Analysis of Surrealism Movement in the History of Cinema - Coursework Example

Critical Analysis of Surrealism Movement in the History of Cinema Surrealism In the history of cinema, the Surrealism movement relates to the use of complex form of art that incorporates films, visual arts, and literature. The Surrealism movement has been in operation since the 1920s where it originated from Paris, France. However, the movement evolved with time to become a modern film strategy with unique characteristics that include shocking imagery and juxtaposition that define the effects of the Surrealism movement in the society. Subject to its complexity and uniqueness in the history of cinema, the Surrealism movement has been facing significant criticism with some artists and historians questioning Surrealist cinema as films with a distinct genre (divadaniela 2014) and doubting its presence in the film industry. The Surrealism movement emanated from the Dada art movement, which negated rational thought and opposed any logic or realism (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014). Just like the Dada art movement, the Surrealism movement produced films that depicted irrational, intuition, illogical characteristics in a horrific but dramatic way especially in the verge of the First World War (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014). Notably, the Surrealism movement was the first literary and artistic movement to engage in film production where it has been promoting anti-artistic aspects (divadaniela 2014). Subject to the immense criticism, ancient Surrealist filmmakers had to produce films on private practice and their works attracted little appreciation in the film industry due to the radicalness of the artistic materials. Notably, the presence of some affinities in Surrealist cinema (Walz 2014) defines the history of Surrealism in cinema. This relates to the fact that surrealism defines a dynamic piece of art that analyses the points of intersection and the points of departure in human existence. To achieve this, the Surrealism movement uses irrational imagery and the subconscious mind to defy the realities in life (TATE 2014). Indeed, the films produced by the Surrealism movement have a unique characteristic where they assert that reality has no limits and hence there is more to reality than what we see or know. Ideally, the Seashell and the Clergyman produced in 1928 was the first film produced by the Surrealism movement. Ever since, the movement has produced many Surrealist films including L’Age d’or directed by Luis Buñuel and Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton. Indeed, we can discuss the representative Surrealism characteristics exemplified in a scene/shot or sequence through an analysis of its iconography or mise-en-scene by exploring the L'Age d'Or Surrealist film. Directed by Luis Buñuel in 1930, the L’Age D’Or is a follow-up to Un Chien Andalou also directed by Luis Buñuel in 1929 (GONZALEZ 2002). The L’Age D’Or is a 60 minutes Surrealist film that opposes the norms of traditional film narrative (Corrigan and White, P 2012, p. 234). Indeed, as a masterpiece of surrealist cinema, the film represents various Surrealism characteristics as seen in various sequences within the film (Thatcher 1998). The plot of the film confirms Luis Buñuel’s urge to surprise and scandalize the society’s consciousness by portraying sub consciousness. Indeed, the film depicts Surrealism characteristics that demean reality, logic, and rational thinking by using shocking and contradicting images (Thatcher 1998), haphazard structure, confusing the audience, and manifesting subconscious in relation to the dominant institutions of society. Indeed, subject to the shocking exploration of unconscious desires from the odd to the perverse, non-narrative nature, and the violent criticism that the Surrealist film attracted, the police and the U. S theaters banned the L'Age d’Or until 1979 (Stein 2014, p. 2). The director of the film, Luis Bunuel aims at representing the inward significance of things presented in the film thereby confusing, shocking, and leaving the audience with more questions than answers (Deutch 1998). Luis Buñuel uses hilarious and unique cinematic moments with no unifying thread to direct the Surrealist film. The director seeks to advocate for a deeper meaning to the imagery used in the film by using a love story as a focal point in the cast. Indeed, the entire film revolves around the couple involved in the love story, which seeks to prove that society and religion hinder the free consummation of love. This is Surrealism since it presents love as being superior to the society and religion. Logically, it is difficult to establish an art framework that can encompass all the visual images in the film. However, L'Age d'Or film presents bandits preparing for war, a couple making love, a cow sleeping on a bed, a giraffe tossed out of a window, a man shooting a boy, a scorpion, a bloody eye, a woman sucking the toe of a statue, the Roman empire, the arrival of the Majorcans, and a group of archbishops. These images seek to show an impossible love. Moreover, the director structures the film along various dreamlike associations, which disregards the traditional narrative linear structure and presents the subconscious mind by using formal techniques of continuity editing (Deutch 1998). The first sequence of the film portrays a manipulation of graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relation, which confuses the audience (Deutch 1998). Indeed, the manipulation in the first sequence coerces the audience to adopt a subconscious mind with reference to the dominant institutions of society. The haphazard structure of the events in the first scene defines the surrealism characteristics. Indeed, we can see the director focusing on the religious and respected townsmen gathering to present the foundation of Imperial Rome. However, the director shifts this focus to shocking, strange, and irrelevant events. These events include the focus on passionate screams from the couple (Modot and Lya) trying to make love, an image of a toilet, gushing river of mud, flushing sound of the toilet, Modot, and on the authorities who usher him off the screen (The New York Times Company 2014). The images and sounds portrayed in this sequence criticize the Roman city and define surrealism. The director uses these images to present juxtaposition in addressing the foundation of the Roman city and the Catholic Church with respect to its traditions. In this sequence, we can derive a very shocking attitude that passion and love are stronger than the principles of religion and established authority. This defines surrealism since it is an abandonment of logic, which demeans the realist, common perceptions, and provides complex view of the world by deriving different meanings on specific images. The images and sounds used in the first sequence of the film aims at exposing the shameful mechanisms of contemporary society (GONZALEZ 2002). Moreover, the presentation of an impossible love is a deviation from the religious norms. By showing the frustrated lovers trying to fight French society as they seek to satisfy their sexual desires, the director aims at encouraging the oppressed to pursue their urge for destruction, which is illogical and irrational (Stein 2014, p. 2). Moreover, although the plot of the first sequence is supposedly simple, the director complicates the structure of the plot by throwing the film into different directions in a haphazard manner. In a suspicious manner, the direct begins the film with scorpions that cripples to devour a large rat, which is seemingly ironical. Occasionally, we find the scorpions in the hottest regions where they represent all and diverse oppression, which forces the audience to seek for a deeper meaning of the scorpions in this context. In the same sequence, the director presents a bandit who sees a group of archbishops who were singing. Ideally, the bandit and the archbishops represent conflicting values where the bandit stand for war or oppression while the of archbishops stand for peace. This conflict confuses the audience’s understanding thus defining surrealism. While the bandit goes back to the hut to inform his friends of the archbishops’ presence, the director portrays another shocking and mysterious dimension where the bandit finds his companions in a strange state of weakness and depression (Stein 2014, p. 3). This is arguably a difficult state for the audience to fathom and the audience can only use their subconscious mind to establish the deeper meaning of these images. The bandits take up their weapons and set out among the rocks to pursue the archbishops. However, the bandits lacked enough energy through starvation and collapsed to the ground before attacking the archbishops where only one soldier survives (The New York Times Company 2014). Logically, it is difficult to understand why the bandits would pursue the archbishops who seek to maintain peace. The director manifests surrealism that is a new movement of social consciousness in the film by developing conflicts between authority, ideology, and sexuality, which define his critique of the Catholic Church (Deutch 1998). In fact, the sequence shows the archbishops become skeletons scattered among the stones. Consequently, the film presents the arrival of the Mallorcans that entailed priests, soldiers, nuns, ministers, and sundry civil servants at the commemoration of the now skeletal archbishops (Stein 2014, p. 3). However, the sequence introduces another event that disrupts the ceremony where the piercing cries of a couple making love in the mud attract everyone’s attention (Stein 2014, p. 3). It is quite challenging the audience to understand why the couple was making such cries. The Mallorcans separate the two by striking the man who is a nasty and anti-social government official (The New York Times Company 2014). This represents some authority, which hinders a love relationship. The sequence ends with a title card identifying this as the foundation of Imperial Rome. This reflects how the director criticizes and presents his views of the Catholic Church. His criticism is against the traditional catholic norms, which defines surrealism. In the sequence, the director uses a succession of images without sequence where the audience struggles to establish the significance of such images (Stein 2014, p. 3). In this context, the audience can only rely on subconscious mind to derive their meaning since the images lack visual aesthetic, which defines surrealism (GONZALEZ 2002). Indeed, the images used in the sequence have deeper meanings, which force the audience to cast sharp observations on religion, relationships, and authority. The recurring images in the film have different meanings, which distort the objectivity of the audience and eliminate the artistic interpretation in the film (Montgomery 2012, p. 1). Moreover, the mise-en-scène of a presence in this sequence asserts the intention of the story and the power of the elements used to narrate the story (Montgomery 2012, p. 1). As such, we can conclude that the director succeeded in creating a new social consciousness that defines surrealism where he opposed the sexual taboo in the Catholic Church (Deutch 1998). Worth noting is the fact that Surrealism has influenced contemporary cinema in different ways. We can establish this influence by comparing and contrasting a sequence in the film, Alice in Wonderland and a sequence in the film, L' Age d' Or. Tim Burton directed the surrealist film Alice in Wonderland in 2010 (Chadwick 2011, p. 33). Indeed, both films depict different surrealism characteristics and manifest how surrealism influences contemporary cinema. Although the production of the two films occurred in different centuries, it is quite clear that the effects of Surrealism on contemporary cinema live on. In fact, being the first literary and artistic movement to engage in film production, the two films show how Surrealism has been promoting anti-artistic aspects in the history of cinema. The anti-artistic aspects in cinema as presented in the two films affects how cinema presents various societal issues and the significance of Surrealists films. In the film, Alice in Wonderland, the director presents Surrealism by showing acceptable, even mandatory, mad, and rebellious characters and scenarios (Chadwick 2011, p. 41). These aspects relate to the characteristics presented by the sequence in the film, L’Age d’Or where the director forced the audience to adopt sub consciousness by opposing catholic sex taboo. These aspects are clear in a sequence within the film where we see a troubled young girl suffering from a strange recurring dream and mourning the loss of her beloved father (Chadwick 2011, p. 36). Upon asking her father about the dream, the father told her that all the best people in the whole society including her are indeed mad. This discussion forced Alice to accept abnormality and drove her to adopt restless and rebellious behavior (Chadwick 2011, p. 36). Just like in the sequence in L' Age d' Or, this sequence shows how surrealism movement has influenced contemporary cinema by forcing it to abandon logic. The two sequences demeans the realist and common perceptions in contemporary cinema by negating the catholic sexual taboo and the normality in the society as seen in L' Age d' Or and Alice in Wonderland films respectively. The two sequences rebels against the position of the society and religion on the free consummation of love. In L' Age d' Or, the director opposes the catholic sexual taboo while in the Alice in Wonderland sequence, we can see a nineteen-year-old Alice Kingsleigh rebelling against an unwanted marriage proposal to Hamish Ascot at a garden party at Lord Ascot's estate (Chadwick 2011, p. 36). These rebellions against the traditional norms defines surrealism and how it influences contemporary cinema by changing the audiences’ perception on religious and society’s view on sexual relationships. As such, surrealism forces contemporary cinema to support modern views on sexual relationships where the society and religion should support formal sexual relationships established under the consent of all parties. This influences contemporary cinema to consider individual desires over societal or religious expectations. Most assuredly, the two sequences influences contemporary cinema to consider rebellion nonconformity, inversion of norms and reality, and acts of subversion as weapons to gaining liberation (Chadwick 2011, p. 41). In L' Age d' Or, the director created collisions between authority, ideology and sexuality to criticize the Catholic Church view on sexual relationships and introduce a new movement of social consciousness (Deutch 1998). On the other hand, Alice refused the unwanted marriage proposal to Hamish Ascot and ran away to the White Rabbit in Underland where the idea of revolution germinated (Chadwick 2011, p. 36). Indeed, it is after the rebellion that Alice was able to defend her family and right to live according to her desires. This defines surrealism, which forces contemporary cinema to value liberation and respect for individual desires in a contemporary society. Through the two sequences, surrealism influences contemporary cinema to use different images with diverse deeper meanings. Indeed, in L’ Age d' or, the director uses various images that the audience must use subconscious mind to fathom their deeper meanings. The director uses the images of bandits preparing for war, a couple making love, a cow sleeping on a bed, a scorpion, the Roman Empire, the arrival of the Majorcans, and a group of archbishops to portray different meanings. On the other hand, in Alice in Wonderland, the director uses the images of white rabbit, a group of playing-card soldiers, and the Dodo bird to present different deeper meanings. This influences the contemporary cinema to present films that will allow the audience to develop critical thinking. Works Cited Chadwick, J 2011, SURREALISM IS NOT DEAD, retrieved 29 May 2014, Corrigan, T & White, P 2012, The Film Experience: An Introduction, Bedford/St. Martin's, Boston, New York. Deutch, L 1998, An Analysis of L’Age d’Or, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/cinephoto/keg/courses/aa/papers/Laura_Deutch.htm> Divadaniela 2014, Surrealist Cinema, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://cinecollage.net/surrealism.html> GONZALEZ, E 2002, L'Age d'Or, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/lage-dor/186> Montgomery, M 2012, Abandonment of Logic: Surrealism and Un Chien Andalou (1929), retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://mmonty32.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/film-analysis.pdf> Stein, E 2014, L’AGE D’OR A FILM BY LUIS BUÑUEL, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.kino.com/press/lage_dor/lage_dor_psbk.pdf> TATE 2014, Surrealism, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/surrealism> Thatcher, M 1998, "Ha...You Think" Defining the Surrealist Act in Film, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/bunuel4.html> The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014, Surrealism, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm> The New York Times Company 2014, L' Age d'Or (1930), retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/27795/L-Age-d-Or/overview> Walz R, 2014, Surrealism and Film, retrieved 29 May 2014, < http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0139.xml> Read More