Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) was born in Calanda, Spain,
and studied literature and philosophy at the University of Madrid. He moved to Paris,
where he worked as an assistant to director Jean Epstein. In 1928, he and Salvador Dali
made the film, Un Chien Andalou, launching them both into the Surrealist Group. Mr.
Buñuel moved to the United States after the Spanish Civil War, then settled in Mexico in
the late 1940's. The themes of obsessive desire and the
inhibitions imposed by society dominate his movies. Mr. Buñuel's Viridiana (1961) won the
Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm Award, and Belle de Jour (1967) won the Venice Film
Festival Golden Lion Award.
Luis Buñuel
filmography :
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
Starring: Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Starring: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig
Tristana (1970)
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey
The Milky Way (1968)
Starring: Laurent Terzieff, Paul Frankeur
Belle de Jour (1968)
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel
Simon of the Desert (1965)
Starring: Claudio Brook, Silvia Pinal
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
Starring: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal
Viridiana (1961)
Starring: Francesco Rabal, Silvia Pinal
Nazarin (1958)
Starring: Francesco Rabal, Rita Macedo
Death in the Garden (1956)
Starring: Georges Marchal, Simone Signoret
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz (1955)
Starring: Ernesto Alonso, Ariadne Welter
The Illusion Travels by Streetcar (1953)
Starring: Lilia Prado, Carlos Navarro
Wuthering Heights (1953)
Starring: Irasema Dilian, Jorge Mistral
El Bruto (1952)
Starring: Pedro Armendariz, Katy Jurado
El (This Strange Passion) (1952)
Starring: Arturo de Cordova, Delia Garces
Susana (1951)
Starring: Rosita Quintana, Fernando Soler
A Woman Without Love (1951)
Starring: Rosario Granados, Julio Villareal
Los Olvidados (1950)
Starring: Alfonso Mejia, Roberto Cobo
The Great Madcap (1949)
Starring: Fernando Soler, Rosario Granados
L'Age d'Or (1930)
Starring: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys
Un Chien Andalou (1928)
Starring: Pierre Batcheff, Simone Marevil
The Life of Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel was born in Span in 1900. In studied first with Jesuits
before enrolling in the University of Madrid, majoring in science. At the University he
met Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca. Inspired by Fritz Lang's film, Destiny ,
Buñuel went to Paris to study film during the 1920's amidst a flourish of avant-garde
experimentation. There he became an assistant to the experimental filmmaker Jean Epstein,
and in 1928 collaborated with some friends including Salvador Dali on Un Chien andalou ,
which became a surrealist classic. It provoked a scandal, but Buñuel went on to film
L'Age d'Or in 1930, creating another scandal. L'Age d'Or would also be the last time
Salvador Dali would collaborate with Buñuel as he fought with Buñuel over the film's
anti-Catholicism. After L'Age d'Or , Buñuel further pursued his interests in
anti-clericalism when he turned his attentions to making a documentary called Land Without
Bread . (1932), studying the contrast between the poverty, disease, and death of the
Spanish people and the lush, jewel-filled world of the Spanish Catholic Church. Buñuel
went on to work for the foreign branches of major Hollywood studios, dubbing for Paramount
in Paris and supervising co-productions for Warner Brothers in Spain. He produced several
more Spanish pictures before leaving Spain for the United States during the Spanish Civil
War.
While in the United States, he was director of documentaries at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York. He also found himself working for major Hollywood studios again
as well as the U. S. government, supervising Spanish-language versions of films for MGM,
making documentaries for the U. S. Army, and dubbing for Warner Brother.Buñuel began to
direct films again after a creative hiatus of almost 15 years when he went to Mexico.
In association with producer Oscar Dancigers, Buñuel made a series of
films, including Los olvidados (1950), El (1952), and Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la
Cruz (1955). The best of these films brought Buñuel once more to international acclaim.
It was with his Mexican films that Buñuel began to fully develop his unique mix of
surrealist humor and social melancholy, combining a documentary sense with surrealist
qualities into a loose, discontinuous form of narrative that his films would continue to
follow as his career would progress. With his Mexican films, he paid especially close
attention to the details of average Mexican life. Buñuel would continue to make films in
Mexico, most notably Nazarin (1958), even after leaving the continent.
Buñuel returned to France in 1955 to begin three co-productions that
placed him in the center of cinematic art. His first opportunity to work and live in Spain
came when he made Viridiana in 1961. Though his script was initially approved, the film
was banned upon release due to its anticlerical images, notably Buñuel's famous parodical
shot of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper . Nevertheless the film achieved
international recognition. Controversy and problems with either distribution or censorship
continued to appear throughout his career, as in his French film, Belle de Jour (1967),
which would later go out of distribution for many years until Martin Scorsese rereleased
it in 1996. Despite the complications Buñuel continued to be one of the most creative and
productive of all film directors.