The curtain opens. A screenwriter and director with a renowned career come together to sell a miniseries about Jorge Semprún. One of his interlocutors interrupts him: But what interest could Jorge Semprún have? The curtain closes. What is the title of the movie? Television in Spain. This is not a joke, just a real anecdote. Or rather, it's not just a joke, because the joke is there: specifically, we are the joke.
I remembered this scene when, on Sunday, the day of his 100th birthday, I watched the documentary “The 1000 Lives of Jorge Semprún”, broadcast on La 2 under the umbrella of those essentials that remember that we were lucky enough to share time and space with some extraordinary people. Only the voiceover at the beginning could serve as a short answer to this TV executive: “[Semprún] lived through the Spanish Civil War, the French Resistance, was deported to a Nazi camp, worked secretly in the Spanish Communist Party, left the Spanish Communist Party to become a novelist, wrote best-selling books and became a screenwriter who was nominated for two Oscars. Minister of Culture with Felipe González, pro-European…”
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A different kind of rejection of his character was carried out by Semprún himself. In Semprún sin Semprún, published as part of Essentials in 2015 – yes, there were two Essentials; It seems to me that there are only a few – Yolanda Villaluenga, the director, says that the author initially refused to take part in her documentary. “I'm tired of it, I just want to write. Give me one good reason.” “Return home,” she concluded. And she convinced him, but he died shortly afterwards. The great storyteller that he was, it was told better than anyone will ever be able to tell you, but keeping his memory alive, in whatever format, I don't know if it will find the interest will be what it deserves, but it's definitely worth it. It invites him home again.
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