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Abstract
This article reads Luis García Berlanga’s Patrimonio nacional as a critique of the recently restored Spanish monarchy. The film constructs an allegorical relationship between Luis José de Leguineche’s character and Juan Carlos, positioning him as a grotesque double of the King that parodically inverts common tropes about the ruler and highlights biographical details that had been disremembered or concealed in the interest of crafting his public image. Thus, Berlanga’s work dismantles the perception of Juan Carlos as an avatar of democracy and modernity, contesting his participation in the Transition and anticipating in 1981 what is known about him in 2023.
Notes
1 Since fleeing Spain for Abu Dhabi, and since the initial drafting of this essay, Juan Carlos has continued to be marred by financial and personal scandals. Most relevant to this study, in December 2020, the King Emeritus’ former lover Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (née Larsen) filed a legal case against him in London, alleging that he had continually harassed her after their relationship ended in 2012. Juan Carlos appealed the accusations in 2022—UK judges ruled that he had immunity from allegations during his time as monarch (2012–2014) and the High Court of England and Wales ultimately threw out the case in 2023.
2 Charles T. Powell, El piloto del cambio: el rey, la monarquía y la transición a la democracia (Barcelona: Planeta, 1991), 19.
3 Brad Epps, ‘To Be (a Part) of a Whole: Constitutional Patriotism and the Paradox of Democracy in the Wake of the Spanish Constitution of 1978’, in La España constitucional: democracia y cultura, 1978–2008, ed. Silvia Bermúdez, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (USA), 44:3 (2010), 545–67 (p. 547).
4 Walther L. Bernecker, ‘Monarchy and Democracy: The Political Role of King Juan Carlos in the Spanish Transición’, Journal of Contemporary History, 33:1 (1998), 65–84 (p. 79).
5 For critical readings of Patrimonio nacional, see Concepción Torres Begines, España vista desde el aire: la influencia del esperpento de Valle-Inclán en el cine de García Berlanga (Málaga: Univ. de Málaga, 2014), 173–91; Antonio Gómez Rufo, Berlanga: contra el poder y la gloria (Barcelona: Ediciones B, 1997), 361–63; Francisco Perales, Luis García Berlanga (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997), 293–99; and José María Caparrós Lera, El cine español de la democracia: de la muerte de Franco al ‘cambio’ socialista (1975–1989) (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1992), 202–03.
6 Luis G. Berlanga, Manuel Hidalgo & Juan Hernández Les, El último austro-húngaro: conversaciones con Berlanga (Barcelona: Anagrama, 1981), 142.
7 José Luis de Vilallonga, El Rey: conversaciones con D. Juan Carlos I de España (Madrid: Planeta, 1993).
8 Rita Copeland & Peter T. Struck, ‘Introduction’, in The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, ed. Rita Copeland & Peter T. Struck (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2010), 1–11 (p. 2).
9 Virginia E. Swain, Grotesque Figures: Baudelaire, Rousseau, and the Aesthetics of Modernity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 2004), 13.
10 See Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature, trans. Ulrich Weisstein (Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1963 [1st German ed. 1933]), 19–21; Frances K. Barasch, The Grotesque: A Study in Meanings (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 17–19; Geoffrey Galt Harpham, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1982), 23–27; and Frances S. Connelly, ‘Introduction’, in Modern Art and the Grotesque, ed. Frances S. Connelly (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2003), 1–19 (pp. 7–8).
11 Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature, trans. Weisstein, 180–84.
12 Bernard McElroy, Fiction of the Modern Grotesque (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1989), 5.
13 Concepción Torres Begines, ‘El esperpento y el cine de Luis García Berlanga’, Doctoral dissertation (Universidad de Sevilla, 2012), 33.
14 Anon, ‘Un orden nuevo’, Diario de Navarra, 23 November 1975, p. 1.
15 Anon, ‘Al servicio del pueblo’, La Vanguardia, 23 November 1975, p. 1.
16 Ricardo Zugasti, La forja de una complicidad: monarquía y prensa en la Transición española (1975–1978) (Madrid: Fragua, 2007), 230.
17 Laura Desfor Edles, Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain: The Transition to Democracy after Franco (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1998), 58.
18 Anon, ‘La Monarquía, institución abierta’, Ya, 4 July 1976, p. 16.
19 John Hooper, The New Spaniards (London: Penguin Books, 2006 [1st ed. 1995]), 176.
20 Zugasti, La forja de una complicidad, 233–45.
21 Anon, ‘La lección de una visita’, La Vanguardia, 22 February 1976, p. 5.
22 Untitled column by Juan José Callejas, Pueblo, 20 March 1976, p. 4.
23 Bernecker, ‘Monarchy and Democracy’, 79.
24 Anon, ‘Alianza pueblo-Corona’, ABC, 5 April 1976, p. 3.
25 Vilallonga, El Rey, 16.
26 Carlos Cañeque & Maite Grau, ¡Bienvenido Mr. Berlanga! (Madrid: Bubok, 2009), 139.
27 The absence of positive female characters in Berlanga’s works is a common observation, but Eugenia’s character has never been studied in detail. See Luisa Briones, ‘El papel de la mujer en La escopeta nacional (España, 1978): misoginia berlanguiana’, Romance eReview, 14 (2004), 46–56 (p. 48) (available at <https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/romance/article/view/9205/8275> [accessed 15 December 2023]); and Josefina Molina, ‘Misoginia y feminismo en el cine de Berlanga’, lecture given to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 26 March 2017 (available at <https://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/assets/docs/discursos_ingreso/josefina_molina_2017.pdf> [accessed 15 December 2023]).
28 Gómez Rufo, Berlanga: contra el poder y la gloria, 44.
29 Marsha Kinder, Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993), 198.
30 Paul Preston, ‘The Monarchy of Juan Carlos: From Dictator's Dreams to Democratic Realities’, in The Politics of Contemporary Spain, ed. Sebastian Balfour (London/New York: Routledge, 2006), 27–38 (p. 27).
31 Raymond Carr & Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa, Spain, Dictatorship to Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981 [1st ed. 1979]), 169.
32 Paul Preston, Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 43.
33 Carmen Llorca, Los discursos de la Corona en las Cortes (Madrid: Plaza & Janés, 1985), 276.
34 Carsten Humlebæk, Spain: Inventing the Nation (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), 78.
35 José María de Areilza, Diario de un ministro de la monarquía (Barcelona: Planeta, 1977), 148.
36 Ricardo Zugasti, ‘La legitimidad franquista de la Monarquía de Juan Carlos I: un ejercicio de amnesia periodística durante la transición española’, Communication & Society, XVIII:2 (2005), 141–68 (p. 165).
37 Anon, ‘Un año después’, El País, 20 November 1976, p. 6.
38 Anon, ‘Dos años después’, La Vanguardia, 20 November 1977, p. 7.
39 Anon, ‘Dos años que parecen siglos’, ABC, 20 November 1977, p. 3.
40 Daniele Conversi, ‘The Smooth Transition: Spain's 1978 Constitution and the Nationalities Question’, National Identities, 4:3 (2002), 223–44 (p. 230).
41 See Preston, Juan Carlos, 219.
42 Paul Preston, A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence and Social Division in Modern Spain (New York: Liverlight Publishing Corporation, 2020), 475.
43 Preston, A People Betrayed, 475.
44 The media did not break its silence on Juan Carlos’ private life until 1992, after it was leaked that the King was in Switzerland and official sources gave conflicting explanations as to why he had travelled (the real motive being to visit his then-lover, Gayà). See Jaime Peñafiel, Juan Carlos y Sofía: retrato de un matrimonio (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2008), 198–99.
45 Jaime Peñafiel, La historia de ‘¡Hola!’ (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1994), 121–22.
46 Pilar Eyre, La soledad de la Reina. Sofía: una vida (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2012), 418–22.
47 Rebeca Quintans, Juan Carlos: la biografía sin silencios (Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 2016), 352.
48 Vilallonga, El Rey, 196.
49 Pilar Cernuda et al., Todo un rey (Madrid: Editorial Estudios y Ediciones, 1981), 57.
50 Eyre, La soledad de la Reina, 424.
51 Cernuda et al., Todo un rey, 55.
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.