Abstract
Early French film theory, especially the first avant-garde of Impressionism, abounds with mention of the soul. Its sense in Freud's work dovetails with the inner life the early theorists claimed film revealed. While the term is far less abundant in the second wave of the avant-garde that is aligned with Surrealism, the French surrealist film theorists were still broadly in tune with the soul as an all-encompassing term of reference for thinking and feeling, as was Buñuel himself who did not just focus on the surrealist breach of rationality in mental terms alone. It is the broad terrain of the soul that the author traces in this chapter, first in theoretical writings of the period, and then in a reading of Buñuel and Dali's Un chien andalou. It was Buñuel who first directed critics to psychoanalysis as the theory that could provide the means to investigate the film's symbols.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | A Companion to Luis Buñuel |
| Publisher | Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
| Pages | 141-155 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781444336337 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 16 Apr 2013 |
Keywords
- Avant-garde
- Buñuel
- Cinema
- French Film Theory
- Impressionism
- Surreal souls
- Un chien andalou