Camus, Mario

b. 1932, Santander

   Filmmaker

   A highly successful director, two of whose films continue to feature in the top twenty all-time Spanish box-office earners, Camus graduated from the IIEC in 1963 and was for a time screenwriter for Carlos Saura.

   Con el viento solano (With the East Wind) (1965), Los pájaros de Baden-Baden (The Birds of Baden Baden) (1974) and Los días del pasado (Days Past) (1977) are considered among the best of his early films, but his first major success was with La colmena (The Hive) (1982). An adaptation of Cela's novel built round the stories of participants in the tertulias at a typical Madrid café in the bleak post-Civil War years, the film skilfully recreates the atmosphere of the time and won a Golden Bear at Berlin. This film was followed by his second winner, also an adaptation, Los santos inocentes (The Holy Innocents) (1984) for which he won the National Cinema Prize. The "Innocents" are a poverty-stricken peasant family on an aristocratic estate in the 1960s, where there are, in Camus" own words, "just trees and birds and utterly abject beings". Another fine adaptation was of Lorca's play La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) in 1987. In the 1990s he has directed Sombras en una batalla (Spectres at a Battle) (1993), a courageous film about a former ETA terrorist, and Amor proprio (Self-Love) (1994) in which a woman revenges herself on those who have humiliated her.

   Among the television productions that he has directed are the highwayman series Curro Jiménez, La leyenda del alcalde de Zalamea and a series based on Galdós" Fortunata y Jacinta.

   See also: film and cinema

   Further reading

   - Higginbotham, V. (1988) Spanish Cinema under Franco, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press (one of the most comprehensive surveys of this period).

   Hopewell, J. (1986) Out of the Past: Spanish Cinema After Franco, London: British Film Institute (a very readable general account of contemporary trends).

   - Molina-Foix, V. (1977) New Cinema in Spain, London: British Film Institute (a comprehensive overview of current trends).

   EAMONN RODGERS