Two Americans in Barcelona: Ted is doing business, Fred, his naval officer cousin, is visiting. Love and prejudice in Spain at the end of the Cold War.
I started writing Barcelona in 1983, when I first moved to Spain, but I didn’t get very far. My idea came from the film An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) with Richard Gere. I had just seen a film that I hated and in order not to be left with that bad feeling I went back to the cinema and happened upon An Officer and a Gentleman, whose story I found enchanting. When I told this to my friends, including Fernando Colomo, they were very surprised. Fernando said to me, ‘You like that film? It’s facha!’ A film about the military! At that time in Spain, if you liked the military you were facha. I thought that was perfect for my film in Barcelona; I had the idea of separating the officer and the gentleman, of making them two different guys, immersed among all these people who keep saying facha. (WS)
From Whit Stillman : Not so long ago, Fireflies Press / FIDMarseille, coll. “One, Two, Many”, 2023.
