General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Begin the Beguine

Begin the Beguine (original title Volver a empezar, "To Begin Again") is a 1982 Spanish drama directed by José Luis Garci about an exiled Spanish writer who returns to his hometown of Gijón after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature¹. In April 1983 it became the first Spanish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film². Its English title comes from the Cole Porter song of the same name, which recurs throughout the soundtrack¹.

Key fact	Detail
Original title / year	Volver a empezar, Spain, 1982³
Director and writers	José Luis Garci; screenplay by Garci and Ángel Llorente⁴
Main cast	Antonio Ferrandis (Antonio Albajara), Encarna Paso (Elena), José Bódalo (Roxiu), Agustín González (Gervasio Losada)³
Plot	A Nobel laureate in Literature, exiled since the Civil War, makes a brief return visit to Gijón after 40 years⁵
Music	Johann Pachelbel's Canon and Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine", in piano versions by Jesús Glück⁶
Academy Award	Best Foreign Language Film, ceremony of 11 April 1983; first Oscar for Spanish cinema⁷
Runtime	87 minutes (the ICAA catalog lists 100 minutes for the video edition)³^•⁸

Spoilers

Story and production

The protagonist, Antonio Miguel Albajara (Antonio Ferrandis), is a former footballer for Sporting de Gijón who left Spain during the Civil War and became a professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Berkeley in California¹. The film follows his brief trip to Gijón as he returns from Stockholm, where he has just received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature¹. In a few days he reminisces with his old Sporting teammates, endures the flattery of a hotel owner (Agustín González), and rekindles his romance with Elena (Encarna Paso), the woman he left behind⁵. A terminal illness hangs over the visit: in one of the film's most praised scenes, Albajara and his friend Roxiu (José Bódalo) discuss his grave diagnosis in front of the fire⁵.

Garci described the film as an attempt to transmit serenity, "the recovery of charm in a time of disenchantment", and dedicated it to the generation of Spaniards who were young in the 1930s⁹. The film was made for a budget of forty million pesetas and shot in various locations in Asturias and the United States⁹. It premiered at the cine Arango in Gijón in March 1982, a premiere Garci chose in gratitude for the cooperation received during filming, particularly from Sporting; real local figures, including the club's president Manuel Vega Arango and defender Maceda, appear in the film¹. Several scenes were shot at El Molinón, Sporting's stadium, and at the club's Mareo training ground¹⁰.

A scene in which Albajara takes a congratulatory phone call from King Juan Carlos I (voiced by Pedro Ruiz) drew contemporary comment; Garci defended the explicit reference to the reigning king as a deliberate statement of support⁹.

Title and music

The film takes its title from Cole Porter's song "Begin the Beguine", written for the 1935 Broadway musical Jubilee; Porter had first seen the beguine, a dance from Martinique, in Paris in 1933¹¹. Artie Shaw's 1938 recording was the biggest hit of that year in the United States, and the song reached film in the finale of Broadway Melody of 1940, danced by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell¹¹. In Garci's film, the song stands for the vitalist spirit of the pre-war generation, and it is heard repeatedly in different versions¹. The other musical pillar is Pachelbel's Canon, which plays over the opening shot of a train arriving as Albajara sees Gijón for the first time in four decades⁵.

The song also had a recent Spanish pop life: Julio Iglesias recorded "Begin the Beguine (Volver a empezar)" in 1981, and the single reached number 7 in Switzerland and number 8 in Austria in early 1982¹².

The Oscar campaign

In November 1982 the Spanish selection committee chose Volver a empezar as Spain's entry after a contested process: a first vote shortlisted four films, and Garci's film and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón's Demonios en el jardín then tied repeatedly at seven points each, until a juror's blank vote allowed a decisive ballot¹³. At the ceremony of 11 April 1983 the film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the first for a Spanish production and, as Garci noted at the time, the first for any Spanish-language film in the award's history⁷. In the United States the film was released as To Begin Again and distributed by Miramax, which later handled Garci's El Abuelo as well².

Reception and legacy

Critical response in Spain and the United States was cooler than the popular and institutional success. Roger Ebert, the longtime film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and 1975 Pulitzer Prize winner, called the film "nostalgic, bittersweet" and weighed down by "predictable sentiment", complaining that the two familiar pieces of music were overused and that the plot was "very, very thin"¹⁴. The Spanish critic Diego Galán likewise criticized the film's simplicity and lack of plot development⁵. A Washington Post review noted that the title song plays at least a dozen times in the film's 90 minutes¹⁵.

The Oscar nonetheless marked a milestone for Spanish cinema and opened a line of Spanish winners in the category that later included Belle Époque (1992), Todo sobre mi madre (1999), and Mar adentro (2004)¹⁶. Garci received a further nomination for El Abuelo in 1999². The film itself has remained comparatively hard to see: as of recent years it has had no streaming offer in the United States, where it is available on Blu-ray³.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1980 to 1985

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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