July 14, 2000

Contact: Kristina Mitchell, Spencer Museum of Art, (785) 864-0137

Art museum film festival celebrates director's work

LAWRENCE - The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas is celebrating the 100th anniversary of film director Luis Bunuel's birth by screening his masterpieces on four Thursdays beginning July 27.

The films are free and open to the public and will be shown at 7 p.m in the art museum's auditorium. The schedule includes

  • July 27, "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), 15 min. Aimed at shocking the viewer, this short features a host of classic sequences, including a razor across an eye, a severed hand lying in the street, ants crawling from a hole in a man's hand, and a piano dragged across a room.

  • July 27, "L'Age D'Or" ("The Age of Gold," 1930), 62 min. An amazing assemblage of images that remains no less provocative today than it was in 1930 extolls love and attacks religion and the social order. Financed by the Vicomte de Noailles, who gave Bużuel complete freedom and declared it "exquisite and delicious," the film immediately became the object of right-wing extremists and remained unseen for generations because of the Catholic Church's threat to excommunicate the Vicomte if the film were distributed. Co-written by Salvador Dali. French with English subtitles.

  • Aug. 3, "The Exterminating Angel" (1962), 95 min. The story of guests invited to an elegant dinner party who find they are unable to leave at the end of the evening. A mysterious force compels them to stayŘ and stayŘ and stay. After several days, their social facades collapse as hunger, thirst, fear and boredom send them into a frenzy. Bunuel said that this film is "a metaphor, a deeply felt, disturbing reflection of the life of modern man, a witness to the fundamental preoccupations of our time." Spanish with English subtitles.

  • Aug. 10, "Belle de Jour" (1967), 100 min. Catherine Deneuve sparkles as a respectable middle-class wife, with a very contented husband, who finds a day job in a brothel that gives her an outlet for deeper, darker passions. Bunuel constructs both a clear portrait of the bourgeoisie as degenerate, dishonest and directionless, and an unhysterical depiction of Deneuve's inner fantasy life where she entertains dreams of humiliations galore. French with English subtitles. * Aug. 17, "That Obscure Object of Desire" (1976), 100 min. Bużuel uses two actresses playing one role to illustrate the unfathomable nature of sexual obsession. Fernando Rey stars. Nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Film. French with English subtitles.

    Bunuel (1900-1983) is known as the father of cinematic surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of film.

    Born in Spain in 1900, Bunuel studied with Jesuits before attending the University of Madrid to study science. There he met Salvador Dali and Federico Garcîa Lorca. Bunuel then moved to Paris to study film and, among a variety of film-related odd jobs, became an assistant to experimental filmmaker Jean Epstein.

    With financial assistance from his mother, in 1929 Bunuel collaborated with Dali and other friends on his first film, the 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou," which became a surrealist classic. The film's shocking imagery caused a scandal and catapulted Bunuel into film history.

    The next year he again collaborated with Dali on his first feature film, "L'Age d'Or." The witty and violent film attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Bunuel for the rest of his career. Dali was offended by the film's anti-Catholicism and did not work with Bużuel again.

    In addition to making the documentary "Land Without Bread" (1932), which contrasted the poverty of the Spanish people and the lush, jewel-filled world of the Spanish Catholic Church, Bunuel worked for the foreign branches of major Hollywood studios. He dubbed for Paramount in Paris and supervised co-productions for Warner Brothers in Spain.

    During the Spanish Civil War, Bunuel moved to the United States, where he was director of documentaries at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and again worked for major Hollywood studios as well as the U.S. government. He supervised Spanish-language versions of films for MGM, made documentaries for the U.S. Army, and dubbed for Warner Brothers.

    After a creative hiatus of almost 15 years, Bunuel began to direct films again when he went to Mexico and, in association with producer Oscar Dancigers, made films including "Los olvidados" (1950), and "El" (1952). Bużuel once again found international acclaim in these films, which fully developed his mix of surrealist humor and social melancholy. "Los Olvidados" won him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

    Bunuel returned to France in 1955 and in 1961 was invited back to Spain by General Franco. Bunuel's first film in Spain, "Viridiana," was banned there upon release due to its anticlerical images, notably Bunuel's famous parodical shot of Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." The film achieved international recognition, including the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

    Controversy and problems with either distribution or censorship continued throughout Bunuel's career. Despite the complications, Bunuel continued to be one of the most creative and productive of all film directors and, in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carriúre, made seven extraordinary late masterpieces, starting with "Diary of a Chambermaid" in 1964. After saying that every one of his films from "Belle de Jour" (1967) onward was his last, he kept his promise with "That Obscure Object of Desire" in 1977.

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