Surrealist cinema is a modernist film theory lanched in Paris in the 1920s. Related to an earlier tradition of Dada cinema, surrealist cinema is characterised by juxtaposition, the rejection of reality, and a frequent use of shocking imagery.
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Developed in the early twentieth century,[1] surrealism is an artistic and literary style which draws upon irrational imagery and the subconscious mind.[2] Surrealist artists approach both art and life with aims to review and redefine accepted parameters of reality. Surrealists should not, however, be mistaken as whimsical or incapable of logical thought;[3] rather, most Surrealist promote themselves as revolutionaries.[3] Surrealism opposes compartmentalization of experiences; surrealists often synthesize life with dreams.[4] In the 1930’s, after the Surrealist movement had progressed for about a decade, several writers and museum officials repeatedly described Surrealism as having “amusing” and “escapist” elements.[5]
Surrealist works cannot be defined by style or form, but rather as results of the practice of surrealism.[6] Rather than a fixed aesthetic, surrealism can be defined as an ever-shifting art form.[6]
The Surrealist movement rose and flourished in the 1920’s[1]—it was an aesthetic and revolutionary movement, centered on the idea of artistic creation as a means by which one could relate with the world, with oneself, with others, and with society[7] in non-conventional ways. The movement arose in Paris from the anarchist, anti-war Dadaism movement.[4][7] In contrast to Dadaism, Surrealism was optimistic; surrealist artists approached art as a means to escape and transcend their individual realities.[4] Surrealism was influenced by Freudian concepts, with emphasis on dreams and the unconscious mind.[8]
While the Surrealist movement took flight around 1920, several artists are accredited with developing Surrealist ideals prior to that date. Names include Pierre Reverdy, Phillipe Soupault, and, more prominently, Guillaume Apollinaire.[8]
Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French poet[9][10] and dynamic figure in the twentieth-century Parisian Avant-Garde movements. Beginning in 1903, Apollinaire was actively involved in a literary and artistic lifestyle.[9] He urged his contemporaries to explore poetic fancy, and to find relationships between seemingly dissimilar things.[9] A friend of Pablo Picasso,[10] he played a role in the Cubist movement, publishing a book entitled Les Peintres Cubistes ("The Cubist Painters") in 1913.[10] He published two books of poetry (Alcools in 1913 and Calligrammes in 1918[10]), and finished his career in 1918 with his only play, ‘’Les Mamelles de Tiresias’’ (The Breasts of Tiresias).[10] It was in describing this play that Apollinaire first coined the term, “surrealist”[9][11]—or, rather, “Surréaliste” in French[11] (from sur- meaning “beyond” and realisme meaning “realism.”[2]) Les Mamelles—full of mythical allusions, errotic themes, is one of the earliest examples of surrealism.[10][11]
Apollinaire was influenced by symbolist poets of previous generations, evidenced by his casual, lyrical poetic style that comprised a blend of both modern and traditional images and techniques.[10] Les Mamelles—full of mythical allusions, errotic themes, and absurd elements—is one of the earliest examples of surrealism.[10][11]
Apollinaire cast influence over younger poets and artists who would lead the upcoming Surrealist movement.[9] André Breton (1896-1966[9]), called “the Pope” of the Surrealist movement by his contemporaries,[4] once referred to Apollinaire as a “prodigious gift of wonder.”[12] Influenced by Apollinaire and the Dadaist phase, Breton emerged as a leader of the surrealists in 1924.[9]
In that same year, Breton published Les Manifestes du Surréalisme* (Manifestoes of Surrealism),[9] which he followed in 1929 with a second manifesto, Deuxieme Manifeste du Surréalisme*.[3] Breton was major leader and theorist throughout the movement.[13]
Surrealists, especially of the original movement, were anti-conventionalists; they mocked religion and all forms of convention as “[enemies] of art."[4]
They expressed themselves through surrealist automatism: a common practice was ecriture automatique*, or “automatic writing,” during which one sat down with pen and paper and wrote whatever came to mind; there was no preconceived subject and no mental censorship.[9]
It has been suggested that the Surrealist movement arrived with poor timing; it was a foreign movement often associated with madness, which arrived just after World War I[5]. Most of its leadership officially declared membership in the Communist party in June 1927,[12] which escalated the movement’s presence from a taboo to an offense.
Surrealism was the first literary and artistic movement to become seriously associated with cinema[12], though it has also been a movement largely neglected by film critics and historians.[14]This may be partially attributed to confusion regarding the nature and significance of Surrealism—even credited commentators often hesitate to probe surrealism’s abstract concepts.[14]
It is not chance, though, that early Surrealism was linked with cinema;[12] the beginning foundations of the movement (circa 1900 with Apollinaire) coincided with the birth of motion picture. The Surrealists who then participated in the later, full-scale movement (during Breton’s time) were among the first generation to have grown up with film as a part of daily life.[12]
Breton himself, even before the launching of the Surrealist movement, possessed an avid interest in film: while serving in the First World War, he was stationed in Nantes and, during his spare time, would frequent the movie houses of France with a superior named Jacques Vaché.[3][15]According to Breton’s recollections, he and Vaché paid no heed to movie titles or times—instead, they preferred to drop in at any given moment and view the playing films without any foreknowledge of what each one was supposed to convey.[3][15]When they grew bored, they left and visited the next theater.[3]Breton’s movie-going habits supplied him with a stream of images which had no constructed order about them. He could juxtapose the images of one film with those of another, and from the experience craft his own interpretation.[3]
Referring to his experiences with Vaché, he once remarked, “I think what we [valued] most in it, to the point of taking no interest in anything else, was its power to disorient."[3] (Disorientation, in this sense, meaning to take man out of his natural surroundings, be these material, mental, or emotional.)[3]Breton believed that film could help one abstract himself from “real life” whenever he felt like it.[3] This was the core idea behind surrealist film.
Other Surrealists of the early 1900’s favored serials over other kinds of films available—serials often contained cliffhanger effects and hints of “other worldliness” which were attractive to early Surrealists.[12] Examples include Houdini’s daredevil deeds and the escapades of Musidora and Pearl White in detective stories.[12] What endeared Surrealists most to the serial genre was its ability to evoke and sustain a sense of mystery and suspense in viewers.[12]
As film continued to develop in the 1920’s, a handful of Surrealists saw in it a medium which nullified reality’s boundaries.[4]Film critic René Gardies wrote in 1968, “Now the cinema is, quite naturally, the privileged instrument for derealising (sic) the world. Its technical resources... allied with its photo-magic, provide the alchemical tools for transforming reality."[15]
From Surrealism’s first years as an articulate, realized movement (around 1920), its artists were particularly fond of the use of cinema as a medium for expression.[14]Cinema was a paradoxical medium: as it continued to develop in the 1920’s, many Surrealists saw in it an opportunity to portray the ridiculous as rational, blurring the line between the two. [4][16][14] Cinema provided more convincing illusions than even its closest rival, theatre, could give,[14] and thus the tendency for Surrealists to express themselves through film was a sign of their confidence in the adaptability of cinematography to Surrealism’s goals and requirements.[3] They were the first to take seriously the resemblance between film’s imaginary images and those of dreams and the unconscious mind.[16][15] Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel once said of film, “The film seems to be the involuntary imitation of the dream.”[15]
Surrealist filmmakers sought to re-define human awareness of reality by illustrating that the “real” was little more than what was perceived as real; that reality was subject to no limits beyond those mankind imposed upon it.[3] Whether as filmmakers, scriptwriters or members of theatre audiences, those who partake in Surrealist cinema experience a world in which imaginative elements become possible; Breton once compared the experiencing of Surrealist literature to “the point at which the waking state joins sleep.”[3] His analogy helps to explain the advantage of cinema over books in facilitating the kind of release Surrealists sought from their daily pressures.[3] The modernity of movies was appealing to the surrealists as well.[15]
Critics of art and literature have debated back and forth on the legitimacy of the term “Surrealist Film”—many argue that such a term implies that “Surrealism” can be used to describe a genre*.
Recognition of a cinematographic* genre involves the ability to cite many works which share thematic, formal, and stylistic traits.[7] To refer to Surrealism as a genre is to imply that, within the scope of films so labeled, there is repetition of elements and a recognizable, “generic formula” which describes their makeup.[4] Because Surrealism is based so much on the irrational and on non-sequitur*, several critics have argued the impossibility of Surrealist films to constitute a genre.[7]
The debate has been spurred by the idea that, while there are some films which are true expressions of the movement, many other films which have been classified as Surrealist simply contain Surrealist fragments. Rather than “Surrealist film” the more accurate term for many so-classified works may be “Surrealism in film.”[7]
Joseph Cornell produced surrealist films in the United States in the later 1930's (such as Rose Hobart in 1936). Antonin Artaud, Philippe Soupault, and Robert Desnos wrote screenplays for later films. Salvador Dalí designed a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound (1945).
In 1946, Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney began work on a film called Destino; the project was left unfinished due to a lack of projected profit.[5]