Un chien andalou
Encyclopedia
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...

 and artist Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.

The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association
Free association (psychology)
Free association is a technique used in psychoanalysis which was originally devised by Sigmund Freud out of the hypnotic method of his mentor and coworker, Josef Breuer....

, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.

Synopsis

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 Buñuel) 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
Simone Mareuil
Simone Mareuil was a French actress best known for appearing in the surrealist film Un chien andalou.-Biography:Born Marie Louise Simone Vacher in Périgueux, Dordogne, she appeared in a number of films, most notably director Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou...

) being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as the man slits the woman's eye with the razor, and the vitreous humour
Vitreous humour
The vitreous humour or vitreous humor is the clear gel that fills the space between the lens and the retina of the eyeball of humans and other vertebrates...

 spills out from it.

The subsequent title card reads "eight years later". A slim young man (Pierre Batcheff
Pierre Batcheff
Pierre Batcheff was a French actor. His best-known film was Un chien andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali...

) bicycles down a calm urban street wearing what appears to be a nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

's habit and a locked box with a strap around his neck. A cut occurs to the young woman from the first scene, 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 (revealing a reproduction of Vermeer's The Lacemaker) and goes to the window. She emerges from the building and attempts to revive the young man after witnessing him collapse from the bicycle.

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 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 contemplates something happily while standing perilously in the middle of the now busy street, clutching the box. She is then run over by a car and a few bystanders gather around her. 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 she attempts to escape by running to the other side of the room. The young man corners her as she reaches for a racquet in self-defense, but he suddenly picks up two ropes and drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

s, stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...

, and two rather bewildered priests (played by Jaime Miravitilles and Salvador Dalí) 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.

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 ago." 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, now in a meadow, dies while swiping at a nude figure which suddenly disappears into thin air. A group of men come and carry his corpse away.

The young woman comes into the apartment to possibly confront the first young man and sees a death 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 with whom she walks arm in arm. He shows her the time on 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 and make romantic gestures 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 elbows, presumably dead, possibly bringing the film full-circle to a time after the unknown events of the opening scene.

Cast

  • Simone Mareuil
    Simone Mareuil
    Simone Mareuil was a French actress best known for appearing in the surrealist film Un chien andalou.-Biography:Born Marie Louise Simone Vacher in Périgueux, Dordogne, she appeared in a number of films, most notably director Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou...

     as Young girl (as Simonne Mareuil)
  • Pierre Batcheff
    Pierre Batcheff
    Pierre Batcheff was a French actor. His best-known film was Un chien andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali...

     as Young Man and Second Young Man (as Pierre Batchef)
  • Luis Buñuel
    Luis Buñuel
    Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...

     as Man in prologue (uncredited)
  • Salvador Dalí
    Salvador Dalí
    Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

     as Seminarist (uncredited)
  • Robert Hommet as Third Young man? (uncredited)
  • Marval (actor) as Seminarist (uncredited)
  • Fano Messan as Androgynous young woman (uncredited)
  • Jaume Miravitlles as Fat seminarist (uncredited)

Production

The idea for the film began when Buñuel was working as an assistant director for Jean Epstein
Jean Epstein
Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Epstein directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the...

 in France. Buñuel told Dalí 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". Dalí 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.

For many years (and still), published and unpublished reports have circulated that Buñuel had used a dead pig’s eye, or that of a dead sheep, or of a dead donkey, or other animal, in the notorious eyeball-slicing scene. However, in an interview in 1975 or ’76, Buñuel claimed that he had used a dead calf’s eye.
Through the use of intense lighting, Buñuel 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 Dalí greatly admired and often referred to in his own paintings. In Buñuel's original script, the last shot was to feature the corpses "consumed by swarms of flies". However, this special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....

 was left out due to budget limitations.

Legend has it that, when they screened the film for the group of noted European artists calling themselves "surrealists," they 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 Dalí. Thereafter, both Buñuel and Dalí were accepted figures in the surrealist movement.

The movie contains several thematic references to Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

 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 Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of "pure poetry."-Biography:Jiménez was born in Moguer, near Huelva, in...

, which Buñuel and Dalí hated.

Both of the leading actors of the film eventually committed suicide: Batcheff overdosed
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...

 on Veronal
Barbital
Barbital , also called barbitone, was the first commercially marketed barbiturate. It was used as a sleeping aid from 1903 until the mid-1950s. The chemical names for barbital are diethylmalonyl urea or diethylbarbituric acid...

 on April 13, 1932 in a hotel in Paris, and Mareuil committed self-immolation
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...

 on October 24, 1954 by dousing herself in gasoline and burning herself to death in a public square in Périgueux
Périgueux
Périgueux is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.Périgueux is the prefecture of the department and the capital of the region...

, Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...

.

Soundtrack

Modern prints of the film feature a soundtrack consisting of excerpts from Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's "Liebestod
Liebestod
Liebestod is the title of the final, dramatic aria from the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner. When used as a literary term, liebestod refers to the theme of erotic death or "love death" meaning the two lovers' consummation of their love in death or after death...

," the concert version of the finale to his opera "Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

," and a recording of a tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

 sometimes mistakenly referred to as "Olé guapa." This is the same soundtrack that Buñuel chose and played live on a phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

 during the original 1929 screening in Paris. They were first added to a print of the film in 1960 under Buñuel's supervision.

Analysis

In spite of varying interpretations made since the film originated, Buñuel made clear throughout his writings that, between Dalí 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, symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

izes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

."

Cultural references

  • Film scholar Ken Dancyger
    Ken Dancyger
    Kennet Dancyger is a scriptwriting theoretician, film historian and expert on film editing and film production. He is professor of film and TV at Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film, Television, & New Media, Undergraduate. He has been the president of University Film and Video Association. He has...

     has argued that Un Chien Andalou might be the genesis of the filmmaking style present in the modern music video
    Music video
    A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

    .

  • Roger Ebert
    Roger Ebert
    Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

     has called it the inspiration for low budget independent films.

  • Premiere
    Premiere (magazine)
    Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...

    ranked the opening scene as 10th out of "The 25 Most Shocking Moments in Movie History".

  • Un Chien Andalou is referred to in the Pixies song "Debaser
    Debaser
    "Debaser" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, and is the first song on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton during Doolittles recording sessions....

    ." The film is cited by Frank Black
    Frank Black
    Black Francis is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black...

     as being a major influence on the band's work. On the band's recent 2010 Doolittle
    Doolittle (album)
    Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. While tracks such as "Tame" and "Crackity Jones" are fast and aggressive, and incorporate the band's trademark loud–quiet dynamic, other songs such as "Silver", "I Bleed", and "Here Comes Your Man" reveal a quieter, slower and more melodic...

     Tour, the film is shown, sometimes sped up and broken up into multiple "windows" on a screen behind the stage just prior to the band's arrival onstage.

  • The eye cutting scene was referred to the cover of Mr. Oizo
    Mr. Oizo
    Mr. Oizo is the stage name of French electronic musician and film director Quentin Dupieux. His pseudonym is a corruption of the French , meaning "bird". He is currently signed to French electro record label, Ed Banger Records.-Beginning:...

    's 2008 album "Lambs Anger
    Lambs Anger
    Lambs Anger is the third album by Mr. Oizo. Although this album contains many of Mr. Oizo's trademark avant-garde elements, it also has many elements of Electro and French House not previously heard in his albums, most notably French electro-rapper Uffie's guest track, "Steroids"...

    ." The scene is also described in E. L. Doctorow
    E. L. Doctorow
    Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author.- Biography :Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent...

    's 1971 novel, The Book of Daniel
    The Book of Daniel (novel)
    The Book of Daniel is semi-historical novel by E. L. Doctorow, loosely based on the trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg...

    .

  • A popular urban legend video states that footage from a Walt Disney version of this film was created as a video called "Suicidemouse".

  • A woodcut
    Woodcut
    Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

     of some of the scenes of the film hangs in the Fine Arts Building of York University
    York University
    York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

     in Toronto
    Toronto
    Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

    , Ontario
    Ontario
    Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

    , Canada.

  • An early sample video for Linkin Park
    Linkin Park
    Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries...

    's "The Catalyst" features a short clip - the razor being held up to Simone Mareuil's eye.

  • In The Simpsons
    The Simpsons
    The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

     episode Yokel Chords
    Yokel Chords
    "Yokel Chords" is the fourteenth episode of the eighteenth season of The Simpsons, which was originally broadcast on March 4, 2007. It was written by Michael Price, and directed by Susie Dietter. Guest starring Meg Ryan as Dr. Swanson, Peter Bogdanovich as a psychiatrist and Andy Dick, James...

    , Lisa is in a theatre with Cletus' kids watching the eyeball scene.

External links

  • Un Chien Andalou Viewable film (requires Flash)
  • Un Chien Andalou reviewed by Roger Ebert
    Roger Ebert
    Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

  • Un Chien Andalou analyzed by Michael Koller
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