Un Chien Andalou
Synopsis
Simone Mareuil’s eye being held open by Luis Buuel in the opening scene.
Pierre Batcheff bicycling in nun’s clothing.
The film opens with a title card reading “Once upon a time”. What may be the film’s conclusion unfolds; a middle-aged man, (played by Buuel), sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a young woman, (Simone Mareuil), being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as he slits the woman’s eye with the razor.
The subsequent title card reads “eight years later”. A slim young man, (Pierre Batcheff), bicycles down a calm urban street wearing what appears to be a nun’s habit and a locked box with a strap around his neck. A cut occurs to the young woman, who has been reading anxiously in a sparingly-furnished upstairs apartment, and she hears the young man approaching on his bicycle. She promptly throws aside the book she was reading to look out the window. She emerges from the building and attempts to revive the young man after witnessing him collapse.
Later, the young woman assembles pieces of the young man’s clothing on a bed in the upstairs room, and seemingly through concentrating on the clothing causes the young man to appear near the door. The young man and the young woman stare at his hand, which has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. A slow transition occurs focusing on the armpit hair of an unknown figure and a sea urchin at a sandy location. An androgynous looking-young woman, appears in the street below the apartment, poking at a severed hand with a cane while surrounded by an angry crowd and police.
The crowd clears when the police place the hand in the box previously carried by the young man, and the androgynous young woman stands contemplating something happily in the middle of the now busy street while clutching the box, subsequently being run down by a car. The young man and the young woman watch these events unfold from the apartment window. The young man seems to take sadistic pleasure in the androgynous young woman’s danger and subsequent death, and as he gestures at the shocked young woman in the room with him, he leers at her and grasps her bosom. The young woman resists him at first, but then allows him to touch her as he imagines her nude from the front and the rear. The young woman pushes him away as he drifts off and attempts to escape by running to the other side of the room. The young man corners her as she reaches for a racket in self-defense, but he suddenly picks up two ropes and drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys, stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and two rather bewildered priests (played by Jaume Miravitlles and Salvador Dal) who are attached by ropes. As he is unable to move, the young woman escapes the room. She finds the young man in the next room, dressed in his nun’s garb in the bed.
Jaume Miravitlles and Salvador Dal as the confused priests.
The subsequent title card reads “around three in the morning”. The young man is roused from his bed by the sound of a doorbell (represented visually by a martini shaker being shaken by a set of arms through two holes in a wall). The young woman goes to answer the door and does not return. Another young man dressed in lighter clothing (also played by Pierre Batcheff) angrily arrives in the apartment, possibly to punish the other young man for his lecherous actions against the young woman. The second young man forces the first one to throw away his nun’s clothing and then makes him stand against a wall.
The subsequent title card reads “Sixteen years earlier”. We see the second young man from the front for the first time as he admires the art supplies and books on the table near the wall and forces the first young man to hold two of the books as he stares at the wall. The first young man eventually shoots the second young man when the books abruptly turn into pistols. The second young man dies and swipes at a nude figure in a meadow, and a group of men carry his corpse away.
The young woman comes into the apartment to possibly confront the first young man and sees a death’s head moth. The first young man sneers at her as she retreats and wipes his mouth off his face with his hand. Subsequently the first young man makes the young woman’s armpit hair attach itself to where his mouth would be on his face through gestures. The young woman looks at the first young man with disgust, and leaves the apartment sticking her tongue out at him.
As she exits her apartment, the street is replaced by a coastal beach, where the young woman meets a third man. He shows her the time and his watch and they walk near the rocks, where they find the remnants of the first young man’s nun’s clothing and the box. They seem to walk away clutching each other happily in a long tracking shot. However, the film abruptly cuts to the final shot with a title card reading “In Spring”, showing the couple buried in sand up to their shoulders, presumably dead after the unknown events of the opening scene, possibly bringing the film full-circle.
Cast
Simone Mareuil Young girl (as Simonne Mareuil)
Pierre Batcheff Young Man and Second Young Man (as Pierre Batchef)
Luis Buuel Man in prologue (uncredited)
Salvador Dal Seminarist (uncredited)
Robert Hommet Third Young man?? (uncredited)
Marval (actor) Seminarist (uncredited)
Fano Messan Androgynous young woman (uncredited)
Jaume Miravitlles Fat seminarist (uncredited)
Production
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The legendary shot of the cow’s eye being slit by Luis Buuel.
A death’s head moth.
The idea for the film actually began when Buuel was working as an assistant director for Jean Epstein in France. Buuel told Dal at a restaurant one day about a dream in which a cloud sliced the moon in half “like a razor blade slicing through an eye”. Dal responded that he’d dreamed about a hand crawling with ants. They were fascinated by what the psyche could create, and decided to write a script based on the concept of suppressed human emotions.
The eye that was actually sliced in the opening scene was that of a dead donkey. Through intense lighting, Buuel attempted to make the furred face of the animal appear as human skin. During the bicycle scene, the woman who is sitting on a chair, reading, throws the book aside when she notices the man who has fallen. The image it shows when it lays open is a reproduction of a painting by Vermeer, whom Dal greatly admired and often referred to in his own paintings. In Buuel’s original script, the last shot was to feature the corpses “consumed by swarms of flies”. However, this special effect was left out due to budget limitations.
Given the general distaste for surrealism among the French public, Buuel and Dal carried sacks of rocks in their pockets on opening night as self-defense, expecting a negative response from the audience. They were disappointed when the audience enjoyed the film, making the evening “less exciting”, according to Dal.
The movie contains several thematic references to Federico Garca Lorca and other writers of that time. For example, the rotting donkeys are a reference to the popular children’s novel Platero y yo by Juan Ramn Jimnez, which Buuel and Dal hated.
Both of the leading actors of the film eventually committed suicide: Batcheff overdosed on Veronal on April 13, 1932 in a hotel in Paris, and Mareuil committed self-immolation on October 24, 1954 by dousing herself in gasoline and burning herself to death in a public square in Prigueux, Dordogne.
Soundtrack
Modern prints of the film feature a soundtrack consisting of excerpts from Richard Wagner’s Liebestod, the concert version of the finale to his opera Tristan und Isolde, and a recording of the continental tango “Ol guapa”. This is the same soundtrack that Buuel chose and played live on a phonograph during the original 1929 screening in Paris. They were first added to a print of the film in 1960 under Buuel’s supervision.
Analysis
In spite of varying interpretations made since the film originated, Buuel made clear throughout his writings that, between Dal and himself, the only rule for the writing of the script was that “no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted”. Moreover, he stated that, “Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis.”
Legacy
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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)
Film scholar Ken Dancyger has argued that Un chien andalou might be the genesis of the filmmaking style present in the modern music video. Roger Ebert has called it the inspiration for low budget independent films. Premiere ranked the opening scene as 10th out of “The 25 Most Shocking Moments in Movie History”.
David Bowie had this movie opening for his 1976 World Tour for each concert rather than a warm up act. Bowie said that the movie was used in order to “set the tone for the evening”.
Un chien andalou was mentioned in the book How To Get Suspended and Influence People, by Adam Selzer. The movie serves as inspiration for the main character, Leon Harris.
Un chien andalou is referred to in the Pixies song “Debaser”. The film is cited by Frank Black as being a major influence on the band’s work. On the band’s current 2009 Doolittle Tour, the film is shown, sometimes broken up into multiple “windows” on a screen behind the stage just prior to the band’s arrival on stage.
The band Murnau released an EP that was their idea of an updated soundtrack to Un chien andalou.
The opening scene was parodied in The Simpsons episode “Yokel Chords”.
The eye cutting scene was referred to the cover of Mr. Oizo’s 2008 album Lambs Anger. The scene is also described in E. L. Doctorow’s 1971 novel, The Book of Daniel.
References
Notes
^ “Un Chien Andalou”. http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Ca-Chr/Un-Chien-Andalou.html. Retrieved 8 July 2008.
^ Havis, Allan (2008), Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression, Univeristy Press of America, Inc., page 11
^ Buuel, 1968
^ Buuel, Luis (1983). My Last Sigh. Abigail Israel (trans). New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-52854-9.
^ Sitney, P. Adams (1974). Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde. New York: Oxford University Press.
^ Dancyger, Ken (July 2002). The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. Focal Press. ISBN 0240804201.
^ Ebert, Roger (16 April 2000). “Un Chien Andalou (1928)”. Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000416/REVIEWS08/401010369/1023. Retrieved 28 February 2008.
^ “The 25 Most Shocking Moments in Movie History”. http://www.premiere.com/List/The-25-Most-Shocking-Moments-in-Movie-History. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
Further reading
Buuel, Luis; Salvador Dal (1968). Classic Film Scripts: L’Age d’Or and Un Chien Andalou. Marianne Alexandre (trans.). New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-85647-079-1.
External links
Un Chien Andalou at the Internet Movie Database
Un Chien Andalou at Allmovie
Un Chien Andalou at Rotten Tomatoes
Un Chien Andalou reviewed by Roger Ebert
Un Chien Andalou analyzed by Michael Koller
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Films directed by Luis Buuel
1920s
Un Chien Andalou
1930s
L’Age d’Or Land Without Bread
1940s
Gran Casino The Great Madcap
1950s
Los Olvidados Susana La Hija del Engao Mexican Bus Ride A Woman Without Love El Bruto l Illusion Travels by Streetcar Wuthering Heights Adventures of Robinson Crusoe The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz El Ro y la Muerte Cela S’appelle l’Aurore Death in the Garden Nazarn La Fivre Monte El Pao
1960s
The Young One Viridiana The Exterminating Angel Diary of a Chambermaid Simon of the Desert Belle de Jour The Milky Way
1970s
Tristana The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie The Phantom of Liberty That Obscure Object of Desire
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Salvador Dal
List of works
Selected
paintings
Landscape Near Figueras (1910) Vilabertrin (1913) Fiesta in Figueres (191416) Port of Cadaqus (Night) (191819) The Artist’s Father at Llane Beach (1920) The Garden of Llaner (Cadaqus) (192021) Cabaret Scene (1922) Cubist Self-Portrait with “La Publicitat” (1923) Self-portrait with L’Humanitie (1923) Portrait of Luis Buuel (1924) Siphon and Small Bottle of Rum (1924) The Basket of Bread (1926) Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood (1927) The Lugubrious Game (1929) The First Days of Spring (1929) The Great Masturbator (1929) The Persistence of Memory (1931) The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (1934) Morphological Echo (193436) Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus (1935) Autumn Cannibalism (1936) Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) The Burning Giraffe (1937) Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938) The Sublime Moment (1938) Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939) The Face of War (1940) Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1941) Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) Galarina (194445) Basket of Bread (1945) The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946) The Elephants (1948) Leda Atomica (1949) The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949) Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951) Galatea of the Spheres (1952) The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (195254) Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954) Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954) The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) Still Life Moving Fast (1956) The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (195859) Tuna Fishing (19661967) The Hallucinogenic Toreador (19681970) La Toile Daligram (1972) The Swallowtail (1983)
Other works
Writings: L’Age d’Or (1930) Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937) Libretto for Bacchanale (1939)
Films: Un Chien Andalou (1929) Spellbound (1945, dream sequence)
Animated Films: Destino (1946, 2003)
Logos: Chupa Chups
Opera: tre Dieu (1985)
Sculpture: Lobster Telephone (1936) Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
Costumes: costumes for Garca Lorca’s play Mariana Pineda (1927)
Related articles
Castle of Pbol Dal Universe Espace Dal Dal Theatre and Museum Salvador Dal Museum Salvador Dal (film) Gala Dal Paranoiac-critical method
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Categories: 1929 films | Surrealist films | Avant-garde and experimental films | Salvador Dal | Films directed by Luis Buuel | Black and white films | Short films | Silent films | French silent filmsHidden categories: Articles with trivia sections from January 2009 | All articles with trivia sections | Articles needing additional references from July 2008 | All articles needing additional references | Articles needing additional references from June 2009
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