MovieChat Forums > Simón del desierto (1970) Discussion > Script flaws?

Script flaws?

posted 20 years ago by BrainDamageEclipse
17 replies | jump to latest

Oh, I loved this movie so much, but couldn't stop thinking about at least two major flaws of the script. (Ok, I know that I should take this story as a metaphor, but these are involuntary thoughts that occured to me)

First: if Simon was on the top of the column for 6 years, 6 months, 6 weeks and 6 days (so we're told when the movie begins), and later we find that he was now standing there for 8 years, 8 months, 8 weeks and 8 days (at the second visit of the Devil), and in this time he never took a bath, and he doesn't seem to clean himself in any way (he is not interested in his body), then I guess he should've been covered with a thick layer of dirt. But he isn't. He is as dirty as if he was standing there for, say, one or two weeks. There are stories of hermits who refused to clean their bodies, and after a while worms were feeding from their bodies. Where are they in Simon's case? His presumably advanced state of dirtiness in only suggested by the ulcers on his legs.

Second: if he stands on the top of the column, where does he accomplish his physiological needs? He can't go behind a tree, right? He mentions his excrements to the goatherd, so he must accomplish these needs.

What do you think?

Everything under the sun is in tune,
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon...

[–] JoeKulik 10 years ago

1) See the Wikipedia entry for "Simeon Stylites". According to the best available historical data, Bunuel's Simon is based on an actual historical person, and Wiki even says that the last pillar upon which the real Simeon resided he did so for 38 consecutive years, until the time of his death. So your "script flaws" are, at least technically, valid. The real Simeon was probably layered in filth and his pillar probably had excrement caked along its sides.

2) Sorry to be offensive, but I think that film viewers who expect every film adaptation of a novel, or every historical film to be EXACT duplicates of the original are just morons. A novel or an historic event need be no more than an artistic inspiration for a filmmaker in my opinion. A true filmmaker is an artist, in my opinion, and an artist doesn't simply copy reality in a mindless robotic fashion. An artist, at least a good one, puts his own spin on realty as he sees it from his own philosophical & experiential perspective.

3) I'm sure that at least part of the reason that Bunuel committed the "script flaws" that you so accurately cite is out of consideration for the sensibilities of the viewer. That is, who wants to view a film where the main character is caked with filth and has excrement piled around him? That's just not a pleasant sight. So, let's just say that your "script flaws" are a result of an aesthetic judgment made by the artist, the filmmaker, which is entirely his right to do.

4) That the story is about a "saint" may have something to do with why Bunuel committed the "script flaws" that you cite. A story about a "saint" along with visual depictions of a filthy body and piles of excrement don't seem to be very compatible. As another example, I once read that the historical person Joan Of Arc actually recanted her confession at her trial that she was in fact a witch because after her confession, her prison guards no longer felt compelled to treat her as a "saint", and proceeded to sexually abuse her as they would any other female criminal in their possession. Facing the possibility of being constantly raped by her male guards seems to be the real & practical reason why Joan recanted her confession & preferred to be burnt at the stake instead. However, two different film depictions of Joan's trail that I have viewed, The Passion Of Joan of Arc (1928) (dir Carl Dreyer) and Joan of Arc (1948) (dir: Victor fleming, starring Ingrid Bergman) both omit the fact that Joan was raped after her initial confession, and portray her recanting to be purely on "spiritual" grounds. So here are 2 more examples of "script flaws" in the history of film, where historical facts about a "saint" were altered in a way to be more compatible with what the typical film viewer expects from a movie about a "saint". So there is historical precedence for Bunuel's "script flaws" as well.