was very similar
to the towns of the American South.
286
00:26:46,446 --> 00:26:51,683
So I didn't know if Faulkner
wondered and moved me
287
00:26:52,667 --> 00:26:56,781
because of what he told about his land
288
00:26:57,261 --> 00:27:03,084
or because it reminded me
of Aracataca and my childhood.
289
00:27:03,677 --> 00:27:07,438
And so I began to realize
290
00:27:09,074 --> 00:27:15,256
that the source of my writing
was inside of my guts,
291
00:27:16,190 --> 00:27:19,848
and not in things I was reading in Bogotá.
292
00:27:20,846 --> 00:27:23,387
It wasn't in any literature at all.
293
00:27:23,487 --> 00:27:28,485
Reading North American writers
helped me discover it.
294
00:27:28,485 --> 00:27:30,830
But what I discovered was
that I carried it inside me.
295
00:27:31,678 --> 00:27:35,193
So it became my way.
296
00:27:48,862 --> 00:27:52,371
The first stop on this way
is called Leaf Storm.
297
00:27:52,471 --> 00:27:55,909
It is written in Barranquilla and
based on the return to Aracataca.
298
00:27:56,324 --> 00:27:59,842
He then sets out to write
a monumental novel, The House.
299
00:28:00,206 --> 00:28:01,898
But the undertaking is too grand.
300
00:28:02,179 --> 00:28:05,139
He puts it aside in favor of
another project, In Evil Hour.
301
00:28:05,540 --> 00:28:10,785
This novel didn't see the light until after
a new twist in the writer's life
302
00:28:11,139 --> 00:28:12,553
- a trip to Europe.
303
00:28:12,859 --> 00:28:17,207
García Márquez is sent to Paris
as a correspondent for El Espectador,
304
00:28:17,532 --> 00:28:21,195
but the newspaper is shut down, following
the orders of dictator Rojas Pinilla.
305
00:28:21,569 --> 00:28:25,498
García Márquez
is left to his fate, penniless.
306
00:28:25,694 --> 00:28:30,071
While he's finishing In Evil Hour,
another story haunts him
307
00:28:30,095 --> 00:28:31,941
and imposes itself as evidence.
308
00:28:32,042 --> 00:28:36,791
He writes it in one fell swoop
as if to get rid of it.
309
00:28:41,483 --> 00:28:43,260
No One Writes to the Colonel
310
00:28:43,936 --> 00:28:46,204
could only have been written in Paris
311
00:28:46,204 --> 00:28:49,693
because when I was stranded there
I was constantly waiting for a cheque.
312
00:28:50,651 --> 00:28:54,763
I was living in a hostel and
every day I went downstairs
313
00:28:56,135 --> 00:28:57,544
to see if there was a letter.
314
00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:06,834
As soon as the concierge saw me he gave
me a sign, and I went back to my room.
315
00:29:07,024 --> 00:29:08,750
I had a return ticket,
316
00:29:09,994 --> 00:29:13,497
I had it cashed in,
put the money in a drawer,
317
00:29:13,510 --> 00:29:16,300
took out a bit every day for food,
318
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,870
and I was writing all day. I was happy
319
00:29:19,515 --> 00:29:24,074
that El Espectador had been shut down
because I didn't have to work there anymore
320
00:29:24,174 --> 00:29:28,337
and I could devote myself
fully to literature.
321
00:29:33,222 --> 00:29:35,488
"It hasn’t occurred to you
that the rooster might lose.”
322
00:29:36,379 --> 00:29:38,125
“He’s one rooster that can’t lose.”
323
00:29:38,503 --> 00:29:39,923
“But suppose he loses.”
324
00:29:40,635 --> 00:29:42,543
“There are still forty-five days left
325
00:29:42,567 --> 00:29:45,664
to begin
to think about that,” the colonel said.
326
00:29:46,365 --> 00:29:47,880
The woman lost her patience.
327
00:29:48,647 --> 00:29:51,074
“And meanwhile what do we eat?” she asked,
328
00:29:51,074 --> 00:29:53,551
and seized the colonel by the collar
of his flannel night shirt.
329
00:29:53,580 --> 00:29:55,154
She shook him hard.
330
00:29:55,737 --> 00:29:57,429
"What do we eat?”
331
00:29:58,321 --> 00:30:01,062
It had taken the colonel seventy-five years
332
00:30:01,509 --> 00:30:07,409
- the seventy-five years of his life,
minute by minute - to reach this moment.
333
00:30:08,053 --> 00:30:13,769
He felt pure, explicit, invincible
at the moment when he replied:
334
00:30:15,042 --> 00:30:16,102
“Shit”.
335
00:30:32,241 --> 00:30:34,525
What was important for me in Paris
336
00:30:35,427 --> 00:30:39,430
was the perspective it gave me
on Latin America.
337
00:30:41,661 --> 00:30:46,862
Because I, being from here,
was nothing more than a guy from the coast.
338
00:30:47,564 --> 00:30:51,199
Nothing more than a Caribbean,
which essentially I am.
339
00:30:51,223 --> 00:30:52,632
A Caribbean.
340
00:30:52,633 --> 00:30:56,183
I was still Caribbean there
but I was a Caribbean who knew
341
00:30:57,339 --> 00:30:59,625
what his culture was.
342
00:31:02,017 --> 00:31:08,140
And within which overall culture
my Caribbeanism existed.
343
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,856
I went to cafés and met Argentinians
344
00:31:14,551 --> 00:31:17,700
Central Americans, Mexicans,
345
00:31:18,596 --> 00:31:21,699
Caribbeans from various countries.
346
00:31:23,865 --> 00:31:26,910
Curiously, it was the time of dictators.
347
00:31:29,561 --> 00:31:32,564
There was Rojas Pinilla in Colombia
348
00:31:33,449 --> 00:31:36,409
Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela
349
00:31:37,125 --> 00:31:38,793
Odría in Peru
350
00:31:39,510 --> 00:31:41,722
Trujillo in Santo Domingo
351
00:31:42,752 --> 00:31:46,765
Perón in Argentina...
352
00:31:51,415 --> 00:31:53,684
There was a dictator
in almost every country.
353
00:31:55,338 --> 00:31:57,806
There was Batista in Cuba.
354
00:31:58,932 --> 00:32:04,410
I lived in a small hostel
in the Latin Quarter.
355
00:32:04,805 --> 00:32:08,430
And in the hostel across the street
lived Nicolás Guillén,
356
00:32:09,703 --> 00:32:13,206
the poet who we all came to see often,
as a pilgrimage.
357
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:17,622
Each of us
on the lookout for his own country.
358
00:32:18,390 --> 00:32:23,519
And one morning - he woke up very early,
like in his native Camagüey -
359
00:32:24,076 --> 00:32:28,416
he shouted, "The dictator has fallen!"
360
00:32:29,313 --> 00:32:33,075
And all of us rushed outside because
each of us thought it was his dictator.
361
00:33:01,820 --> 00:33:05,073
And so what happened to me was
362
00:33:05,993 --> 00:33:07,891
something that had to
happen sooner or later:
363
00:33:07,891 --> 00:33:12,247
I put aside all my literary obligations
364
00:33:12,347 --> 00:33:14,397
and focused on my political obligations.
365
00:33:15,728 --> 00:33:18,442
I don't regret it. That's what
mattered at the time.
366
00:33:19,153 --> 00:33:23,503
But in order to get out of it,
I had to go back to the original idea
367
00:33:23,924 --> 00:33:27,480
that the writer's obligations have to do
not only with political reality
368
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:29,481
but with the whole reality.
369
00:33:29,762 --> 00:33:31,054
This is what I learned in Paris.
370
00:33:34,210 --> 00:33:38,715
After years of working and searching,
after disappointments and doubts
371
00:33:38,999 --> 00:33:42,992
García Márquez goes back to the path
that leads to Macondo.
372
00:33:43,459 --> 00:33:48,558
One Hundred Years of Solitude is born
after 40 months of seclusion.
373
00:33:48,856 --> 00:33:52,577
Later, many more books come out
of this magical crucible.
374
00:33:53,008 --> 00:33:55,659
Gabo [= Gabriel]
opens up a lyrical and enchanting world,
375
00:33:56,018 --> 00:34:00,259
that tells the story
of a miserable and grandiose humanity.
376
00:34:02,407 --> 00:34:05,513
For a long time,
I'd had the idea of writing
377
00:34:05,538 --> 00:34:08,644
a novel in which
everything would take place.
378
00:34:11,630 --> 00:34:15,714
And I knew that for that, I needed
all the memories from Aracataca:
379
00:34:16,081 --> 00:34:19,963
fantasies, superstitions, anxieties.
380
00:34:19,980 --> 00:34:24,336
Originally, I planned
381
00:34:25,900 --> 00:34:28,366
that everything would happen in the house.
382
00:34:29,085 --> 00:34:31,169
That's why
I wanted to call the novel The House.
383
00:34:33,026 --> 00:34:38,880
But very soon I realized it wasn't possible.
But at least, it had to be within Macondo.
384
00:34:40,005 --> 00:34:44,147
And even though Colonel Buendía
wages wars all over Central America
385
00:34:44,821 --> 00:34:47,932
the story only takes place within Macondo.
386
00:34:48,373 --> 00:34:53,680
News comes from outside, but
the perspective is always from Macondo.
387
00:34:59,188 --> 00:35:02,780
This is more or less
what I wanted to do
388
00:35:02,805 --> 00:35:06,396
with a novel in which
everything would take place.
389
00:35:07,570 --> 00:35:11,181
But my favorite book is
Love in the Time of Cholera.
390
00:35:12,263 --> 00:35:14,114
This is the book that's going to last.
391
00:35:14,431 --> 00:35:16,409
One Hundred Years of Solitude
is a mythical book.
392
00:35:16,963 --> 00:35:21,350
I'm not denying its merits
393
00:35:21,961 --> 00:35:27,643
but Love in the Time of Cholera is a book
about people and the way we really are.
394
00:35:36,137 --> 00:35:39,079
As he passed the sewing room,
he saw through the window
395
00:35:39,158 --> 00:35:43,127
an older woman and a young girl
sitting very close together on two chairs
396
00:35:43,463 --> 00:35:47,894
and following the reading in the book
that the woman held open on her lap.
397
00:35:48,578 --> 00:35:50,191
The lesson was not interrupted
398
00:35:50,878 --> 00:35:54,398
but the girl raised her eyes to see
who was passing by the window
399
00:35:55,065 --> 00:35:59,529
and that casual glance was the beginning
of a cataclysm of love
400
00:35:59,730 --> 00:36:02,805
that still had not ended
half a century later.
401
00:36:05,067 --> 00:36:08,271
For many years we had to
listen to the same story
402
00:36:09,333 --> 00:36:12,694
of this love contrary to circumstances
403
00:36:14,752 --> 00:36:16,692
which finally ended in marriage.
404
00:36:17,508 --> 00:36:22,059
For Love in the Time of Cholera
I interviewed both of them
405
00:36:22,579 --> 00:36:25,352
but I did it like a reporter
and each of them separately.
406
00:36:26,207 --> 00:36:31,419
When they were together, they contradicted
each other and ended up arguing.
407
00:36:31,902 --> 00:36:34,075
So I talked first to my father,
then to my mother
408
00:36:34,774 --> 00:36:36,708
and afterwards put together
a complete story.
409
00:36:37,265 --> 00:36:45,500
So the story in Love in the Time of Cholera
is precisely the story of their love.
410
00:36:56,751 --> 00:37:01,522
Florentino Ariza would hire a Victoria
after a hard day at the office
411
00:37:02,362 --> 00:37:06,177
but instead of folding down the top, as
was customary during the hot months
412
00:37:06,315 --> 00:37:11,356
he would stay hidden in the depths
of the seat, invisible in the shade,
413
00:37:11,678 --> 00:37:15,211
always alone, and requesting
unexpected routes
414
00:37:15,211 --> 00:37:18,197
so as not to arouse
the evil thoughts of the driver.
415
00:37:19,075 --> 00:37:21,658
In reality, the only thing that
interested him on the drive
416
00:37:21,722 --> 00:37:27,449
was the pink marble Parthenon half hidden
among leafy banana and mango trees
417
00:37:27,782 --> 00:37:33,259
a luckless replica of the idyllic mansions
on Louisiana cotton plantations.
418
00:37:36,653 --> 00:37:40,242
Love in the Time of Cholera
takes place in Cartagena.
419
00:37:40,744 --> 00:37:43,991
Using the convoluted backdrop
of an old colonial city
420
00:37:44,189 --> 00:37:48,110
García Márquez plays with
stories from his own life.
421
00:37:58,148 --> 00:38:03,974
One has three lives: public life,
private life and secret life.
422
00:38:05,409 --> 00:38:07,713
In all three there are women.
423
00:38:11,606 --> 00:38:18,614
For some reason unknown to me,
I get on better with women than with men.
424
00:38:18,735 --> 00:38:23,318
I find it easier to communicate with them.
425
00:38:24,356 --> 00:38:27,619
I think it's because I know them well.
426
00:38:28,511 --> 00:38:33,672
I'll give you a useful marriage tip.
427
00:38:34,932 --> 00:38:40,866
Women always say that problems
in the couple are solved by talking.
428
00:38:41,519 --> 00:38:46,817
On the contrary: when you talk about
a problem, it surely ends in a row.
429
00:38:48,197 --> 00:38:50,839
You have to trust, forget it and move on.
430
00:38:53,697 --> 00:38:56,544
When I realized it, I never
argued with a woman again.
431
00:38:57,526 --> 00:38:59,853
You don't talk about it, you just move on.
432
00:39:00,972 --> 00:39:03,552
Remember this. You'll thank me later.
433
00:39:40,550 --> 00:39:42,640
I've always said that
434
00:39:45,627 --> 00:39:49,401
I owe my literary education
to traditional culture.
435
00:39:52,036 --> 00:39:58,582
I've studied other cultures
but what really sustains
436
00:39:59,813 --> 00:40:04,988
and drives me is traditional culture.
437
00:40:05,633 --> 00:40:11,143
I haven't studied it,
but I'm impregnated with it.
438
00:40:11,243 --> 00:40:16,484
It's not a matter of studying it
academically, it's a matter of living it.
439
00:40:16,897 --> 00:40:22,270
I'm always living it. And neither my fame
nor travels have separated me from it.
440
00:40:22,359 --> 00:40:27,572
I always keep up do date with
what's going on over there
441
00:40:28,171 --> 00:40:31,118
and what songs are being sung.
442
00:41:43,868 --> 00:41:46,888
The writer,
nourished by the singing of his people,
443
00:41:47,138 --> 00:41:50,218
recycles and embalms it to its own glory.
444
00:41:50,961 --> 00:41:54,270
Above all, he's a craftsman of literature.
445
00:41:55,046 --> 00:41:58,974
Each text is
the result of strict discipline,
446
00:41:59,098 --> 00:42:02,541
of everyday encounter with words,
447
00:42:02,842 --> 00:42:08,394
the fruit of painfully acquired mastery
of the technique of story-telling.
448
00:42:15,421 --> 00:42:20,100
Writing fiction is a hypnotic act.
449
00:42:25,780 --> 00:42:28,237
The writer tries to hypnotize
the reader so that
450
00:42:28,237 --> 00:42:31,521
he doesn't think of anything
except the story you're telling.
451
00:42:32,568 --> 00:42:38,178
It takes an enormous quantity
of nails, screws and hinges
452
00:42:38,690 --> 00:42:40,483
to make sure he doesn't wake up.
453
00:42:41,609 --> 00:42:47,508
This is what I call craft. It's the skill
of telling a story, of writing
454
00:42:47,809 --> 00:42:49,903
or of making a movie.
455
00:42:53,575 --> 00:42:56,715
Inspiration is one thing, but
the storyline is something different.
456
00:42:56,715 --> 00:43:02,082
How to lay out this storyline
and convert it into a literary truth
457
00:43:02,382 --> 00:43:05,015
that really captivates the reader?
458
00:43:05,852 --> 00:43:07,938
It can't be done without craft.
459
00:43:09,765 --> 00:43:12,401
When you manage to captivate the reader
460
00:43:17,469 --> 00:43:21,624
you succeed in conveying to him
a breathing rhythm
461
00:43:22,363 --> 00:43:25,616
that cannot be interrupted, because
if it does, the reader will wake up.
462
00:43:27,221 --> 00:43:31,224
And when you achieve this rhythm
463
00:43:31,224 --> 00:43:34,813
you soon find out that
there's a lopsided phrase
464
00:43:36,805 --> 00:43:38,131
in terms of rhythm
465
00:43:38,363 --> 00:43:39,693
and so you have to add
466
00:43:40,669 --> 00:43:44,657
one or two adjectives
in order to maintain the rhythm.
467
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:46,901
These adjectives don't have to be there.
468
00:43:46,901 --> 00:43:50,070
They're there so that
the reader doesn't wake up.
469
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:51,834
That's craft.
470
00:43:57,925 --> 00:44:03,520
On the day they were going to kill him,
Santiago Nasar got up at 5:30 in the morning
471
00:44:04,334 --> 00:44:06,514
to wait for the boat
the bishop was coming on.
472
00:44:07,341 --> 00:44:09,812
He'd dreamed he was going through
a grove of timber trees
473
00:44:10,128 --> 00:44:12,136
where a gentle drizzle was falling
474
00:44:12,350 --> 00:44:14,957
and for an instant he was happy
in his dream
475
00:44:15,559 --> 00:44:21,405
but when he awoke he felt completely
spattered with bird shit.
476
00:44:26,958 --> 00:44:32,919
It reminds me of the beginning
of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
477
00:44:34,497 --> 00:44:36,249
"On the day they were going to kill him,
478
00:44:36,273 --> 00:44:39,667
Santiago Nasar got up
at 5:30 in the morning."
479
00:44:41,268 --> 00:44:44,474
That means,
the reader won't escape your there,
480
00:44:44,502 --> 00:44:46,971
because he's knows
they're going to kill him.
481
00:44:46,995 --> 00:44:50,895
And he's going to follow
this character, until they kill him,
482
00:44:50,919 --> 00:44:52,919
how they kill him
and where they kill him.
483
00:44:54,071 --> 00:44:56,832
But when I finished the first chapter,
I encountered a problem.
484
00:44:58,567 --> 00:44:59,958
He still hadn't been killed.
485
00:45:03,565 --> 00:45:07,469
And I realized that the reader
would do the same thing I would
486
00:45:07,569 --> 00:45:10,664
- go to the ending and check
if he would be killed or not.
487
00:45:13,084 --> 00:45:15,026
So I wrote
that they'd killed him.
488
00:45:15,361 --> 00:45:19,984
At the end of the first chapter there's
a line: "They've already killed him."
489
00:45:21,003 --> 00:45:24,765
So now the reader didn't have to check
the last page to see if he would be killed
490
00:45:24,765 --> 00:45:29,147
but had to read the whole book line by line
to learn how he would be killed.
491
00:45:38,362 --> 00:45:42,393
It took García Márquez seven years
of meticulous work
492
00:45:42,393 --> 00:45:46,623
to write One Hundred Years of Solitude,
the novel that became legendary.
493
00:45:47,371 --> 00:45:51,497
But the The Autumn of the Patriarch
disturbed his readers.
494
00:45:51,992 --> 00:45:56,279
The reason is that it's revolves around
the timeless figure of the dictator
495
00:45:56,816 --> 00:46:03,072
an old half-insane general who embodies
the permanent nightmare of the continent.
496
00:46:03,644 --> 00:46:07,814
The tyrant's delirium,
it's a disturbing image
497
00:46:07,838 --> 00:46:10,638
of the tragic
and profuse life of the Caribbean.
498
00:46:33,639 --> 00:46:37,550
Take as long as you like, father,
he said to him, holding his hand in his
499
00:46:37,895 --> 00:46:41,583
for he had an immediate confidence
in that jaundiced Abyssinian
500
00:46:41,583 --> 00:46:43,763
who loved life above all things
501
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,278
he ate iguana eggs,
sir general, he loved cockfights
502
00:46:47,378 --> 00:46:51,367
the humor of mulatto women, dancing the cumbia,
just like us, sir general, the whole bag
503
00:46:51,367 --> 00:46:55,035
if you could only have seen him
mingling with the human scum
504
00:46:55,235 --> 00:46:58,066
off the shabby sailing ships that weighed
anchor loaded with fags and green bananas
505
00:46:58,066 --> 00:47:01,512
loaded with shipments of unripe whores
for the glass hotels of Curaçao
506
00:47:01,612 --> 00:47:05,999
for Guantánamo, father, for the saddest
and most beautiful islands in the world
507
00:47:05,999 --> 00:47:10,696
that we go on dreaming about until
the first light of dawn, father, remember...
508
00:47:14,992 --> 00:47:17,662
When One Hundred Years of Solitude
was published
509
00:47:19,267 --> 00:47:21,595
the first thing that shocked me
was that it was me.
510
00:47:22,820 --> 00:47:27,138
I had never thought that I'd have such
a success and cause such a scandal.
511
00:47:31,809 --> 00:47:36,001
And then when I realized that
I didn't just have to keep writing
512
00:47:37,814 --> 00:47:40,976
but that I had to keep writing after
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
513
00:47:41,668 --> 00:47:44,981
I'd never thought that
it would happen to me
514
00:47:45,236 --> 00:47:48,098
and that I would find myself
in such a difficult situation.
515
00:47:49,654 --> 00:47:54,230
And I realized that I had to write
something completely different.
516
00:47:54,230 --> 00:47:58,479
If I sat down to write, what came out
517
00:47:59,597 --> 00:48:03,960
was exactly
like One Hundred Years of Solitude.
518
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:09,096
I could have written the second,
third and fourth volumes.
519
00:48:09,096 --> 00:48:10,687
I could have continued
to write in the same way
520
00:48:10,687 --> 00:48:15,236
but deep down I knew that
what I wanted to say was something else.
521
00:48:15,923 --> 00:48:17,651
So how would I go about it?
522
00:48:19,307 --> 00:48:21,841
The question complicated even further
when I realized that
523
00:48:21,841 --> 00:48:24,828
readers were expecting another
One Hundred Years of Solitude
524
00:48:25,741 --> 00:48:29,694
in the sense that
525
00:48:30,668 --> 00:48:33,864
I had barely had any readers
526
00:48:33,864 --> 00:48:36,441
none of my books had sold
more than a thousand copies.
527
00:48:36,959 --> 00:48:41,002
So when One Hundred Years of Solitude
came out in 8,000 copies
528
00:48:41,002 --> 00:48:44,069
and then 10,000 every month and so on
529
00:48:44,505 --> 00:48:48,438
plus later translations all over the world
530
00:48:49,177 --> 00:48:51,903
I realized that the readers I had
531
00:48:51,903 --> 00:48:55,209
were only readers of
One Hundred Years of Solitude
532
00:48:55,306 --> 00:48:57,590
and that they were expecting another
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
533
00:48:57,590 --> 00:49:01,634
And I wasn't going to do that because
it wouldn't have been honest.
534
00:49:03,924 --> 00:49:07,099
So I had to write
an anti-One Hundred Years of Solitude.
535
00:49:08,252 --> 00:49:09,982
So I started practising
536
00:49:12,220 --> 00:49:16,637
another way of telling a story.
537
00:49:17,182 --> 00:49:20,707
And I wrote The Autumn of the Patriarch.
When it came out, it was a failure.
538
00:49:21,835 --> 00:49:25,019
I didn't sell at all because people
felt it had nothing to do with
539
00:49:25,044 --> 00:49:26,564
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
540
00:49:26,824 --> 00:49:29,066
And now it's my most studied book.
541
00:49:30,974 --> 00:49:34,023
But changing my style was a real problem.
542
00:49:35,998 --> 00:49:38,917
The ties that connect
García Márquez with his readers
543
00:49:39,417 --> 00:49:42,799
convoluted and complex, are unbreakable.
544
00:49:43,450 --> 00:49:45,661
His voice
is the voice of the desperate ones.
545
00:49:46,310 --> 00:49:49,821
However, he says,
probably speaking about himself,
546
00:49:50,236 --> 00:49:55,491
that the solitude of fame can only
be equalled by the solitude of power.
547
00:49:55,755 --> 00:49:59,710
These days, the craftsman of words
is writing his memoirs
548
00:50:00,109 --> 00:50:04,147
to ignore the monuments that
are being erected to honor him.
549
00:50:04,583 --> 00:50:06,890
I never reread my books out of fear.
550
00:50:08,098 --> 00:50:11,739
But today I realize that
this is a duty of the writer
551
00:50:12,488 --> 00:50:15,894
and a matter of honesty.
552
00:50:16,619 --> 00:50:20,611
I have to reread my books in order
not to keep writing the same thing.
553
00:50:21,580 --> 00:50:24,555
So I'm reading them in the same
order as I wrote them.
554
00:50:26,258 --> 00:50:30,975
I have to say, with all the honesty
and vanity, that I like them a lot.
555
00:50:32,412 --> 00:50:35,387
But they're not the books
that I'd have to write today.
556
00:50:36,710 --> 00:50:39,072
So I'm learning to write all over again
557
00:50:39,672 --> 00:50:41,164
by writing about my memories
558
00:50:41,924 --> 00:50:44,440
of how I wrote those books.
559
00:50:45,207 --> 00:50:48,687
And by doing that, try to
free myself from myself.
560
00:50:50,127 --> 00:50:51,489
And I'm going to get it done.
51607
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