Rafael Azcona died last Monday. I was sort of waiting until someone in the English blogosophere would write a fitting obituary (I was thinking of Robert Monell or Mike from Esotika), but it appears that his death went largely unnoticed in the anglosphere. As such, it would have gone unnoticed by me as well, were it not for the excellent Belgian literary blog “De Papieren Man” who reported Azcona’s death here.
To mainstream audiences, Azcona is best known for his writing credits on Belle Époque Youtube, which starred Penelope Cruz.
To cult film aficionados as myself, Azcona is best-known for his collaborations with über cult filmmaker Marco Ferreri, and especially as the scriptwriter of La Grande Bouffe WCC#13.
More Ferreri/Azcona collaborations include El Pisito, The Wheelchair, The Ape Woman , The Conjugal Bed, Countersex , The Man With The Balloons, The Wedding March, Kiss The Other Sheik, Her Harem, The Audience and, Don’t Touch the White Woman.
There is one Spanish obituary you may want to check by a blogger who calls himself an emotional pornographer (que bonito) [1]. Finally, this seems to be one of the more complete English language obituaries.
I’m not familiar with him outside of his collaborations with Ferreri (I haven’t even seen Belle Epoque), and I was completely oblivious to this until now. Thanks for the heads up.
Jahsonic:
I wrote an (english-language) obituary in my blog ((f you’re interested)):
http://allthisandtigernutstoo.blogspot.com/2008/03/rafael-azcona-lives-forever.html
Azcona wrote some of the best scripts of Spanish film history. With his death, Spanish films sort of loose the backbone. Ha was sort of shy and didn’t like to appear in public, but those fortunate enough to be his friends said he was such a swell guy, and I’m sure he was.
He wrote a number of novels which, fortunately, have been reprinted in the last years, a list of them can be seen at this weblog:
http://www.elboomeran.com/autor/33/rafael-azcona/
There are many fitting homages this days in the Spanish Blogosphere. I give you the link to a 2006 interview :
http://manuelsegura.wordpress.com/2006/10/24/rafael-azcona-cumple-sus-primeros-80-anos/
Incidentally, I was a bit surprosed as obituaries said he was 81 years old: most of the people with whom I have talked about his death these days would have lead to believe, from recent photos, that his age was between 50 and 60, at most: I suppose that having sense of humour (as he had in bucketfuls) makes one feel/be younger.