We need the others. We need our own. We even need those we don’t even know. Alone we can do worse. Or we cannot do it alone.
Joan Manuel Serrat collects her 2024 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. She does so in the solitude of the solemn pulpit that makes up the corner of the Campoamor Theater stage: “I prefer roads to borders, reason to force and instinct to civility. I am a social and rational animal, who needs other men. But beyond the tribe. Therefore, I believe in tolerance, in respect for the rights of others, in dialogue as the only way to resolve issues fairly. I believe in freedom, justice and democracy. Values that go hand in hand or that don’t go together,” he says. How do you say it?
Great artists do not teach, they usually inspire reflection. Although his words are finished off by an echo of a homily. But, this time, the echo does not refer to a sermon. The echo of the room sounds like the spectacle of the congregation of silence. That silence that springs from the emotion of when, together, in unison, we cannot stop listening.
And Serrat made his speech. And his speech became more and more special. Because I wasn’t alone. Even if he was alone in the pulpit. The television production added a nuance of sensitivity to his words, allowing Serrat to be heard but, also, listening to the people in the auditorium who were talking without needing to speak.
Thus, Serrat’s gratitude grew thanks to the reaction shots that TVE’s production of those who were there and who neither could nor wanted to hide the affections provoked by the teacher. Extreme close-up shots.
His wife taking out her cell phone to record the moment with her own pulse. We saw it on TV. His daughters, Candela and María, breathe in time with their father’s hardened ideals. We saw them on TV. The expressiveness -in the face of a speech full of arguments- of the Queen Letizia Ortiz, the King, the Princess and the infanta. Each one in their own way. We saw it on TV. The gesture of Ana Belen. His descriptive face of love in the form of admiration. Because the real one I love you is the one who is soaked in admiration. We saw it.
We saw it all, in the exact word that perhaps we should have seen it. Because there was a well-planned television production, which was listening to document the unrepeatable moment with the nuances and not with the broad strokes. Thus we saw Serrat’s reasoning become larger through the emotions that are not alone, the emotions that are better if they are shared. So what could be a monologue towards nowhere became a dialogue, of words, looks, affections and illusions. Because we need others. We need our own. We even need those we don’t even know. Always, even in speeches from solemn and lofty pulpits.
