There was a time in this celluloid avenue where premiere theaters abounded. On this Boulevard of broken tiles, dreams take the form of museum windows and undulating buildings that want to take off. There are no plaques with names of movie stars embedded in the pavement and yet some films filmed here have left their mark and have propelled the careers of some actors and actresses.
There are no plaques, but there are banana leaves dancing on the sidewalks in a city where the wild summer turns the trees into autumn ones. Passeig de Gràcia has always been a game of truths and illusions at 24 frames per second, even before the first great couple in the history of the seventh art – Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – arrived by train and got off at the stop ( the roads open to the sky) of the avenue with Aragó Street. They had a great reception. It was 1924.
Michelangelo Antonioni filmed here directing Jack Nicholson and the late Maria Schneider. Here, or on the tributary of Casp Street, in the Tivoli, Pedro Almodóvar filmed the tears of Cecilia Roth clad in that unforgettable red turtleneck sweater in All About My Mother.
Here he recorded some scenes from Biutiful Alejandro González Iñárritu, a film that shows the other side of Barcelona and its surroundings: more humble and Dickensian. Here, here, here. Woody Allen, recently rehabilitated in Venice with his latest film, captured by Vicky Cristina Barcelona. One of his best works? Maybe not, because Woody’s bar is on Mars at least. The springboard, in case he needed it, for Penélope Cruz to get an Oscar? Maybe yes.
With Biutiful, Bardem achieved one of his four nominations (the second for best actor) after winning his first statuette with No Country for Old Men, by the Coen brothers. In Allen’s film, his personal destinies became one.
Before continuing, we must make something clear: it is not easy to record a film on Passeig de Gràcia, because filming permits mean cutting off one of the city’s arterial roads due to many bike lanes and wide sidewalks that have germinated in recent years. . This is confirmed, for example, by director David Pastor, who works in tandem with his brother Alex and who this summer released Bird Box, with Mario Casas as the protagonist.
In the film the avenue appears. Was it really filmed there? Yes, but… “Filming there is complicated,” Pastor certifies, “in our case, with effort we were able to take shots of two scenes with drones and then we added the protagonists with special effects. If the drone flies over the avenue, there cannot be people there for safety reasons.”
Eugeni Osácar is a professor at the CETT-UB and author of Barcelona, ??a movie city (Diéresis), a leading expert in the intricacies and behind-the-scenes of the films that have been filmed in the city and in which, precisely, Passeig de Gràcia, does not It is one of the main scenarios. Nowadays it is a photogenic boulevard and at the same time it allows little filming.
“It is true that filming there is difficult and we must also remember that the walk of the 20th century is not the same as it is today, back then there were bingo halls, banks and companies, it was not so glamorous. You have to notice that in The Reporter, by Antonioni, the images are those of La Pedrera and not so much of the avenue.” The same thing happens in Vicky Cristina Barcelona in the scene at the Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and Patricia Clarkson take photos with the Sagrada Família in the background.
It is the same Holy Family that appears in the background of a shot in which Pedro Almodóvar is seen filming All About My Mother, a colorful ode to the city in which there are few shots, in this case of the Tivoli. The entrance to the theater, a plan of the poster for A Streetcar Named Desire and an image of the play as well as the Cecilia Roth scene.
Osácar remembers that, although it goes somewhat unnoticed, “Paseo de Gràcia does appear in Biutiful, by the Oscar-winning González Iñárritu in a film in which the locations focus on Badalona and Santa Coloma,” Osácar points out. “Bardem leaves the Ferragamo store and stops in front of some manteros.”
The teacher remembers the adventures or misadventures of the Pastor brothers with Bird Box on Passeig de Gràcia. “We did a scene in which the cinc d’Oros appears and that corner of Diagonal and Passeig de Gràcia, if one avenue was impossible to paralyze, both already…” remembers David Pastor. We built a similar set on exteriors in the old Mercedes factory near the Maquinista, a work by Laia Colet, and from there and with the digital work of Lampost we were able to digitally create that part of the walk,” notes the director.
The film magnet of Paseo de Gràcia is one and it is indisputable: Casa Milà. When Antonioni was asked about the role of Gaudí’s buildings in the film, the Red Desert and Eclipse director said: “Gaudí’s towers perhaps reveal the strangeness of the encounter of a man named after a dead man. with a girl who has no name.”
That filming had many problems (something common in many films that have gone down in history such as Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H) to the point that in a fit of rage, the director wanted his name to disappear from the credits . His relationship with Metro Goldwin Mayer was not very loving. Maria Schneider, who was already carrying the trauma of the rape in Last Tango in Paris, was the last to arrive and the first to leave.
Schneider’s back was broken those days. One day she was dazed by the pills so Jack Nicholson had to cheer her up and help her on the set, but her performance is much more than worthy and it must be said, for those who review Antonioni’s film (unfairly underrated), they will see that the façade of La Pedrera is as dirty as it gets, with an advertisement for a famous cement factory hanging, where today they sell precious ceramic pieces there used to be a grocery store. And clothes hanging on the terrace. It is not known who was more lost in 1975, Barcelona or the character played by Jack Nicholson.
The cinematographic history of Passeig de Gràcia, where Bigas Luna, Ventura Pons and, very close by, on Provença Street, Jaume Balaguero, have filmed, would not have been the same if it had not been for a clause in Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s contract. Woody Allen had thought about setting it in San Francisco. The fine print of the contract said “it has to be filmed in Barcelona.” Penelope took the statuette. Surely Allen read the contract for Blue Jasmine better, filmed in 2013 in a bright California thanks to the presence of a very elegant Cate Blanchett. Guess who won the Oscar for best actress the following year?
