Bunuel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In 1961, Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy, who had starred in Luis Bunuel's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe a decade before and won an Oscar nomination,..." (more)
Key Phrases: Juan Luis, New York, Mexico City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stanley Kubrick's biographer turns here to another secretive, obsessive film director: Luis Buñuel (1900-83), creator of such bourgeois-baiting masterpieces as An Andalusian Dog, Viridiana, and Belle de Jour. Making good use of family documents and with the cooperation of Buñuel's son, John Baxter explores the autobiographical roots of the perverse eroticism and lucid, almost cruelly detached view of the human comedy that distinguished the Spanish-born director's artistic vision. But the biography is not all surrealism and cynicism: lots of good anecdotes culled from interviews put flesh and blood on Buñuel's austere public persona. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This vibrant, anecdote-packed biography of Spanish film director Luis Bu?uel (1900-1983) provides an intimate portrait of a secretive man. Baxter (Stanley Kubrick) zeroes in on the obsessions that drove the filmmaker and nurtured his films: fetishism, an anarchist-tinged faith in communism, hatred of Franco's regime and a near-pathological hostility to the Catholic Church, in which he was raised. Bu?uel emerges as a jealous man of rigid habits, a cross-dresser beset by fear of women, an audacious artist plagued by Meniere's syndrome, an inner ear disorder that destroyed his hearing later in life. Drawing on family papers, interviews with Bu?uel's son and former associates, and archival materials, Baxter plunges readers into Bu?uel's varied milieu, from Madrid to surrealist circles in mid-1920s Paris, to 1940s New York and Hollywood, to the Spanish emigre community in Mexico, where the filmmaker took refuge in 1945, under attack in his native Spain for his left-wing politics. Probing the chemistry among scriptwriters, producers and Bu?uel's personal circumstances, Baxter taps into the creative dynamo that gave us movies like Viridiana, Belle de Jour and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (June 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786706198
• ISBN-13: 978-0786706198
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #950,238 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shallow biography, January 21, 2000

By	Gijs Mulder (Amsterdam) - See all my reviews

Poor book. The author doesn't understand Spanish nor French - very strange when writing Buñuel's biography. His sketch of B's personality is very poor.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Involving Read., April 19, 2000

By	Mr. Fellini "Fellini" (El Paso, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Bunuel" by John Baxter has received some bad press from some of the reviewers here, but this is not a bad book at all. It is probably the second best biographical book about Luis Bunuel right after, of course, "My Last Sigh." Bunuel remains one of the giants of the cinema, a director who's films remain timeless and evocative, seductive and visceral, and sometimes funny. Baxter is not a bad author and elevates his subject to some great intellectual levels, exploring the depth of Bunuel's work and the philosophies, desires, madness and obsessions that spin madly at the center of this man's story. And yet, Baxter reveals that Bunuel was not some lunatic with a camera, he had surprisingly compassionate, funny human aspects, which is the case with most geniuses. Bunuel's life here plays like a great novel, filled with interesting characters from Bunuel's life like the painter Salvador Dali and the poet Federico Garcia Lorca. There is interesting information here, sometimes voyeuristic when we learn Lorca apparently tried to seduce Dali. The book is also a good examination of the films, because to understand Bunuel's mind, one must look at his masterpieces. There are fascinating moments when the book goes into the Surrealist movement and Bunuel's first two surreal films made with Dali, "Un Chien Andalou" (with the immortal image of a razor slicing across a woman's eye-ball) and "L'Age d'Or" (which has touches of De Sade). We follow Bunuel on his exile to Mexico where he makes the classic "Los Olvidados" which left an impact in many directors including, we learn here, Roman Polanski. Bunuel's work is a rich collage of visceral, seductive emotions and images as seen in works like "Viridiana" and "Belle De Jour" (the most famous erotic film ever) and the book makes good use of exploring all of the art. And yet, the human stories are also entertaining. A surprising thing that comes out is the love story between Bunuel and his wife Jeanne Rucar (who wrote a book about their marriage titled "Woman Without A Piano" which I wish someone would put back in print!) which is as involving as the stories of Bunuel's movies. There are comic moments, as when Mexican director Arturo Ripstein calls on Bunuel after seeing "Nazarin" and tells him he wants to be a director just like him. Bunuel gets anrgy, admits him and screens "Un Chien Andalou" and comments, "THIS is what I do." Ripstein, of course, is one of Mexico's greatest directors. "Bunuel" is fascinating, enjoyable, entertaining and sometimes crazy. It manages to capture a man and his art and dissect the wonderful faults and positives of his genius.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not much of a biography, August 17, 2001

By	Julie Jones "Julienola" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Bunuel (Hardcover)

Baxter's book is readable, but inadequately researched. Baxter is innocent of Spanish, and this means that many of the documents related to Bunuel are...well, Spanish, to him. It also leads to a number of egregious errors and, in general, to suspect judgements and thin interpretations. A number of questions need to be addressed in a biography of Bunuel, but Baxter either treats them superficially or ignores them. A definitive--or even semi-definitive, if such a thing exists-- biography of Bunuel is yet to come.