The Spirit of the Beehive: Spanish Lessons
By September 18, 2006
Released in 1973, in the dying days of General Franco’s forty-year dictatorship, The Spirit of the Beehive soon established itself as the consummate Read more »
- Spain
- 1973
- 99 minutes
- Color
- 1.66:1
- Spanish
- Spine #351
SYNOPSIS: Criterion is proud to present Víctor Erice’s spellbinding The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena), widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In a small Castilian village in 1940, in the wake of the country’s devastating civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and becomes possessed by the memory of it. Produced as Franco’s long regime was nearing its end, The Spirit of the Beehive is a bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life and one of the most visually arresting movies ever made.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Ana | Ana Torrent |
| Isabel | Isabel Tellería |
| Fernando | Fernando Fernán Gómez |
| Teresa | Teresa Gimpera |
| Milagros | Queti de la Cámara |
Credits
| Director | Víctor Erice |
| Cinematography | Luís Cuadrado |
| Editing | Pablo G. del Amo |
| Screenplay | Fernández-Santos and Víctor Erice |
| Producer | Elías Querejeta |
Disc Features
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- The Footprints of a Spirit, a documentary featuring director Víctor Erice, producer Elías Querejeta, coscreenwriter Ángel Fernández-Santos, and actor Ana Torrent
- Víctor Erice in Madrid, an interview with the director
- Interview with film scholar Linda Ehrlich
- Interview with actor Fernando Fernán Gómez
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: a new essay by film scholar Paul Julian Smith
