Lunch Links
Don’t worry, it’s just a dead calf’s eyeball.
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) dir. Luis Buñuel
Quite possibly the most famous “art film” and without a doubt the most famous surrealist short in history. Stories abound of the inception of this film between Luis Buñuel and co-writer Salvador Dalí, its production and its aftermath. Both men brought specific images from recent dreams to the script. Supposedly Buñuel armed himself with rocks at its premiere fearing an aggravated audience reaction (no need, they loved it).
But what makes “Un Chien Andalou” endure is the way it lends itself to whatever context you have on hand. The only rule during scriptwriting was “No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted,” and this included direct symbols. The intertitles pointing to random passing of time (“Eight years later,” “Sixteen years ago,” “Next Spring,” etc.) might be an attempt to frustrate a narrative that keeps threatening to emerge despite the filmmakers’ best efforts.
In addition to regular trippy stuff, severed hands and ants and so forth, the film subverts regular reading of film grammar, linking otherwise unrelated shots through the eyeline of their subject, like the woman leaving the apartment and apparently arriving immediately at the seaside. And its juxtapositions invite observations of similarities – most notoriously the cloud over the moon/razor across the eye, but in several other cases – without suggesting what these discoveries might “mean.”
The context of its making is readily available but mostly irrelevant because the film is deliberately making space to absorb the meaning of where it’s showing rather than prioritizing anything about where it’s from. Do you see a parody of storytelling and romance? Or an observation about the animal instincts of man? A rebuke of societal pillars? There’s evidence for it all.
Silent films were never silent, and this was no exception, with the original 1929 screening having selection of music played on a gramophone. The classical excerpts commonly paired with the film (including the link above) weren’t added until 1960. And so you’re free to attempt music pairings of your own ala Dark Side of the Moon, and I think you’ll find an endless pleasant combinations (not surprising surrealist films were a key influence on many early music videos). I write this while playing the film on a loop and listening to a random playlist, and this movie pairs well with many selections including “Bette Davis Eyes,” “Come On Eileen” (surprisingly), “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” an iPhone ad, and “Sweet Dreams are Made of This” (not surprisingly). Best individual moment: the man flailing and dying around the 11:40 mark set to the first verse of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll.” What could it mean?
Less famously, there is an hour-long sequel called L’Age d’Or, which has its due now in the annals of surrealist cinema but at the time got the kind of reactionary response Buñuel feared for “Un Chien,” with protestors throwing ink at the screen and the film facing banishment.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
C. D. Ploughman’s ProfileTags for this article
More articles by C. D. Ploughman
The life and career of a man who found the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The Friday Article Roundup
An assembly line of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
Lunch Links
State of the art special effects, little attention paid to plot - what's changed over the past 120 years?
And It is a material presenter of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
The Friday Article Roundup
A catty roundup of great pop culture writing from the past week.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season One, Episode Fourteen, “Love Story”
This is a fairly basic Cyrano story, enriched by the particular details the writers are capable of; on a basic level, Radar’s love interest is interested in classical music and dense literary tomes, giving her enough personality to be compelled by her, and it gives Hawkeye and Trapper some specific ideas to riff on figuring out how to court her (“Ahhh, Bach!”), although Frank’s fairly straightforward Frankish attempts to console (i.e. berate) Radar are the funnier parts of the episode.
(Another useful articulation of the writer’s imagination: the extremely well-observed writing of Radar’s ‘Dear John’ recording, where she sounds perfectly oblivious to how badly she’s hurting Radar’s feelings.)
More interesting are the first real bursts of Margaret’s ‘real self’, as opposed to Hot Lips, emerging around the edges. There’s a scene which is essentially her first berating Henry for inefficiencies in her nursing job caused by Radar’s sudden dip in competence.
A few little details about Hawkeye I like: him ruining his attempt to convince a friend to date Radar when he ends up falling for his own seduction. His half-hearted smile when Lt Anderson catches him out on something – a Wagenbachian reaction that he somehow makes charming.
This is the one where they teach Radar to solemnly say, “That’s highly significant,” right? I’ve always loved that detail. Not a bad fallback for when you’re in over your head and self-conscious about it, honestly.
The Poseidon Adventure – We’ve probably all seen Ben Stiller’s story about how much this movie means to him and how when he worked up the nerve to tell Gene Hackman how much he loved the man’s performance, Hackman dismissed it as a “money job.” But dammit, Stiller is right. This performance is really that amazing. It definitely helps focus and ground this sprawling, overwrought disaster movie. Gene really could have phoned it in, and doesn’t, and we are better for it. But even without Gene, this is actually a good movie. Like I say, overwrought like all 70s disaster movies, but heart pounding and suspenseful driven by a solid script and engaging performances by veteran actors (not “an all star cast”) who know what the movie needs of them. (Though Borgnine could have dialed it back a little. Or maybe he couldn’t.) Does it entirely make sense? Of course not. But it has a goal, and it accomplishes its goal. And it’s left enough of a mark that it has two remakes and a sequel, none of which anyone ever talks about while the scene of the ship turning upset and the passenger slamming through the stained glass ceiling is iconic.
I dunno if Hackman really COULD phone it in – I can’t think of a movie I’ve seen of his where he wasn’t intensely dialed into the scene. (Maybe why he rightly retired, as he was just too stressed out by making movies.)
No Way Out gave me a sense that he was straining to engage with the script. His performance is solid, but I think there were moments when he just didn’t have enough to work with. (I have no desire to watch Loose Cannons and suffer through Dan Aykroyd’s cartoon insanity but if there is any movie I can see Hackman giving up, it’s that one.)
Whether Hackman grounds Poseidon Adventure, Tenenbaums or Hoosiers, or goes larger than life in Superman the same intensity is always there. But he knew when he wouldn’t be into it. Him meeting Fincher and turning down Seven is another story I was reminded of recently.
Hackman: Sounds like there are going to be a lot of night shoots.
Fincher: Yes
Hackman: I’m out.
I assume he was in line for the Freeman part?
Now I am going to spend the rest of the day trying to imagine how different this would have been that way. Would Fincher has still cast Pitt?
That is such a good reason to duck out of a job, acting or no. “Oh this requires nights? Like all night? Fuck no.”
Just think of all the actors who probably turned down Hard Rain because of how much they’d be wet.
Hackman’s not bad in Marooned/Space Travelers, but he’s very miscast as the neurotic one who cracks up. His moments of ouright rage are good, but Hackman always seems too clear eyed and reasonable, he can’t sell “cracking up” or naive.
Dick Johnson Is Dead
For an upcoming movie group discussion. I’d seen this before and was really fond of it, but I’d forgotten a handful of fairly major details (like, for example, whether or not Dick Johnson actually, y’know, dies during the movie or not), so it was nice to have an excuse to revisit it. Poignant and playful and funny, with some of the concerns of the superb After Life but in a different, more workaday framework where transcendence is less literal but not necessarily unavailable. But I also really like when that transcendence fails because what it’s trying to surpass is too real, and too near, to get over yet–Dick walking into his own funeral, with hugs and hand-clasps, is beautiful and does feel like a resurrection, but his best friend still sobbing, inconsolable, will stay with me. Similarly, Kirsten having very little footage of her mom at her best, and mostly only being able to go back to a recording of her taken when her mom can no longer remember her name, is devastating, and you can see why it would inspire her to do this project.
Deeply delightful–I keep thinking about Dick getting (fake-)brained by that falling A/C unit and laughing about it–and deeply moving.
That utterly bereft friend is what has stuck with me the most — it feels cruel in a way that cuts across Kristen Johnson’s deeply meaningful attempt to engage with her own fears and sadness. Including it is exploitative and honest at the same time.
I’ve wanted to watch this for a while – it came out too close to my own dad’s death for me to watch it when it came out – and I know I’m going to love it and also sob.
Babylon 5 — I know this is the early 90s and the technology was limited, but there is really no excuse for not creating a Simpsons-esque electroshock therapy system to lethally zap anyone in the writers’ room trying to pull that kind of “it’s like a space needle in a zorpstack!” kind of bullshit. THAT IS NOT HOW IDIOMS WORK! What the fuck was with sci-fi nerds and this dumbassery. Anyway, this is still fairly low-rent and the captain is way too good at everything, the obvious Riker riff of a security chief is much better. Need more shit like the mantis guy running the station’s illicit economy.
30 Rock — you know what, the Pranksmen are perhaps not cool but they are fun. I want to be in the Pranksmen. “And if he hadn’t gotten on that train, my grandfather wouldn’t have met his wife ..’s murderer” is a dark thing to laugh at as hard as I did.
The Bab-5 writers room was basically JMS. And he was clearly over-influenced by pulp novels and magazines and various comic books. That line sounds like it came from DC Comics’s Mystery in Space series circa 1964.
Oh to be clear that is something I made up, but it is very much in the spirit of whatever the actual dopey line was and it’s the kind of thing that’s been dropped several times already. Perhaps the only thing you can say for it is that it is obviously corny and stupid, as opposed to Firefly’s Chinese being the same thing but faux-clever about it.
Going to admit that I never cared much for JMS except on Real Ghostbusters, which is not the sort of thing you tell Babylon Five fans.
I never watched Babylon 5 but grew up on JMS’ Spider-Man run, which had some real high notes (Ezekiel, Morlun, good Peter Parker dialogue) and some huge, huge lows (Sins fucking Past, oh my god). At least he had the integrity to walk when Quesada insisted on Brand New Day.
Sense8 was so fantastic it got me to watch Babylon 5. Which I liked.
30 Rock practically specialized in Jenna jokes I almost felt bad laughing at. “And then OJ was like, ‘Wait, you’re alive? Then who did I kill?'”
Royal Crackers – I finished Season 1! This is pretty great, an absurdist, weirdo animated sitcom that also takes the emotions of the characters seriously and pulls it off, where Succession just makes fun of them. Similar themes here as in The Righteous Gemstones and that show of rich immature nepo babies stumbling through middle age and promoting the corporation they inherited, but on a much smaller scale (it’s implied Royal Crackers hit a peak long ago, maybe around the time Theodore Hornsby killed a bunch of children with them).*
*Theodore Sr. is an old school evil, toxically masculine robber baron patriarch, and damned if there isn’t something inherently funny and compelling about this kind of character even though it’s been done a thousand times, with the show nodding directly to the trope with a great rip of There Will Be Blood.
I really enjoy that Theo Sr. isn’t just a violent maniac and insane robber-baron and a wild narcissist, but also pretty incompetent! I guess we might see more of that in season 2– another reason “Catalina” is sucha good episode.
That said… old, senile Theo Sr. has mellowed a bit– I don’t know if it’s obvious, but the implication is supposed to be that he bought Matt the new computer at the end of “Craftopia.”
“Hair Wolf” – Streaming Shuffle gets results! This is a very funny bit, well beyond a sketch but (as pointed out yesterday) smart to keep it short. Sometimes the metaphor can stretch to feature length, but I think more often you get The American Society… than Get Out. This is wonderfully shot and delivers in the most important aspect: the wigs and hair. Fun satire, still grinning thinking about it.
“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” – This came up when I searched “hair” on Criterion and Joan Micklin Silver? Directing Shelley Duvall? Of course I have 45 minutes to spare!
I have a vague recollection of being shown this during a Fitzgerald unit in school, but if I was I’m sure I wasn’t as appreciative of it. It does start out with the let’s-put-on-a-play quality of adaptations for classrooms. But Duvall is a natural screen presence and a perfect fit for the surface-awkward Bernice learning to fit in with the objectively lame cool kids. Silver rightfully centers her performance and has command of the material in the homestretch – the sound of a pair of scissors isn’t any more impactful in Dial ‘M’ for Murder – and in fact like many an adaptation, the farther it gets from relying on the author’s words, the better it is. Interestingly, this appears to be the first time Duvall worked with a director other than Altman.
Yay, Hair Wolf! Really glad you liked this.
I’ll have to check out “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” The short story is an old favorite, but I’ve never seen an adaptation of it. Duvall does feel like a natural fit for the role.
Live Music – live-looping dream-pop genius Mayshe-Mayshe, who I’ve seen a few times but not in a couple of years as she took some time out. Always a pleasure, when people are good at the live looping thing it’s so much fun to watch. Support act was a local open mic graduate doing mostly covers, not really my vibe but she had a good voice.
Woooooo live music!!
American Dad!, “Silicon Steve”
Steve is bored because all his friends are away for the summer, so Klaus and Principal Lewis encourage him to make the most of it. Steve comes up with an idea for a social media app that lets kids connect and doesn’t allow adults. Funnily enough, this does not take the obvious disastrous turn it seems it would, but another, different disastrous turn.
Meanwhile, the cable goes out, meaning no more 19 hours a day of Ridiculousness for the rest of the family. They decide instead to find ways to entertain themselves as people did in the pre-digital age, and start becoming sophisticated and cultured… until they get a satellite box and Ridiculousness is back on.
Mythic Quest, “Rebrand”
Time for our yearly side-story episode. This one focuses on Pootie Shoe turning 17 and realizing he doesn’t want to be a “kid streamer” anymore, so he wants to focus on rebranding– which would require getting out of his contract and maybe emancipation, and then he gets the idea to stream an MMA cage match. Also, Charlie Day plays his agent, does a good job there. But I don’t really have strong feelings about this episode. It was fine.
I tried to watch Good Cop / Bad Cop, but I was too distracted by playing poker. So I’ll have to try again later. Maybe tonight, depending on other events.
I can never even see this pre-cutting still without wincing. Excellent write-up of an excellent and lastingly strange film, and now I do want to try this out with “Hurdy-Gurdy Man,” because that feels like it could get especially nightmarish. (Then I can do a “Come On Eileen” version as a healing chaser.)
Un Chien Andalou? Set to pop music? Ridiculous! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVyS9JwtFoQ
The other image that has stayed with me here is the horse, which really feels like something without context — the eyeball is freighted with metaphor just by being an eye, the horse is an image that the subconscious barfs up because of something you ate three weeks ago and forgot about.
I’ve heard it said the horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within.
Damn, I wanted to do that. Mentioning “Un Chien Andalou” and popular music and not mentioning “Debaser” feels like the kind of blunder somebody should get fired for.
Just a reminder that the first Media Magpies Happy Hour starts tonight at 5pm Pacific. If you are attending please be sure that I have an email address for you. You can send it to [email protected]. I will see you there.
P.S. to Silverwheel–I think i have yours, but please send it again in case your address is on a different thread, and Dave Shutten, I think I know who you are, but please confirm via email.
Year of the Month update!
March is Silent Era Month, where you can join these writers in examining your favorite silent movies and anything else from the 1910s and ’20s!
Mar. 20th: Cori Domschot: Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Mar. 24th: Tristan J. Nankervis – Birth of a Nation
Mar. 26th: Sam Scott: Peter and Wendy
Mar. 27th: Lauren James: The Well of Loneliness
Mar. 31st: John Anderson: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
And in April, we’ll be movin’ on up to 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
Apr. 7th: J. “Rodders” Rodriguez: The Scooby Doo Project
Apr. 16th: Sam Scott: Spongebob Season 1, Wakko’s Wish, Elmo in Grouchland, and/or Bartok the Magnificent
Apr. 28th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Sixth Sense
Curious about this “Beatty Davis Eyes.”
It’s a cover by the group Working Too Last-Minute for Anybody to Proofread.
You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about your eyes.