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
Das goldene Zeitalter (1930), 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 in
Die Vergessenen (1950), winning 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
Tagebuch einer Kammerzofe (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 - Schöne des Tages (1967) onwards would
be his last, he finally kept his promise with
Dieses obskure Objekt der Begierde (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.
