Luis Bunuel (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback]

Francisco Aranda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 1976 | Series: Da Capo Paperback

This is the first major consideration of the life and films of the great director, Louis Buñuel. The distinguished Spanish film critic and author, Francisco Aranda, traces Buñuel’s phenomenal career of more than forty years—from the sensational classics Un Chien andalou in 1929 and L’Age D’or in 1930 to the Oscar-winning Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie in 1972 and Le Fantôme de la Liberté in 1974. Focusing initially on Buñuel’s formative days as a student in the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid and his friendships with Federico Garcia Lorca, Josse Ortega y Gasset, and Salvador Dalí, Aranda discusses the development of Buñuel’s surrealist preoccupations through the use of important texts and cinema critiques written by him in the 1920s.Buñuel’s collaboration in Paris with Dalí on Un Chien andalou (the first surrealist film, which shocked audiences throughout the world) and L’Age d’or (where the theater was attacked and closed by enraged rightists) are described in full, as are the stark documentaries that have been neglected until now: Las Hurdes and España leal, en armas! And we are presented with painstaking analyses of the Mexican comedies (once dismissed by critics as his ”bad” films) and Buñuel’s favorite film, Los Olvidados,first prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951. Finally, Aranda analyzes the films of Buñuel’s maturity: Viridiana, El ángel exterminador, Belle de Jour, Tristana, Le Charm discret de la bourgeoisie and Le Fantôme de la Liberté. He examines the Buñuelian treatment of violence, cruelty, sexual aberration, sadism, and eroticism.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 327 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306800284
• ISBN-13: 978-0306800283
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,986,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential testimonial about Don Luis!, August 25, 2008

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

The universal transcendence of Luis Bunuel, is described with admirable mastery and impeccable clarity.This is a priceless book in which concerns to technical, autobiographical information of this irreverent director. But also contains interesting interviews with him and the most remarkable is we have the same Bunuel writing about movies, Articles from the thirties; he makes a thoughtful analysis about Metropolis, for instance that will astonish you.

A must-have in case you are a hard fan of movies and author's cinema.