
Un Chien Andalou
French Film Guide
Elza Adamowicz(Author)
I.B. Tauris (Publisher)
Published on 8. January 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
120 pages
978-1-84885-056-9 (ISBN)
Description
In 1929 Dali and Bunuel produced a seventeen-minute film "Un chien andalou". On its first screening, Federico Garcia Lorca called it 'a tiny little shit of a film'. Produced from a script said to be based on two dream images - a woman's eye slit by a razor, ants emerging from a hole in a man's hand - the film shocked audiences. It continues to fascinate, provoke, attract and alienate its viewers. Its eye-slitting sequence and use of dream-like images have influenced filmmakers from Alfred Hitchcock to David Lynch. Elza Adamowicz's fascinating book on "Un chien andalou" takes new approaches to the film, exploring how it can be seen both within and beyond the confines of Surrealism and reviewing its openness to so many readings and interpretations. She reassesses Dali and Bunuel's account of the film as a model surrealist work and its reception by the surrealist group, examines the unresolved tensions within the film itself and includes us as viewers - are we detectives or dreamers? She sets the film into the wider contexts of other texts and of its authors' own experiences, providing a wide and deep guide to this most enigmatic of works.
Reviews / Votes
"Ginette Vincendeau has assembled an elite corps of film scholars to address a marvellous array of modern and classic French films with the close-up scrutiny they deserve." - Dudley AndrewMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
7 bw integrated
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
169 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84885-056-9 (9781848850569)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2010
1st Edition
I.B. Tauris
€26.49
Available for download
Person
The author of this title is professor of French Literature and Visual Culture, Queen Mary, University of London. Her books include "Surrealist Collage in Text and Image" (1998) and "Surrealism: Crossings/Frontiers" (2006).
Content
Contents
Illustrations
Synopsis
Introduction: It's dangerous to look inside
I Producing Un chien andalou: myths of origin
From scenario to screen: a close collaboration
Premiere and reception of Un chien andalou
A surrealist film?
II Romantic melodrama or magic theatre?
Classic film narrative subverted
A cinema of attractions
Psychoanalytical readings
Symbols or material images?
III Contexts and intertexts: between Fantomas and the fairground
Spanish contexts
Surrealist iconography
A parody of 1920s films
Early cinema and fairground intertexts
1920s social context: destabilizing gender roles
Conclusion
Credits
Bibliography
Illustrations
Synopsis
Introduction: It's dangerous to look inside
I Producing Un chien andalou: myths of origin
From scenario to screen: a close collaboration
Premiere and reception of Un chien andalou
A surrealist film?
II Romantic melodrama or magic theatre?
Classic film narrative subverted
A cinema of attractions
Psychoanalytical readings
Symbols or material images?
III Contexts and intertexts: between Fantomas and the fairground
Spanish contexts
Surrealist iconography
A parody of 1920s films
Early cinema and fairground intertexts
1920s social context: destabilizing gender roles
Conclusion
Credits
Bibliography