Luis Bunel

bunSurrealism Era

Un Chien Andalou France. B/W, Silent, 20 minutes, 1928 was inspired by the French Surrealist movement at the time and was accepted into the ranks of surrealists by movement’s leader André Breton. Once said by Luis Buñuel, “we had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only images that surprised us, without trying to explain why.” In the film Un Chien Andalou, an eyeball being slit by Buñuel is shown. There is no explanation to how someone can come to this action, but is it possible to believe the eyeball idea came from a dream without an explanation? As Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali were in the process of making Un Chien Andalou, each of them had a dream. Dali dreamt about ants swarming around his hands and Buñuel told Dali he dreamt “a long tampering cloud sliced the moon in half, like a razor blade slicing through an eye.” As they told each other about their dreams, Buñuel said “there’s the film, let’s go and make it.”

Buñuel dream was the opening of the film and Dali’s dream was included in the film after Simone Mareuil’s laid out the clothes from the box for Pierre Batcheff, the bicyclist who crashed towards the sidewalk. Even though a plot is non-existent in Un Chien Andalou, the attention is on the movement. As the film was inspired by the French surrealist movement, there is other movement besides the actors. As the Batcheff is riding the bike, the camera is shaky which makes the audience anxious what going to happen in the next scene. The lighting also focuses on the main point or actor of the scene so the audiences know what to pay attention to as the shadow gives a lurid quality to the film. When Buñuel was a teenager, he was a practicing catholic until he became disgusted what he “perceived as the illogically of the church, along with its power and wealth.” Buñuel’s feelings for Catholicism made sense to the scene when the Batcheff picks the two ropes and drags two grand pianos that contained dead donkeys along with stone...