Luis Buñuel
Encyclopedia
Luis Buñuel Portolés (ˈlwiz βuˈɲwel; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish
-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico
, France
and the US
..
, in Aragón
, Spain, to Leonardo Buñuel and María Portolés. He would later describe his birthplace by saying that in Calanda, "the Middle Ages
lasted until World War I
." The oldest of seven children, Luis had two brothers, Alfonso and Leonardo, and four sisters: Alicia, Concepción, Margarita and María.
When Buñuel was just four and a half months old, the family moved to Zaragoza
, where they were one of the wealthiest families in town. In Zaragoza, Buñuel received a strict Jesuit
education at the private Colegio del Salvador. After being kicked and insulted by the study hall proctor before a final exam, Buñuel refused to return to the school. He told his mother he had been expelled, which was not true—and what's more, he had received the highest marks on his world history exam. Buñuel finished the last two years of his high school education at the local public school.
In 1917, he went to university in Madrid
. While studying at the University of Madrid (now Universidad Complutense de Madrid
), he became a very close friend of painter Salvador Dalí
and poet Federico García Lorca
, among other important Spaniard artists living in the Residencia de Estudiantes
. Buñuel first studied agronomy
then industrial engineering
and finally switched to philosophy
.
on Mauprat
(1926) and La chute de la maison Usher (1928), and Mario Nalpas on La Sirène des Tropiques (1927) starring Josephine Baker
.
It was during this time that he met his future wife, Jeanne Rucar, whom he married in 1934. The two remained married throughout his life and had two sons, Juan-Luis and Rafael. Diego Buñuel
, filmmaker and host of the National Geographic Channel
's Don't Tell My Mother
series, is his grandson.
Next, Buñuel co-wrote and directed a 16-minute short film, Un chien andalou
(1929), with Dalí. This film – which features a series of startling images of a Freudian nature – was enthusiastically received by the burgeoning French Surrealist
movement of the time, and continues to be shown regularly in film societies to this day.
He followed Un chien andalou with L'Âge d'Or
(1930), partly based on the Marquis de Sade
's 120 Days of Sodom
. The film was begun as a second collaboration with Dalí, but, by the time the film went into production, Buñuel and Dalí had had a falling out, and so Dalí actually had nothing to do with the actual making of L'Âge d'Or. During this film, he worked around his technical ignorance by filming mostly in sequence and using nearly every foot of film that he shot. L'Âge d'Or was read to be an attack on Catholicism, and thus, precipitated an even larger scandal than Un chien andalou. The right-wing press criticized the film and the police placed a ban on it that lasted 50 years.
(1933), one of the first examples of mockumentary
. The film focused on peasant
life in Extremadura
, one of Spain's poorest states, where "fresh bread was unheard of" and where "at times, a goat falls from the rocks", presumably from starvation.
The advent of the Spanish Civil War
in 1936 caused the expatriation of many artists and intellectuals from the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco
, whose military revolt and rise to power had the strong backing of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy. Buñuel - living at the time in Madrid - could see that someone with his political and artistic sensibilities would have no place in a fascist Spain. Back in Paris, Buñuel co-wrote and produced a documentary short about the changing political climes in Spain, called España 1936
.
of dialogue. He then left Hollywood for New York, getting a job at the Museum of Modern Art
from Iris Barry
, where he put together compilation films, including a juxtaposition of two Nazi propaganda films: Leni Riefenstahl
's Triumph of the Will
(1934) and Hans Bertram
's Feuertaufe.
Dali, in his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), suggested that he had split with Buñuel because the latter was a Communist and an atheist. Buñuel was fired (or resigned) from MOMA, supposedly after Cardinal Spellman of New York went to see Iris Barry, head of the film department at MOMA. Buñuel then went back to Hollywood, where he worked in the dubbing department of Warner Brothers from 1942 to 1946.
In his 1982 autobiography Mon Dernier soupir (My Last Sigh, 1983), Buñuel wrote that he submitted a treatment to Warner Bros.
about a disembodied hand which was later adapted (without his consent and without paying him royalties) into The Beast with Five Fingers
(1946) with Peter Lorre
. Buñuel also wrote that, over the years, he rejected Dalí's attempts at reconciliation.
In 1972, Buñuel, along with his screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
and producer Serge Silberman
, was invited by George Cukor
to his house. This gathering was particularly memorable and other invitees included Alfred Hitchcock
, Rouben Mamoulian
, Robert Mulligan
, George Stevens
, Billy Wilder
, Robert Wise
and William Wyler
.
and Libertad Lamarque
, produced by Oscar Dancigers. Buñuel found the plot boring and it was not hugely successful.
He later again collaborated with Dancigers directing El Gran Calavera
(1949), a successful film starring Fernando Soler
. As Buñuel himself has stated, he learned the techniques of directing and editing while shooting El Gran Calavera. Its success at the box office encouraged Dancigers to accept the production of a more ambitious film for which Buñuel, apart from writing the script, had complete freedom to direct. The result was his critically acclaimed Los Olvidados
(1950), which was recently considered by UNESCO
as part of the world's cultural heritage. Los Olvidados (and its triumph at Cannes
) made Buñuel an instant world celebrity and the most important Spanish-speaking film director in the world.
Buñuel remained in Mexico for the rest of his life, although he spent periods of time filming in France and Spain. In Mexico, he filmed 20 films in all, including:
he retired from film making, and wrote (with Carrière) an autobiography, Mon Dernier Soupir (My Last Sigh), published in 1982, which provides an account of Buñuel's life, friends, and family as well as a representation of his eccentric personality. In it, he recounts dreams, encounters with many well-known writers, actors, and artists such as Pablo Picasso
and Charlie Chaplin
, and antics such as dressing up as a nun and walking around town. As one might deduce from these antics, Buñuel was famous for his atheism. In a 1960 interview with Michele Manceaux in L'Express, Buñuel famously declared: "Thank God I'm an atheist."
However, he repudiated this statement in a 1977 article in The New Yorker
. "I'm not a Christian, but I'm not an atheist, either", he said. "I'm weary of hearing that accidental old aphorism of mine, 'I'm an atheist, thank God.' It's outworn. Dead leaves. In 1951, I made a small film called Mexican Bus Ride, about a village too poor to support a church and a priest. The place was serene, because no one suffered from guilt. It's guilt we must escape from, not God."
Buñuel died in Mexico City in 1983. His funeral was very private. There were about 50 people at the most, among them Octavio Paz
, José Luis Cuevas
, Miguel Littin
, his wife and two sons.
, including scenes in which chickens populate nightmares, women grow beards, and aspiring saints are desired by lascivious women. Even in the many movies he made for hire (rather than for his own creative reasons), such as Susana and The Great Madcap, he usually added his trademark of disturbing and surreal images. Running through his own films is a backbone of surrealism; Buñuel's world is one in which an entire dinner party suddenly finds itself inexplicably unable to leave the room and go home, a bad dream hands a man a letter which he brings to the doctor the next day, and where the devil
, if unable to tempt a saint with a pretty girl, will fly him to a disco
. An example of a more Dada
influence can be found in Cet obscur objet du désir, when Mathieu closes his eyes and has his valet spin him around and direct him to a map on the wall.
Buñuel never explained or promoted his work. On one occasion, when his son was interviewed about The Exterminating Angel, Buñuel instructed him to give facetious answers. For example, when asked about the presence of a bear in the socialites' house, Buñuel fils claimed it was because his father liked bears. Similarly, the several repeated scenes in the film were explained as having been put there to increase the running time.
and organized religion
, mocking the Roman Catholic Church in particular but religion in general, for hypocrisy. Many of his most famous films demonstrate this:
where Catherine Deneuve
exposes her breasts to Saturno — but not the audience — being a noted exception) and shooting in order as much as possible to minimize editing time. He told actors as little as possible, and limited his directions mostly to physical movements ("move to the right", "walk down the hall and go through that door", etc.). He often refused to answer actors' questions and was known to simply turn off his hearing aid on the set. Though they found it difficult at the time, many actors who worked with him acknowledged later that his approach made for fresh and excellent performances.
Buñuel preferred scenes which could simply be pieced together end-to-end in the editing room, resulting in long, mobile, wide shots which followed the action of the scene. Examples are especially present in his French films. For example, at the restaurant / ski resort in Belle de jour, Séverin, Pierre, and Henri are conversing at a table. Buñuel cuts away from their conversation to two young women who walk down a few steps and proceed through the restaurant, passing behind Séverin, Pierre, and Henri, at which point the camera stops and the young women walk out of frame. Henri then comments on the women and the conversation at the table progresses from there.
Buñuel disliked non-diegetic music (music not intrinsic to the scene itself) and avoided its use, although the traditional drums from Calanda are heard in most of his films. The films of his French era were not scored and some (Belle de jour, Diary of a Chambermaid
) are without music entirely. Belle de jour does, however, feature (potentially) non-diegetic sound effects.
and the FIPRESCI Prize – Honorable Mention in 1969 by the Berlin Film Festival. In 1977, he received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Fine Arts.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
..
Early years
Buñuel was born in Calanda, a small town in the province of TeruelTeruel (province)
Teruel is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel.It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia , Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Zaragoza....
, in Aragón
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
, Spain, to Leonardo Buñuel and María Portolés. He would later describe his birthplace by saying that in Calanda, "the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
lasted until World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
." The oldest of seven children, Luis had two brothers, Alfonso and Leonardo, and four sisters: Alicia, Concepción, Margarita and María.
When Buñuel was just four and a half months old, the family moved to Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
, where they were one of the wealthiest families in town. In Zaragoza, Buñuel received a strict Jesuit
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
education at the private Colegio del Salvador. After being kicked and insulted by the study hall proctor before a final exam, Buñuel refused to return to the school. He told his mother he had been expelled, which was not true—and what's more, he had received the highest marks on his world history exam. Buñuel finished the last two years of his high school education at the local public school.
In 1917, he went to university in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. While studying at the University of Madrid (now Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
), he became a very close friend of painter Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
and poet Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
, among other important Spaniard artists living in the Residencia de Estudiantes
Residencia de estudiantes
The Residencia de Estudiantes, literally the "Student Residence", is one of the original Spanish cultural centers in Madrid, Spain. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Residence was a prestigious cultural institution that helped foster and create the intellectual environment of...
. Buñuel first studied agronomy
Agronomy
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology,...
then industrial engineering
Industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis...
and finally switched to philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
.
First French period
In 1925, Buñuel moved to Paris, where he began work as a secretary in an organization called the International Society of Intellectual Cooperation. He later found work in France as an assistant director to Jean EpsteinJean Epstein
Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Epstein directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the...
on Mauprat
Mauprat
Mauprat is a novel by the French novelist George Sand about love and education. It was published in serial form in April and May 1837. Like many of Sand's novels, Mauprat borrows from various fictional genres- the Gothic novel, chivalric romance, the Bildungsroman, detective fiction, and the...
(1926) and La chute de la maison Usher (1928), and Mario Nalpas on La Sirène des Tropiques (1927) starring Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
.
It was during this time that he met his future wife, Jeanne Rucar, whom he married in 1934. The two remained married throughout his life and had two sons, Juan-Luis and Rafael. Diego Buñuel
Diego Buñuel
Diego Buñuel is a French film-maker born in 1975 and the host and director of the National Geographic Channel series, Don't Tell My Mother. He is also the host of a television news show in France called Les Nouveaux Explorateurs, broadcast on Canal Plus....
, filmmaker and host of the National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
's Don't Tell My Mother
Don't Tell My Mother
Don't Tell My Mother is a television programme hosted by Diego Buñuel and shown on the subscription television channel Nat Geo Adventure.For the past ten years Diego Buñuel has been a foreign correspondent for French Television covering all kinds of countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or the...
series, is his grandson.
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
(1929), with Dalí. This film – which features a series of startling images of a Freudian nature – was enthusiastically received by the burgeoning French Surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
movement of the time, and continues to be shown regularly in film societies to this day.
He followed Un chien andalou with L'Âge d'Or
L'Âge d'Or
L'Âge d'or is a 1930 surrealist film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and written by him and Salvador Dalí.The film began as a second collaboration with Dalí, but, by the time the film went into production, Buñuel and Dalí had had a falling-out, and so Dalí actually had nothing to do with...
(1930), partly based on the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
's 120 Days of Sodom
120 Days of Sodom
The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785...
. The film was begun as a second collaboration with Dalí, but, by the time the film went into production, Buñuel and Dalí had had a falling out, and so Dalí actually had nothing to do with the actual making of L'Âge d'Or. During this film, he worked around his technical ignorance by filming mostly in sequence and using nearly every foot of film that he shot. L'Âge d'Or was read to be an attack on Catholicism, and thus, precipitated an even larger scandal than Un chien andalou. The right-wing press criticized the film and the police placed a ban on it that lasted 50 years.
Spain
Following L'Âge d'Or, Buñuel returned to Spain and directed Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin PanLas Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan , is a 27-minute-long documentary film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-produced by Buñuel and Ramon Acin...
(1933), one of the first examples of mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
. The film focused on peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
life in Extremadura
Extremadura
Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida. Its component provinces are Cáceres and Badajoz. It is bordered by Portugal to the west...
, one of Spain's poorest states, where "fresh bread was unheard of" and where "at times, a goat falls from the rocks", presumably from starvation.
The advent of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in 1936 caused the expatriation of many artists and intellectuals from the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, whose military revolt and rise to power had the strong backing of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy. Buñuel - living at the time in Madrid - could see that someone with his political and artistic sensibilities would have no place in a fascist Spain. Back in Paris, Buñuel co-wrote and produced a documentary short about the changing political climes in Spain, called España 1936
España 1936 (film)
España 1936 is a Spanish documentary short directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois and written by by Luis Buñuel, about the early days of the Spanish Civil War. It contains much genuine newsreel footage.-Further reading:...
.
United States
In exile after the Spanish Civil War, Buñuel settled in Hollywood to capitalize on the short-lived fad of producing foreign-language versions of American films for sales abroad. After Buñuel worked on a few Spanish-language remakes, the industry eventually turned to the dubbingDubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
of dialogue. He then left Hollywood for New York, getting a job at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
from Iris Barry
Iris Barry
Iris Barry was the founder of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1935. Barry was a film critic, and an early proponent of relating cinema to sociology, mythology, and genre....
, where he put together compilation films, including a juxtaposition of two Nazi propaganda films: Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
's Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of...
(1934) and Hans Bertram
Hans Bertram
Hans Bertram was a German screenwriter and film director. He wrote for ten films between 1938 and 1985. He also directed six films between 1939 and 1952. He was married to German actress Gisela Uhlen.-External links:...
's Feuertaufe.
Dali, in his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), suggested that he had split with Buñuel because the latter was a Communist and an atheist. Buñuel was fired (or resigned) from MOMA, supposedly after Cardinal Spellman of New York went to see Iris Barry, head of the film department at MOMA. Buñuel then went back to Hollywood, where he worked in the dubbing department of Warner Brothers from 1942 to 1946.
In his 1982 autobiography Mon Dernier soupir (My Last Sigh, 1983), Buñuel wrote that he submitted a treatment to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
about a disembodied hand which was later adapted (without his consent and without paying him royalties) into The Beast with Five Fingers
The Beast with Five Fingers
The Beast with Five Fingers is a horror film directed by Robert Florey and with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak, based on a short story by W. F. Harvey first published in the New Decameron. The original music score was composed by Max Steiner...
(1946) with Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
. Buñuel also wrote that, over the years, he rejected Dalí's attempts at reconciliation.
In 1972, Buñuel, along with his screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière is a screenwriter and actor. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, he was a frequent collaborator with Luis Buñuel...
and producer Serge Silberman
Serge Silberman
Serge Silberman was a French film producer.Silberman was born in Łódź, then a part of the Russian Empire in a Jewish family. During World War II Silberman survived Nazi concentration camps and eventually settled in Paris...
, was invited by George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
to his house. This gathering was particularly memorable and other invitees included Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...
, Robert Mulligan
Robert Mulligan
Robert Mulligan was an American film and television director best known as the director of humanistic American dramas, including To Kill A Mockingbird , Summer of '42 , The Other , Same Time, Next Year and The Man in the Moon...
, George Stevens
George Stevens
George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...
, Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
, Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
and William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
.
Mexican period
Buñuel arrived in Mexico in 1946 and acquired Mexican citizenship in 1949. He relinquished his Spanish passport as it was not possible to have dual citizenship then. The first film he directed there was Gran Casino (1946), a vehicle for Stars Jorge NegreteJorge Negrete
Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno is considered one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time....
and Libertad Lamarque
Libertad Lamarque
Libertad Lamarque was an Argentine-Mexican actress and singer. Originally from Argentina, she reached fame throughout Latin America while living in Mexico and working in Mexican cinema.-Career:...
, produced by Oscar Dancigers. Buñuel found the plot boring and it was not hugely successful.
He later again collaborated with Dancigers directing El Gran Calavera
El Gran Calavera
El Gran Calavera is a 1949 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel.-Cast:*Fernando Soler ... Ramiro*Rosario Granados ... Virginia*Andrés Soler ... Ladislao*Rubén Rojo ... Pablo*Gustavo Rojo ... Eduardo*Maruja Grifell...
(1949), a successful film starring Fernando Soler
Fernando Soler
Fernando Soler was a prolific Mexican film actor and film director.He appeared in over 100 films between 1915 and his death in 1979.- External links :...
. As Buñuel himself has stated, he learned the techniques of directing and editing while shooting El Gran Calavera. Its success at the box office encouraged Dancigers to accept the production of a more ambitious film for which Buñuel, apart from writing the script, had complete freedom to direct. The result was his critically acclaimed Los Olvidados
Los olvidados
Los Olvidados is a 1950 Mexican film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel....
(1950), which was recently considered by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
as part of the world's cultural heritage. Los Olvidados (and its triumph at Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
) made Buñuel an instant world celebrity and the most important Spanish-speaking film director in the world.
Buñuel remained in Mexico for the rest of his life, although he spent periods of time filming in France and Spain. In Mexico, he filmed 20 films in all, including:
- ÉlEl (film)Él , by Luis Buñuel, is a Mexican film based upon the novel by Mercedes Pinto. It deals with many themes common to Buñuel’s cinema, including a May-December romance between a woman and her obsessively overprotective bourgeois husband, and touches of surrealism...
(1953) - The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la CruzThe Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la CruzThe Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is a 1955 Mexican film by Spanish-born writer-director Luis Buñuel. It focuses on a would-be serial killer whose plans, although elaborate, never result in an actual murder.-Plot:Archibaldo de la Cruz is a wealthy Mexican man...
(1955) - NazarínNazarínNazarín is a 1959 Mexican film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written between Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, adapted from the eponymous novel of Benito Pérez Galdós...
(1959) (based on a novel by Spain's Benito Pérez GaldósBenito Pérez GaldósBenito Pérez Galdós was a Spanish realist novelist. Considered second only to Cervantes in stature, he was the leading Spanish realist novelist....
, and adapted by Buñuel to a Mexican context) - The Exterminating Angel (1962)
- Simon of the Desert (1965)
Second French period
After the golden age of the Mexican film industry ended, Buñuel started to work in France along with Silberman and Carrière. During this "French Period", Buñuel directed some of his best-known works:- Diary of a ChambermaidDiary of a Chambermaid (1964 film)Diary of a Chambermaid is a 1964 film. It is one of several French films made by Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Buñuel but lacks the surrealist imagery and plot twists of his other films...
(1964) - Belle de Jour (1967)
- TristanaTristanaTristana is a 1970 Spanish film directed by Luis Buñuel. Based on the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, it stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and was shot in Toledo, Spain. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish...
(1970, a French/Spanish/Italian co-production) - The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie-External links:* at Rotten Tomatoes* * Roger Ebert's review of *...
(1972) - The Phantom of Liberty (1974)
- That Obscure Object of DesireThat Obscure Object of DesireThat Obscure Object of Desire is a 1977 film directed by Luis Buñuel. Set in Spain and France against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency, the film tells the story of an aging Frenchman who falls in love with a young woman who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires.-Synopsis:A...
(1977)
Last years
After the release of That Obscure Object of DesireThat Obscure Object of Desire
That Obscure Object of Desire is a 1977 film directed by Luis Buñuel. Set in Spain and France against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency, the film tells the story of an aging Frenchman who falls in love with a young woman who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires.-Synopsis:A...
he retired from film making, and wrote (with Carrière) an autobiography, Mon Dernier Soupir (My Last Sigh), published in 1982, which provides an account of Buñuel's life, friends, and family as well as a representation of his eccentric personality. In it, he recounts dreams, encounters with many well-known writers, actors, and artists such as Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, and antics such as dressing up as a nun and walking around town. As one might deduce from these antics, Buñuel was famous for his atheism. In a 1960 interview with Michele Manceaux in L'Express, Buñuel famously declared: "Thank God I'm an atheist."
However, he repudiated this statement in a 1977 article in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. "I'm not a Christian, but I'm not an atheist, either", he said. "I'm weary of hearing that accidental old aphorism of mine, 'I'm an atheist, thank God.' It's outworn. Dead leaves. In 1951, I made a small film called Mexican Bus Ride, about a village too poor to support a church and a priest. The place was serene, because no one suffered from guilt. It's guilt we must escape from, not God."
Buñuel died in Mexico City in 1983. His funeral was very private. There were about 50 people at the most, among them Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
, José Luis Cuevas
Jose Luis Cuevas
José Luis Cuevas is a modernist painter and sculptor from Mexico. Born in 1934, Cuevas derived most of his training outside of the academies. He is considered to be one of the artists from the 1950s in the Rupture Generation that was departing from the politicized and stylized mural school of...
, Miguel Littin
Miguel Littin
Miguel Ernesto Littín Cucumides is a Chilean film director, screenwriter, film producer and novelist. He was born to a Palestinian father, Hernán Littin and a Greek mother, Cristina Cucumides....
, his wife and two sons.
Surrealism
Buñuel's films were famous for their surreal imagerySurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, including scenes in which chickens populate nightmares, women grow beards, and aspiring saints are desired by lascivious women. Even in the many movies he made for hire (rather than for his own creative reasons), such as Susana and The Great Madcap, he usually added his trademark of disturbing and surreal images. Running through his own films is a backbone of surrealism; Buñuel's world is one in which an entire dinner party suddenly finds itself inexplicably unable to leave the room and go home, a bad dream hands a man a letter which he brings to the doctor the next day, and where the devil
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, if unable to tempt a saint with a pretty girl, will fly him to a disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
. An example of a more Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
influence can be found in Cet obscur objet du désir, when Mathieu closes his eyes and has his valet spin him around and direct him to a map on the wall.
Buñuel never explained or promoted his work. On one occasion, when his son was interviewed about The Exterminating Angel, Buñuel instructed him to give facetious answers. For example, when asked about the presence of a bear in the socialites' house, Buñuel fils claimed it was because his father liked bears. Similarly, the several repeated scenes in the film were explained as having been put there to increase the running time.
Religion
Many of his films were openly critical of middle class moralsMorality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
and organized religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, mocking the Roman Catholic Church in particular but religion in general, for hypocrisy. Many of his most famous films demonstrate this:
- Un chien andalouUn chien andalouUn Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
(1929) – A man drags pianos, upon which are piled two dead donkeys, two priests, and the tablets of The Ten Commandments. - L'Âge d'OrL'Âge d'OrL'Âge d'or is a 1930 surrealist film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and written by him and Salvador Dalí.The film began as a second collaboration with Dalí, but, by the time the film went into production, Buñuel and Dalí had had a falling-out, and so Dalí actually had nothing to do with...
(1930) – A bishopBishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
is thrown out a window, and in the final scene one of the culprits of the 120 days of Sodom120 Days of SodomThe 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785...
is portrayed by an actor dressed in a way that he would be recognized as Jesus. - El Gran CalaveraEl Gran CalaveraEl Gran Calavera is a 1949 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel.-Cast:*Fernando Soler ... Ramiro*Rosario Granados ... Virginia*Andrés Soler ... Ladislao*Rubén Rojo ... Pablo*Gustavo Rojo ... Eduardo*Maruja Grifell...
(1949) – During the final scenes of the wedding, the priest continuously reminds the bride of her obligations under marriage. Then the movie changes and the bride runs chasing her true love. - Ensayo de un crimen (1955) – A man dreams of murdering his wife while she's praying in bed dressed all in white.
- NazarinNazarínNazarín is a 1959 Mexican film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written between Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, adapted from the eponymous novel of Benito Pérez Galdós...
(1959) – The pious lead character wreaks ruin through his attempts at charity. - ViridianaViridianaViridiana is a 1961 Spanish-Mexican motion picture, directed by Luis Buñuel and produced by Mexican Gustavo Alatriste. It is loosely based on Halma, a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós....
(1961) – A well-meaning young nun tries unsuccessfully to help the poorPovertyPoverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
. One scene in the film parodies The Last Supper. - El ángel exterminadorEl ángel exterminadorThe Exterminating Angel , is the second of the Buñuel/Alatriste/Pinal film trilogy, written and directed by Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal, and produced by her then-husband Gustavo Alatriste....
(1962) – The final scene is of sheep entering a church, mirroring the entrance of the parishioners. - Simón del desiertoSimón del desiertoSimon of the Desert is a 1965 film directed by Luis Buñuel. It is loosely based on the story of the ascetic 5th-century Syrian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for 39 years on top of a column....
(1965) – The devil tempts a saint by taking the form of a bare-breasted girl singing and showing off her legs. At the end of the film, the saint abandons his ascetic life to hang out in a jazzJazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club. - La Voie Lactée (1969) – Two men travel the ancient pilgrimage road to Santiago de CompostelaSantiago de CompostelaSantiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...
and meet embodiments of various heresiesHeresyHeresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
along the way. One dreams of anarchists shooting the PopePopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
.
Technique
Buñuel's style of directing was extremely economical. He shot films in a few weeks, rarely deviating from his script (the scene in TristanaTristana
Tristana is a 1970 Spanish film directed by Luis Buñuel. Based on the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, it stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and was shot in Toledo, Spain. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish...
where Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
exposes her breasts to Saturno — but not the audience — being a noted exception) and shooting in order as much as possible to minimize editing time. He told actors as little as possible, and limited his directions mostly to physical movements ("move to the right", "walk down the hall and go through that door", etc.). He often refused to answer actors' questions and was known to simply turn off his hearing aid on the set. Though they found it difficult at the time, many actors who worked with him acknowledged later that his approach made for fresh and excellent performances.
Buñuel preferred scenes which could simply be pieced together end-to-end in the editing room, resulting in long, mobile, wide shots which followed the action of the scene. Examples are especially present in his French films. For example, at the restaurant / ski resort in Belle de jour, Séverin, Pierre, and Henri are conversing at a table. Buñuel cuts away from their conversation to two young women who walk down a few steps and proceed through the restaurant, passing behind Séverin, Pierre, and Henri, at which point the camera stops and the young women walk out of frame. Henri then comments on the women and the conversation at the table progresses from there.
Buñuel disliked non-diegetic music (music not intrinsic to the scene itself) and avoided its use, although the traditional drums from Calanda are heard in most of his films. The films of his French era were not scored and some (Belle de jour, Diary of a Chambermaid
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964 film)
Diary of a Chambermaid is a 1964 film. It is one of several French films made by Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Buñuel but lacks the surrealist imagery and plot twists of his other films...
) are without music entirely. Belle de jour does, however, feature (potentially) non-diegetic sound effects.
Tributes
- In Calanda, Spain a bust of the head of Luis Bunuel is on display at the Centro Bunuel Calanda, a museum devoted to the director.
Awards
Luis Buñuel was given the Career Golden Lion in 1982 by the Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
and the FIPRESCI Prize – Honorable Mention in 1969 by the Berlin Film Festival. In 1977, he received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Fine Arts.
Filmography
| Year | Original title | English title | Production country | Language | Length | Award nominations(Wins in bold) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | Un Chien Andalou Un chien andalou Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.... |
An Andalusian Dog | France | French | 16 min | |
| 1930 | L'Age d'Or L'Âge d'Or L'Âge d'or is a 1930 surrealist film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and written by him and Salvador Dalí.The film began as a second collaboration with Dalí, but, by the time the film went into production, Buñuel and Dalí had had a falling-out, and so Dalí actually had nothing to do with... |
The Golden Age | France | French | 60 min | |
| 1933 | Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan | Land Without Bread | Spain | French | 30 min | |
| 1947 | Gran Casino (aka En el viejo Tampico) | Magnificent Casino | Mexico | Spanish | 92 min | |
| 1949 | El Gran Calavera El Gran Calavera El Gran Calavera is a 1949 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel.-Cast:*Fernando Soler ... Ramiro*Rosario Granados ... Virginia*Andrés Soler ... Ladislao*Rubén Rojo ... Pablo*Gustavo Rojo ... Eduardo*Maruja Grifell... |
The Great Madcap | Mexico | Spanish | 92 min | |
| 1950 | Los olvidados Los olvidados Los Olvidados is a 1950 Mexican film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.... |
The Forgotten (aka The Young and the Damned) | Mexico | Spanish | 85 min | Cannes Film Festival Cannes Film Festival The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals... – Best Director Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival) The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.... |
| 1951 | Susana Susana (film) Susana is a 1951 film directed by Luis Buñuel. It is the story of a girl of questionable mental stability who escapes from incarceration and ends up at a plantation where she disrupts a working family's daily routines and chemistry.-Plot:Susana is full of the unique touches of Buñuel's surrealism... |
Susana (aka The Devil and the Flesh) | Mexico | Spanish | 86 min | |
| 1951 | La hija del engaño La hija del engaño La hija del engaño is a 1951 Mexican film. It was written by Luis Alcoriza and directed by Luis Buñuel.... |
The Daughter of Deceit | Mexico | Spanish | 78 min | |
| 1952 | Subida al cielo | Ascent to Heaven (aka Mexican Bus Ride) | Mexico | Spanish | 85 min | Cannes Film Festival – Official Selection |
| 1952 | Una mujer sin amor Una mujer sin amor Una mujer sin amor is a 1952 Mexican film directed by Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Buñuel. It is based on Guy de Maupassant's story "Pierre et Jean."... |
A Woman Without Love | Mexico | Spanish | 85 min | |
| 1953 | El bruto | The Brute | Mexico | Spanish | 81 min | |
| 1953 | Él El (film) Él , by Luis Buñuel, is a Mexican film based upon the novel by Mercedes Pinto. It deals with many themes common to Buñuel’s cinema, including a May-December romance between a woman and her obsessively overprotective bourgeois husband, and touches of surrealism... |
This Strange Passion (aka Tourments) | Mexico | Spanish | 92 min | Cannes Film Festival – Official Selection |
| 1954 | La ilusión viaja en tranvía La ilusión viaja en tranvía La ilusión viaja en tranvía is a 1954 Mexican film. It was written by Luis Alcoriza and directed by Luis Buñuel.-External links:... |
Illusion Travels by Streetcar | Mexico | Spanish | 82 min | |
| 1954 | Abismos de pasión Wuthering Heights (1954 film) Wuthering Heights is a film directed by Luis Buñuel. In 1931, Buñuel and Pierre Unik wrote a screenplay based on the Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights but were never able to get financing. The 1954 film was produced by Óscar Dancigers and costarred Irasema Dilián and Jorge Mistral as the Cathy... (aka Cumbres Borrascosas) |
Wuthering Heights | Mexico | Spanish | 91 min | |
| 1954 | The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Mexico | English | 90 min | ||
| 1955 | Ensayo de un crimen | Rehearsal for a Crime (aka The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz) | Mexico | Spanish | 89 min | |
| 1955 | El río y la muerte El río y la muerte El río y la muerte is a 1955 Mexican film. It was written by Luis Alcoriza and directed by Luis Buñuel.... |
The River and Death | Mexico | Spanish | 91 min | |
| 1956 | Cela s'appelle l'aurore | That is the Dawn | Italy/France | French | 102 min | |
| 1956 | La mort en ce jardin La mort en ce jardin La mort en ce jardin is a 1956 film by director Luis Buñuel based on the novel by Jose-Andre Lacour.Amid a revolution in a South American mining outpost, a band of fugitives - a roguish adventurer , a local hooker , a priest , an aging diamond miner and his deaf-mute daughter - are... |
Death in the Garden (aka The Diamond Hunters) | France/Mexico | French | 104 min | |
| 1959 | Nazarín Nazarín Nazarín is a 1959 Mexican film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written between Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, adapted from the eponymous novel of Benito Pérez Galdós... |
Mexico | Spanish | 94 min | Cannes Film Festival – International Prize | |
| 1959 | La fièvre monte à El Pao La fièvre monte à El Pao La fièvre monte à El Pao is a 1959 film by director Luis Buñuel.... |
Fever Rises in El Pao (aka Republic of Sin) | France/Mexico | French | 109 min | |
| 1960 | The Young One The Young One La joven is a 1960 film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel. Produced in Mexico and shot in English with American actors, La Joven is Buñuel's second and last American film... |
Mexico/USA | English | 96 min | Cannes Film Festival – Special Mention | |
| 1961 | Viridiana Viridiana Viridiana is a 1961 Spanish-Mexican motion picture, directed by Luis Buñuel and produced by Mexican Gustavo Alatriste. It is loosely based on Halma, a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós.... |
Mexico/Spain | Spanish | 90 min | Cannes Film Festival – Palme d'Or Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du... |
|
| 1962 | El ángel exterminador El ángel exterminador The Exterminating Angel , is the second of the Buñuel/Alatriste/Pinal film trilogy, written and directed by Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal, and produced by her then-husband Gustavo Alatriste.... |
The Exterminating Angel | Mexico | Spanish | 95 min | Cannes Film Festival – FIPRESCI Prize FIPRESCI The International Federation of Film Critics is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for "the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of professional interests." It was founded in June 1930 in... |
| 1964 | Le journal d'une femme de chambre Diary of a Chambermaid (1964 film) Diary of a Chambermaid is a 1964 film. It is one of several French films made by Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Buñuel but lacks the surrealist imagery and plot twists of his other films... |
The Diary of a Chambermaid | France/Italy | French | 98 min | |
| 1965 | Simón del desierto Simón del desierto Simon of the Desert is a 1965 film directed by Luis Buñuel. It is loosely based on the story of the ascetic 5th-century Syrian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for 39 years on top of a column.... |
Simon of the Desert | Mexico | Spanish | 45 min | Venice Film Festival Venice Film Festival The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the... – Special Jury Prize Special Jury Prize (Venice Film Festival) The Special Jury Prize is an award given at the Venice Film Festival. It is awarded to one or two films per year and is considered less prestigious than the main award, the Golden Lion.-Awards:*1951 A Streetcar Named Desire by Elia Kazan... Venice Film Festival – FIPRESCI Prize |
| 1967 | Belle de jour | France/Italy | French | 101 min | Venice Film Festival – Golden Lion Golden Lion Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes... Venice Film Festival – Pasinetti Award |
|
| 1969 | La Voie Lactée | The Milky Way | France/Italy | French | 105 min | Berlin Film Festival – Interfilm Award |
| 1970 | Tristana Tristana Tristana is a 1970 Spanish film directed by Luis Buñuel. Based on the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, it stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and was shot in Toledo, Spain. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish... |
France/Italy/Spain | Spanish | 105 min | Oscar Academy Awards An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers... – Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences... |
|
| 1972 | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | France/Italy/Spain | French | 102 min | Oscar – Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the... |
| 1974 | Le fantôme de la liberté Le fantôme de la liberté The Phantom of Liberty is a 1974 film by Luis Buñuel, produced by Serge Silberman and starring Adriana Asti, Julien Bertheau and Jean-Claude Brialy.-Plot:... |
The Phantom of Liberty | Italy/France | French | 104 min | |
| 1977 | Cet obscur objet du désir | That Obscure Object of Desire | France/Spain | French | 105 min | Oscar – Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – Best Adapted Screenplay |
External links
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
- Interview with Jean-Claude Carriere – Bunuel's screenwriter and friend
- The Religious Affiliation of Luis Buñuel
- La furia umana, n°6, multilanguage dossier (texts by Gilberto Perez, Adrian Martin, Toni D'Angela, Alberto Abruzzese and others) http://www.lafuriaumana.it/index.php/archive/53-la-furia-umana-nd-6-autumn-2010-