L'Age d'Or (1930)

The medium of motion picture is not simply a form story telling or documenting device, it is an artful canvas upon which light and shadow is cast to create an illuminated forms manifested by the artist, or rather yet collaboration of artists, bringing what only existed in the mind to life to be displayed for audiences. In other words film is art and can be portrayed as simply art. An early form of film as an expressive art piece can be seen with the French picture L'Age d'Or (The Gold Age). The film was a collaboration of Spanish director Luis Buñuel and the famous surrealist artist Salvador Dali. L'Age d'Or would come to be one of the earliest, finest, and most controversial examples of surrealistic cinema causing stirs throughout the 20th century within the artistic, cinematic, and religious communities.

Luis Buñuel was new to the film world when he and his friend Salvador Dali decided to collaborate on a short surrealist motion picture. The two shared strange dreams they have had and turned it into the 1929 piece Un Chien Andalou, a sixteen minute film with surrealist influences and shocking imagery including a shot of a razor blade through an eye. The short film had little to no real plot at all for it is in fact a piece of art using motion picture as canvas. The film does portray an idea by the artists, as most all art does, but like any artwork is very much open to interpretation. With such bazaar images and the connection to one of the most influential artists in the 20th century, Dali, as part of the production Un Chien Andalou would be one of the most popular art pictures of all time, being noted and imitated for the many years since its completion.

Buñuel and Dali would once again collaborate the following year this time to produce a feature that once again brought the images from their minds to the screen. This time Buñuel would create more of a singular plot than what was seen in their previous film, emphasizing a more understandable theme to the picture. The work started off as a collaboration but Buñuel would take control of film to make his intentions known through this art piece, upsetting Dali ultimately severing their friendship in the process.

The picture still is a little difficult to understand as it first seems to jump from one vignette to another seemingly having no connection at all. The film opens with a short documentary on scorpions, then to a group of near death men out to kill some group nearing them. The bulk of the piece would center around a passionate couple who are desparately trying to consummate their relationship, but are repeatedly interfered with distractions of families, religion (the church), and bourgeois society that surrounds them. The film ends with another jump to a short segment based off the very controversial French novel "120 Day of Sodom," a story about a large detailed and sadistic four month orgy. This segment of the film we see the men exiting the castle where the orgy occurred and one particular man looks like Jesus Christ before he kills a young lady leaving us with an image of women scalps on a cross.

The film jumps around rather much, but Buñuel's point was how downcast sexuality was looked at by the many aspects of the world: religion, family, and society. Buñuel feels that sex should be an open form of communication and passion shared by everyone and that the world, the Catholic Church in particular, has made it an object of scorn. He felt that the church, and most religion in the world at that, was hypocritical, making the church the most visually harmful thing in the picture. The film though not what Dali orginally had in mind for the picture still has district images that are Dali inspired. One most notable is a man that walks around with a large stone of his head and it appears he does so because a religious statue has a man wearing a stone on his head. A man wearing a stone on his head was an image Dali would reuse in other works. This expression once again states how people do only because religion tells them to.

The film is very much open to interpretation, but definitely shares a message. The film has in its time caused scores of controversy. The picture somehow passed the French censor board to allow it to be shown. Buñuel would present it to the board as a madman's dream to get the censors to look at it differently and in a way let it be a surreal form of expression. Shortly after the premiere many people shared their protest of the picture. A fascist organization threw ink at the screen, attacked audience members, and destroyed many pieces of art that were displayed outside the theater, including Dali's work. Spanish critics condemned the piece. People planned to have the picture banned and for 50 years the film very closely was. The film did make an appearance in the United States in 1933 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but would not be seen again until 1979. The film's open criticism of the church would bring outage through the century and even today.

The film may not be seen as a piece of art by most, but it is a definite art piece. It is an expression of two artists brought to the screen to display. What people do with it is an entirely different subject. The audience is to take it as it is, interpenetrate it as they see fit in their lives. If one does not like it, one does not need to see it. The film is mainly the views of one man, Buñuel, but that doesn't mean it is destructive. His views on organized religion is negative, but this film was not meant to preach to organized religion, but rather an open expression of his inner thoughts. The film is a prime example of how film is double sided. The film is the finished piece of celluloid, but it is also whatever the audience makes of it.