Meet the Modlins

November 7, 2022 3:42 AM

Here’s one way to start this story: Who is the uncredited man at the end of Rosemary’s baby?
Here’s another way:
On a spring night in Madrid in 2003, the Spanish photographer Paco Gómez got a call from his brother-in-law. He had seen a messy pile of discarded photos on Calle Pez, a street in the gentrifying neighborhood of Malasaña, close to where Gómez lived. His brother-in-law thought it was the kind of thing that would interest him. He was right: Gómez put on his shoes and hustled out the door of his apartment. … The photos contained something much stranger than mere unknown lives for Gómez to imagine his way into. In one, a man in ratty underwear stood in a bare room in a posture of crucifixion. In another, a statuesque teenage boy posed like a magazine heartthrob. In still another a woman with a lustrous ponytail stood before a Dalí-esque canvas of angels and demons. … Though he didn’t yet know it, Paco Goméz had just met the Modlins.
posted by vacapinta (8 comments total)

What a fascinating and bizarre story.
posted by gwydapllew at 5:05 AM on November 7, 2022

An interesting piece, though I think it embraces the Modlins' nostalgic privilege too much. Their idolization of Franco is seen as naive and almost cute, rather than poisonous. They were not just out of step with the times, they were hankering for a pre-civil-rights world where white Christians make all the rules and reap all the rewards. The article is pretty clear on the point that their failure to acheive fame in the arts was tied with an unwillingness to accept that the art world was valuing freedom and newness over Margaret's old-school Symbolism, but it seems to want to take the Modlins' side too much. Their vision of what a good world would be like leaves so many people and ideas behind.
posted by rikschell at 5:06 AM on November 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

For what its worth, I learned about all of this because I attended a talk by the director Sergio Oksman who is the director of the film in the first link. From what I gathered, Gomez had sort of recruited him and he felt there was enough material there to make an interesting film. I also gathered that he and Gomez had a big falling out because in the end he felt that Oksman had stolen the Modlins from him in favor of his own artistic vision. Oksman pleaded guilty but also explained that that was what artists like him did - create lies even in the realm of non-fiction because there are so many ways to tell a story. He admitted for example that he chose to exclude all mentions of Franco in his short film simply because that didn't suit the story he wanted to tell.

There's another story here of course about Gomez's own obsession and how he created this family rather than discovered them.
posted by vacapinta at 5:13 AM on November 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Re: Gomez's obsession, one thing I thought repeatedly in reading this fascinating article was to be worried about Gomez's mental health. The obsession seemed worrisome, and the fact of choosing this one family's story is almost as interesting psychologically as the story itself.
posted by gideonfrog at 7:30 AM on November 7, 2022

I totally sympathize with Gomez’s obsession. This summer we stayed in an Airbnb in which I found a high school year book. I spent the vacation obsessively internet researching (ok fine, stalking) the class of 1991 whose signatures filled the book to find out what became of them. One-who signed as the ‘Bitch Goddess’-was in the movie Swingers!
posted by vorpal bunny at 4:12 PM on November 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Perhaps this should be paired up with the other documentary about a guy who made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in "Rosemary's Baby"
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:58 PM on November 7, 2022

Yeah, no doubt the Modlins wouldn't be my favorite people, but the takeaway for me is a little more universal. Every family (and individual) has a story, and while different people know bits and pieces of it, very rarely does anyone know the whole picture. And most of the stories get lost to time once our younger friends and relatives are gone. I couldn't help thinking about my own pictures; I don't expect my sister will want to keep all of them, and what kind of things would some stranger finding them in a bin think about the people in them, somewhere ages and ages hence? I often wonder about the people I see in old pictures, and I think about all the people in my Grandma's albums, sitting in a box at my mother's, with nobody left alive who knew who they were and what they did with their lives. With all those stories gone, seeing one of them researched and documented tugs at my heartstrings, even if the people involved were not great.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:47 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

That was a great read! Thanks!
posted by james33 at 6:37 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]