Luis Buñuel (Calanda 1900-Mexico 1983)
The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in
the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education
(which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive
behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there,
where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca After
moving to Paris, Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs in Paris,
including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein. With financial
assistance from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first
film, the 17-minute Un chien andalou (1929), in 1929, and immediately
catapulted himself into film history thanks to its shocking imagery (much of
which - like the sliced eyeball at the beginning - still packs a punch even
today). It made a deep impression on the Surrealist Group, who welcomed Buñuel
into their ranks. The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made
his first feature, the scabrous witty and violent L'Age d'Or, which
mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would
preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. That career, though, seemed almost
over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after
the Spanish Civil War he emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of
Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros. Moving to Mexico in the late
1940s, he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of
unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating
study of Mexican street urchins, Los Olvidados (1950), which won him the
Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found
acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of
ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking
countries (though many of them are well worth seeking out). But in 1961, General
Franco, anxious to be seen to be supporting Spanish culture invited Buñuel back
to his native country -and Bunuel promptly bit the hand that fed him by making
Viridiana (1961), which was banned in Spain on the grounds of blasphemy,
though it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. This inaugurated
Buñuel's last great period when, in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman
and writer Jean-Claude Carrière he made seven extraordinary late masterpieces,
starting with Le Journal d'une femme de chambre (1964). Although far
glossier and more expensive, and often featuring major stars such as Jeanne
Moreau and Catherine Deneuve the films showed that even in old age Buñuel had
lost none of his youthful vigour. After saying that every one of his films from
Belle de jour (1967) onwards would be his last, he finally kept his
promise with Cet obscur objet du désir (1977), after which he wrote a
memorable (if factually dubious) autobiography, in which he said he'd be happy
to burn all the prints of all his films -a classic Surrealist gesture if ever
there was one.
|