Gabo & Cinema

The great Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) had a fondness for movies. José Luis García Agraz’s documentary explores García Márquez’s relationship with the cinema, offering a wealth of interviews with the Nobel laureate’s friends and colleagues. While García Márquez is described as having "a great passion" for the filmmaking process, he was intimidated by the technology and the extensive collaborative process required in creating a motion picture. As a result, he opted to stay "in the modest loneliness of literature." However, García Márquez tried his hand at screenplay writing, and even encouraged a group of Mexican filmmakers to adapt his short story "There Are No Thieves in This Town," in which he played a bit part as a movie theater ticket-taker. Later in his career, García Márquez served as head of the New Latin American Film Foundation and teamed with Argentine poet/filmmaker Fernando Birri and Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa to launch the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños, both based in Cuba. Featuring interviews with García Márquez from 1980s-era documentaries regarding his opinions on filmmaking, and brief clips from several of his adapted works, this often fascinating view of the master novelist’s cinematic side is recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)