Barcelona with Robert Hughes - ACE241.2

Aerial view of Barcelona. VO: "Some days you can see the whole of Barcelona from the hill behind the city. The place is called Tibidabo." Robert Hughes looking down from gallery … ( "the name means I will give you") … below the statue of Christ … ("the words allegedly spoken by the Devil to Jesus Christ" when he tempted him) … on top of the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor, the Church of the Sacred Heart. Panning view across city – Freddy Mercury’s song over. Collage of views of buildings, streets, people. Panning view. Traffic going up-hill at dusk. Funfair. The Christ statue at night. View down over funfair. Collage of shots in streets at night. Car drives past outside of house where Hughes is staying. Interior views, including Hughes working. VO explains that he first went to the city in spring 1968 in order to experience the scene of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. He stayed in this house, belonging to sculptor Xavier Corbero. Workmen on building site. View down over city at dusk. View over prow of small boat approaching Barcelona by sea, and others from the water. View of harbour. Graffito: "trabajo = muerte". Traffic in the city. Hughes speaking from the back seat of a taxi, driving through main streets, about the political make-up of the city. Taxi pulls up outside the Palau de la Generalitat, in Plaza de Sant Jaume. Hughes goes inside to meet the President, Jordi Pujol. Ninteenth-century map of Iberian peninsula showing Catalunya. Pujol talks to Hughes about Catalan identity, defined by culture, language and politics. Hughes walking across the Plaza de Sant Jaume to the Town Hall. Inside the Town Hall. Mayor Joan Maragall talks to Hughes about the differences between his Socialist party and that of Pujol. Service inside Cathedral as part of the festival of La Verge Mercè,attended by both politicians. Festival street scenes with big papier maché figures. Castellers building a "human tower". Hughes in back street. Carvings of Wilfred the Hairy (Guilfré el Pilós) and St George fighting a dragon. Firework covered dragon in night-time festival procession, fireworks outside Town Hall, papier maché bull, more festivities