Luis Buñuel is a Walking Contradiction
Tracing the director’s career from surrealism to satire — and everything in between
If your only exposure to director Luis Buñuel is the surrealist touchstone Un Chien Andalou (the one where they cut the eye open), then you’ve got a wealth of options on where to go next. There are many different filmmakers within the one man, who would have been 117 years old today (February 22nd): the bold social statement maker, the daring blasphemer, the surrealist, the sensationalist, the satirist, and the absurdist. We’d like you to meet them all, and hear what they have to say, as we wish Buñuel a Happy Birthday. Don’t worry, it’s not all close-ups of ants on people’s hands — except the first one.
Buñuel the Surrealist — Un Chien Andalou
Buñuel grew up in Spain watching three films a day, learning the ever-expanding rules and studying the grammar of early silent movies to look for ways to best exploit both. He intended for his first film, the seminal short Un Chien Andalou, to disgust and revolt his audience, but it was met with praise from high society that drove Buñuel crazy. He had a falling out with his partner in the creation of the legendary film, Salvador Dali, over the divergent paths the two artists began to take after the film’s reception. Buñuel went on to the next evolutionary step in his career, setting his sights on something more concrete than the purely visual nature of surrealist art.
Buñuel the Social Commentator — Los Olvidados
After years of working on smaller films, such as L’age d’Or (which was met with controversy for its depiction of the state and the church), and a decade of watching Franco rise to power as the fascist leader of Spain, the director took his opportunity to make a name for himself: curating propaganda films for the new government. In one of many moments in Buñuel’s life that felt like hypocrisy — although I am sure he wouldn’t have called it that — he then took the first chance he could to begin working for the American government, making films for the exact opposite purpose of those for Franco: convincing countries beginning to tip towards communism that they must reverse course. He then moved to Mexico and seemed to find home, making the hard-nosed drama Los Olvidados. Buñuel was booed in Mexico City for the film’s depiction of its citizens, but praised in Cannes for the same, and Los Olvidados announced Buñuel to the world as more than a playful provocateur, with a Best Director award in tow.
Buñuel the Daring Blasphemer — Viridiana
After receiving universal acclaim within the movie-making community, Buñuel spent a decade making relatively popular films as a hired gun. Entering the 1960’s, he grew tired of impersonal filmmaking and took aim at an even more controversial target than poverty: religion. He had apparently not learned his lesson from L’age d’Or, and doubled down on the outrageous imagery and subject matter for Viridiana, the story of a soon-to-be nun who visits her deranged uncle, and discovers she looks just like his deceased wife, which he is more than happy about. The incest and necrophilia-laden film also features an impromptu recreation of The Last Supper, and an implied threesome brings the picture to a close. I’m not sure what the censors’ problem was, but they weren’t big fans of the movie, despite Cannes awarding it their most prestigious award and putting Buñuel on the map as an A-List auteur.
Buñuel the Absurdist — The Exterminating Angel
The following year, Buñuel dusted off some of the surrealism he had kept dormant in his last few films in order to tell the story of The Exterminating Angel. This film has one of the simplest premises and most complex interpretations in history. A group of aristocrats meet at a mansion for a dinner party and, upon finishing their meal, realize that they are incapable of leaving the home, no matter what they try. It’s a terrifying and hysterical experience, but it is so effective because Buñuel injects moments of casualness and banality that shore up the dreamlike nature of the movie and allow us to invest in the story, rather than search for logic. For instance, at one point a woman exits the bathroom and announces that she has just seen an eagle fly by the window, which happened to Buñuel on a hiking trip years earlier. He felt like throwing that in, so he did, and it becomes an emotional anchor point in a film which otherwise seems like it doesn’t want you to understand it. The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or, but didn’t win. Not bad for a movie which can be summarized with: “we can’t walk out the door.”
Buñuel the Erotic Sensationalist — Belle du Jour
In his late 60’s, Buñuel was encouraged by young filmmakers to continue making movies after nearly forty years, and he entered yet another phase as an artist. With Belle du Jour, the story of a masochistic, upper-class Parisian housewife who voluntarily becomes a prostitute by day, attracting the affection of a brutal gangster, and spurning the advances of a creepy friend, while simultaneously becoming closer than ever to her unknowingly cuckolded husband — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — Buñuel proved that he was anything but washed up. And, he helped solidify Catherine Deneuve as a global star, even if she hated working with him.
Buñuel the Satirist — The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Near the end of his spectacular career, Buñuel entered a final phase: satire. He had of course made statements about various tiers of society in Spain, Mexico, and the United States (as well as the world at large), but had not committed to such formal executions of the style until The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. In it, nothing seems more difficult to the upper crust than getting together for dinner. The world seems to conspire to stop them, bringing them machine-gun toting maniacs, buckets of cockroaches, and revealing to them that they’re on a stage in front of an audience, and have been for some time. For his efforts, Buñuel won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, a rare feat for a feature not in the English language.
Stream The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie on Tribeca Shortlist now.
Buñuel would go on to make two more acclaimed films and retire from the movies in 1977, six years before his death.
Despite not specializing in one genre, focusing on the commercial aspects of his work, or compromising on his vision (even when it meant having to leave the country he called home, or having to abandon relationships with those who were once his closest friends and collaborators), Buñuel became one of cinema’s most lauded directors, having won Oscars, the Palme d’Or, the FIPRESCI Prize, top prizes at Berlin, Venice, and Karlovy Vary film festivals. Even today, the Sight & Sound Top 250, the most prestigious of all such polls within the film community, includes 6 of his features among the Greatest of All Time, forty years after his final film, and thirty-five years after his death.
He was a fascinating man who often contradicted himself, reinvented himself, and who took massive personal risks to make the art he felt he had to — leaving behind a body of work which rivals any other artist of his time. He said, near the end of his life, that he hoped he “would die alive,” putting one more contradiction in the long, magnificent tale he had written for himself, by his own rules.
One of the crown jewels of that story, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, is waiting for you to watch right now, on Tribeca Shortlist.
Below, you can also check out why actor Lili Taylor recommends this surreal and absurd film. Let us know which Buñuel (or, which of his films) is your favorite.
