Word: bunuel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bottle of brandy provided to steady the nerves of the doctor and his friends. "When it was all over, I was blind drunk and had to be carried home, to be punished not only for drunkenness but for what my father called sadism." A penchant for guns developed early; Bunuel taught himself to use his father's pistol by asking his best friend to serve as target. Despite our desire to correlate these events to later images in his films, Bunuel seldom does; early on he makes it clear that he is not a historian...
...ONLY MENTION of film in Bunuel's childhood disappoints us; he does not speak of having been influenced or inspired in any way. He begins with a description of the architecture of the theater in Saragossa and then mentions some cartoons: "I do remember a French comedian who kept falling down...." Bunuel's nonchalant portrayal of himself as a simple schoolboy is belied by the inclusion of an article written by his sister for the French magazine Positif. The article reveals that he had an artistically active childhood, directing a family puppet theater and delivering, in his early teens, bedtime...
...Bunuel discusses the development of his directing career with the same nonchalance, so that it too seems a series of social events and friendships. His second professional directing experience involved the world-famous conductor Mengelbert in a puppet opera-based on an episode from Don Quixote. Bunuel comments, "Of course, I got my friends to play the silent parts...the work was performed a few times in Amsterdam and played to packed houses. The first evening, however, I'd completely forgotten to arrange for lighting, so the audience saw very little." His career must have been launched by, among other...
...Bunuel's involvement is film stemmed from his work as a critic for Cahier's effort and several Spanish publications. Whether he saw films to write reviews or wrote reviews in order to support his celluloid habit of as many as three films a day is unclear. Fritz Lang's "Destiny," he says, "clarified my life and my vision of the world." One result of that clarification was that he saw that he wanted to make films. He started as an extra and errand boy for Jean Epstein during the filming of "Mauprat," then spent six months in Hollywood hanging...
...after the opening of his first film, "Un Chien D'andalou," written in conjunction with Salvador Dali, that Bunuel was admitted to the Surrealist group. During the opening, Bunuel hid behind the screens, his pockets full of stones "to throw at the audience in case of disaster...