José Luis Garci

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is García and the second or maternal family name is Muñoz.

José Luis Garci
Born	José Luis García Muñoz (1944-01-20) 20 January 1944 Madrid, Spain
Occupation	Filmmaker
Years active	1977–present

José Luis García Muñoz (born 20 January 1944), known professionally as José Luis Garci, is a Spanish film director, producer, critic, TV presenter, screenwriter and author. One of the most influential film personalities in the history of film in Spain, he earned worldwide acclaim and his country's first Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for Begin the Beguine (1982). Four of his films, including also Sesión continua (1984), Asignatura aprobada (1987) and El abuelo (1998), have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, more than any other Spanish director. His films are characterized for his classical style and the underlying sentimentality of their plots. Currently, he is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.

Early life and work

Born in 1944 in a humble family from Asturias. After completing a pre-university course, Garci began working as an administrative assistant in a bank. His love for cinema from an early age led him to pursue filmmaking as a career. At age twenty he began writing reviews for a number of film magazines such as: Signos, Cinestudio, Aun and Resena, winning an award in 1968 from the Circulo de Escritores Cinematograficos for his work as film critic.

At the same time, he wrote his first literary works, science fiction stories like: Bibidibabibidibú (1970), Adam Blake (1972), and La Gioconda está triste y otras extrañas historias (1976). He also published the essay: Ray Bradbury humanista del futuro (1971).

In 1969 he became involved in scriptwriting, receiving his first screen credits for Antonio Giménez Rico The Cronicón (The Chronicle) (1970).

Between 1972 and 1977 he scripted five more films: León Klimovsky La casa de las chivas (The House of the goats); Pedro Olea No es bueno que el hombre esté solo (1972), (A Man Shouldn't be Alone); Eloy de la Iglesia Una gota de sangre para morir amando, (1973) (A drop of blood to die loving); Antonio Drove Mi mujer es muy decente dentro de lo que cabe (1974) o Roberto Bodegas Vida conyugal sana (1973)(Healthy Married Life) and Los nuevos españoles (1974)(New Spaniards). During this same period, Garci also wrote the made for T.V film La Cabina (1972) (The Telephone Box) directed by Antonio Mercero. He then directed his first short films: !Al Futbol! (!To Football!) Mi Marilyn, (My Marilyn) (both 1975) and Tiempo de gente acobardada (People Cowed Time) (1976).

Feature films

In 1977, José Luis Garci directed his first feature film Asignatura pendiente (Unfinished Business) from a script by Gonzalez Sinde, a love story between an old pair of lovers which runs parallel to the social and political changes lived in Spain after the fall of Francisco Franco's regime. The film was well received by critics and audiences, becoming the most successful representative of the Spanish film of the generation of the Transition from dictatorship to democracy who saw themselves in a social and political limbo. A simple story of an amorous seduction by the film's hero is set around a series of topical references to a generation of Spaniards born in the immediate post-civil war period whose frustrations and nostalgia are embodied in the film's protagonist. Garci took his narrative cues from the visual patterns followed in the traditional Hollywood narrative.

Garci second film Solos en la madrugada (Alone in the Dark) (1978) became skilled tackling progressive social themes intended for an audience interested neither in elite art cinema nor in the popular style of most Spanish comedies. He used this same pattern in his third film, Las verdes praderas (The Green Meadows) (1979), in which heavy sentimentality, a constant in his films, became more apparent.

The director changed gears with El Crack (1981), in which he used the figure of the hard boiled detective in a story inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, to whom the film is dedicated, and employing elements of the American film noirs of the 1930s and 40s giving it a Spanish flavor. The formula worked so well that two years later Garci made a sequel, El crack II (1983).

Between this two films, Garci made his most emblematic work Volver a empezar, (Begin to Beguine) (1982), a sentimental story of an aging writer who returns to Spain after many years in exiled following the civil war. The film was the first Spanish motion picture to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Garci signing books at the Madrid Book Fair in 2024

Sesión continua (Double Feature), (1984), which also received an Academy Award nomination, as well as Asignatura aprobada (Course Completed, 1987), gave emphasis to sentimentality. Asigantura aprobada earned him the Goya Award for Best Director in 1988. In the 1990s he released Canción de cuna (Cradle Song, 1994), a film adaptation of the sentimental Gregorio Martinez Sierra play. Garci's subsequently films include La herida luminosa (The Wound of Light, 1997), and El abuelo (The Grandfather, 1998), which was Spain's submission for the Best Foreign Film category of the Academy Awards in 1999, getting the final nomination.

Recently, Garci directed Una historia de entonces (You're the One, 2000), which was entered at the 51st Berlin International Film Festival, Historia de un beso (Story of a Kiss, 2002), Tiovivo c. 1950 (2004), Ninette (2005), Luz de domingo (2007), Sangre de mayo (2008), Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days (2012), and the prequel El crack cero (2019), third part of the crime film saga El crack. In addition to filmmaking, he is a popular television presenter in his homeland. His television program ¡Qué grande es el cine!, which was broadcast on Televisión Española between 1995 and 2005 on the occasion of the first centenary of the history of cinema, presented a feature film weekly and was attended by three experts, who debated after the screening of the chosen film.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Editor	Notes
1977	Asignatura Pendiente	Yes	Yes	No	No
1978	Alone in the Dark	Yes	Yes	No	No
1979	Las verdes praderas	Yes	Yes	No	No
1980	Viva la Clase Media	No	Yes	Yes	No
1981	El Crack	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1982	Volver a Empezar	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film winner, 1982
1983	El Crack II	Yes	Yes	No	No
1985	Bras Fe Fer	No	No	Executive	Yes
1984	Sesión continua	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film nominee
1987	Asignatura Aprobada	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film nominee
1988	El Tesoro	No	Yes	Executive	No
1994	Canción de cuna	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1997	La herida luminosa	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1998	El Abuelo	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film nominee
2000	Una historia de entonces	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	European Film Academy Best European Director nominee
2002	Historia de un beso	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2003	Hotel Danubio	No	No	Yes	Yes
2004	Tiovivo c. 1950	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2005	Ninette	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2007	Luz de Domingo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2008	Sangre de Mayo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2012	Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2019	El Crack Cero	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Writer only

Year	Title	Notes
1966	Las últimas horas	Uncredited
1967	Los chicos de Peru
1969	Las nenas del mini-mini	Uncredited
1970	El Cronicón
1972	La casa de las chivas
1973	No es bueno que el hombre esté solo
	Una gota de sangre para morir amando
	Ceremonia sangrienta	Uncredited
1974	Vida conyugal sana
	Los nuevos españoles
1975	Mi mujer es muy decente, dentro de lo que cabe
	La mujer es cosa de hombres
1976	La noche de los cien pajaros
1998	Yerma

Producer only

Year	Title	Notes
1985	Extramuros
1986	La gran comedia
1987	¡Biba la banda!
1989	El río que nos lleva	Executive producer
1992	Las cadenas del deseo
1995	Elisa, de Jean Backer
1997	La furia	Associate producer
	Momentos robados
1999	La venganza	Associate producer
	Un homo perbene
	Shacky Carmine
2000	Cóndor cux
	Yoyes	Executive producer
	Érase otra vez
	Leo
2002	Nowhere
2003	La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón	Uncredited

Sources

• Moret, Andrés, Una vida de repuesto. El cine de José Luis Garci, Hatari Books, Sociedad Limitada, 2022; ISBN 978-84-94788-55-0
• Emotion pictures. El cine de José Luis Garci, foreword by José Luis Garci, Notorious Ediciones, Madrid, 2018; ISBN 978-84-15606-62-8
• Benavent, Francisco María, Cine Español de los Noventa, ediciones Mensajero, 2000; ISBN 84-271-2326-4
• D'Lugo, Marvin: Guide to the Cinema of Spain, Greenwood Press, 1997; ISBN 0-313-29474-7
• Stone, Rob, Spanish Cinema, Pearson Education, 2002; ISBN 0-582-43715-6
• Torres, Augusto, Diccionario del cine Español, Espasa Calpe, 1994; ISBN 84-239-9203-9

External links

• José Luis Garci at IMDb