Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Writing
Biography
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (14 June 1939–18 October 2003) was a prolific Spanish writer from Barcelona: journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologue, prologist, humorist, critic and political prisoner as well as a gastronome and a FC Barcelona supporter. Vázquez Montalbán was born in Barcelona on 14 June 1939. His parents did not register his birth until 27 July; many sources show 27 July or 14 July as his birth date. He studied Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and was also a member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. He spent 18 months in prison after attending a 1962 miner's strike. He began writing poetry in 1967. He is one of the Novísimos from Jose María Castellet. His poetic works until 1986 are collected in Memoria y deseo ("Memory and desire"). The same characteristic features of his poetry appear in his novels. Los mares del Sur, part of the Pepe Carvalho series, won the Planeta Award in 1979, bringing fame for both the writer and the fictional detective, who would later be portrayed in films, TV series and comic strips. In 1988, he wrote and published a children's book called, Escenas de la Literatura Universal y Retratos de Grandes Autores (English version as "Scenes from World Literature and Portraits of Greatest Authors"), which is illustrated by Willi Glasauer, and published by Círculo de Lectores. This children's book includes fun facts, trivia, and information accompanied by photos and Willi Glasauer's illustrations of the likes of Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Gabriel García Márquez, Hermann Hesse, Agatha Christie, Federico García Lorca, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Günter Grass, Marguerite Duras, Miguel de Cervantes, Elias Canetti, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Albert Camus, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Doris Lessing, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway. Other narrative works include narrative productions Galíndez (1991), winner of the National Narrative Award; El estrangulador (The strangler) (1994) and Erec y Enide (Erec and Enide) (2002). In 1992 he published Autobiografía del general Franco, which was awarded the 1994 international prize Premio Internacional de Literatura Ennio Flaiano. He also wrote non-literary works in Catalan, notably L'art del menjar a Catalunya (1977). For many years, he contributed columns and articles to the Madrid-based daily newspaper El País. In 1974, he wrote the libretto for Salvador Dalí's opera-poem Etre Dieu (To Be God), with music by French avant-garde composer Igor Wakhévitch. He died in Bangkok, Thailand, while returning to his home country from a speaking tour of Australia. His last book, La aznaridad, was published posthumously. Source: Article "Manuel Vázquez Montalbán" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Olímpicament mort
A Pepe Carvalho adventure.
Cuba, 1898: la caída del Imperio español
A brief account of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the end of the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
Después de… Segunda parte: atado y bien atado
A history of the Spanish Transition told in first person by the main protagonists: on the one hand, the politicians, idealistic or merely opportunistic, who brought it to a successful conclusion in the tribunes and offices; on the other hand, the citizens who, in the streets, supported it sincerely or fought it with ferocity.
Después de… Primera parte: no se os puede dejar solos
A history of the Spanish Transition told in first person by the main protagonists: on the one hand, the politicians, idealistic or merely opportunistic, who brought it to a successful conclusion in the tribunes and offices; on the other hand, the citizens who, in the streets, supported it sincerely or fought it with ferocity.
Libertad provisional
A small-time delinquent young man and a book saleswoman at home delivery, who occasionally engage in prostitution as a derivative of her work, try a way of coexistence on the basis of mutual freedom schemes.
Words of Truth
The documentary looks in the life and work of Mario Benedetti, especially in his poetic work, the keys to an illustrious Montevideo. A man who has had to live several exiles and has received all the awards that this world can give. But above all, the affection of an unconditional, massive and faithful audience that follows him everywhere and pampers him every day with their applause and reading. A sad childhood, a youth full of work and reading, and a maturity full of commitments marked Benedetti. His work testifies the history, that which only artists can tell.
Production
Murder in the Central Committee
The plot follows a private detective, an ex communist and former CIA agent, who travels from Barcelona to Madrid to discover the identity of the assassin of the leader of the Spanish Communist party who was stabbed during a blackout while presiding over a meeting of the party's central committee. The film is a thriller with ironic political overtones.
Tattoo, The First Adventure Of Pepe Carvalho
A man's body turns up on a Barcelona beach with a message tattooed on his arm: "I was born to revolutionize hell". Detective Pepe Carvalho is put in charge of the case, taking him from the back streets of Barcelona to the Amsterdam canals, with no effect whatsoever on his peculiar investigation methods.
La dama inacabada
An executive asks Carvalho to obtain photographs of his wife with her lover in order to obtain a divorce. To do so, Carvalho travels to Menorca.
Los mares del sur
Long ago, the architect Stuart Pedrell told his family that he was going to the South Seas. However, his daughter Yes has recently received a postcard from her father that comes from a far less exotic place: L'Hospitalet. Carvalho goes to Bellvitge in order to find Yes' father and to discover why he lied to his family. Pedrell never went indeed to the South Seas. He took refuge in Bellvitge where he was murdered.
The Greek Labyrinth
Two Frenchmen, Bernadette and Lebrum, arrive in Barcelona and hire detective Bardon to find Alekos, the former Greek lover of the woman.
Recién casados
Pepe Carvalho is hired to guard the gifts at at wedding.
Pigmalión
Pepe Carvalho receives a call from an ex-lover in distress.
Olímpicament mort
A Pepe Carvalho adventure.
El hermano pequeño
Leo Minués, who used to be a classmate of Carvalho, is found dead the same day he had to testify in a case of corruption and someone asks Carvalho to investigate it. He accepts the case and finds out that Leo was collecting illegal funds for his political party. From that moment, a number of signs appear. This allows Carvalho to discover that Mínguez had made a list of the people involved in the case of corruption. Some videotapes appear, which makes things even more complicated, and Carvalho finds himself walking on shifting land, surrounded by celebrities in the highest spheres. Why did Mínguez die? Who has got the list?
Padre, patrón
Mister Joaquim Pelletier and his wife request the services of the private detective Pepe Carvalho to find the murderer of their only son, Mariano. As the investigations progress, Pepe finds out that Mariano was not such a model son as his father thought. He had a double life: a banker at daytime, a thug at night; he was cooperating with Jesús Arquimedes, the boss of the underworld, by doing illegal works for him. But Mariano had decided to betray Arquímedes, embezzling $500 000 of the money he was laundering in Bank Pelletier, to start a new life in the USA. Arquímedes puts pressure on Carvalho to find his money. Surprisingly enough for the detective, the guilty one is not Arquímedes, but the father of Mariano. Mister Jaoquim had a passionate relationship with his son since childhood, he wanted to mold his son as he had always dreamed, and never admitted that Mariano was someone different and a rebel who wanted to run away from Barcelona for ever.
Gallery
