by the El Reportero’s wire services
La Güernica
Spain’s Queen Sofia Museum has mounted an impressive exhibition to celebrate the 75th anniversary of “Guernica,” painted by Pablo Picasso in memory of the devastating bombing of that northern Spanish town on April 26, 1937.
“Encounters with the 1930s” is the title of the exhibition designed to put visitors in touch with history and show what artists were doing during a turbulent decade, a key to understanding the times we live in now.
The exhibition, inaugurated Tuesday by Queen Sofia, is one of the most important of the season for the museum as is evident from the 2,000 square meters (21,500 sq. ft.) dedicated to displaying more than 400 works, including many from the most important institutions and collections around the world.
A good 75 percent of these works have never been shown in Spain before, such as the 1937 painting “New Chicago Athletic Club” by Antonio Berni.
The bombardment of Guernica, a town of 5,000 people, by the German and Italian allies of Gen. Francisco Franco, was the first indiscriminate air attack on a city.
As immortalized by Picasso, the attack has come to symbolize the horror of war and the suffering of the civilian population, whether targeted directly or simply caught in the crossfire.
Javier Bardem plays an extraordinary villain in New Bond flick Skyfall
Javier Bardem makes an extraordinary villain in Skyfall, the new adventure of the most famous secret agent in the history of movies, James Bond, producer Barbara Broccoli said here Saturday at an event launching the film’s international presentation tour.
Broccoli apologized for Bardem not being at the event – he had to suspend his trip to Moscow due to the bad weather during the shooting in Spain of “The Counselor,” a new film by British director Ridley Scott.
Javier is an extraordinary villain because he has personal reasons to create problems for Agent 007, Broccoli explained at a press conference in a downtown Moscow hotel, where she was accompanied by the new Bond girl, France’s Berenice Marlohe.
At the packed press conference, Broccoli, co-producer of Skyfall, said that Bardem, who plays Raoul Silva, is a magnificent actor and it was great they could convince him to take the part – because people are going to love his work, which she called exceptional.
Broccoli, whose father was one of the original producers of the saga, said her dad would be glad that James Bond films have remained popular so long – half a century on the big screen.
Broccoli believes the value of Skyfall is precisely the extraordinary cast that director Sam Mendes, winner of an Oscar for “American Beauty,” managed to put together.
Both actors and producers have kept mum about the content of the movie, which is No. 23 in the series of films about the secret agent and which will premiere late this month in London.
The movie, which seeks to recover the spirit of the first films in the series, was filmed in Britain, Turkey and China. (Reported by Hispanically Speaking News).
