Masters of European Formalist Cinema:

Art Films from Buñuel toBergman

・ Luis Buñuel (1900-1983 Spanish/Mexican)・ Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007 Sweden)・ Federico Fellini (1920-1993 Italy)・ Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007 Italy)・ Robert Bresson (1901-1999 France)・ Jacques Tati (1908-1982 France)

Luis Buñuel • Luis Buñuel - friend of Salvatore Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca

• Founded film club in Madrid and wrote film reviews

• Entered film producing circles in Paris and made his first film Un Chien Andalou in 1928

• Film of instinct, Freudian and Surrealistic

Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism

• Left Spain after fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Found difficult to get work in US, he settled in Mexico. Returning to Europe after the war, he made a series of films attacking the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie and the church.

• The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie (1972)

Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism

• Written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, and directed by Buñuel, the film is a satire about a group of bourgeois friends trying to have dinners together.

• Surrealistic images; Surrealistic occurring (episodes)

• Story within story; dream within dream

Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism

• Dream (surrealistic) elements - satire of bourgeois manners, concerns, preoccupations and hypocrisy.

• One lunch is postponed as the host and hostess have a sex outdoors - not because they cannot control their urge but suppressing it they admit they have it

Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism

• In one failed dinner party, the group of middle class diners are seen on stage but one of them, Henri, is unable to memorize his lines.

• Fear of humiliation in front of the public.

Luis Buñuel’s

Surrealism

• In one dream, the South American ambassador of a fictional country shoots his host for insulting his country. He does so not because the insult is untrue but you do not say such things in public.

• Absurdity of pride, public manners, and etiquette

Federico Fellini

• Fellini is the most original and independent film director with the most distinctive film style.

• Helped inaugurate Neorealismo as a screenwriter but developed his own distinctive cinema style when he became a director.

Dreams in Federico Fellini

Recurring motifs and themes • Circus, festivals, music halls, parades, marches• Clowns, angelic figures, holy fools

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Whores, nurturing mother figures, large women

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Childhood and young adulthood memories and recollections

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Mesmerizing images since his childhood

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Empty seashores, desolate roads, deserted town squares at night

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Characters at their most bizarre

Dreams in Federico Fellini

• Hallucinatory or dreamlike imagery• Jungian realization that his ‘extrasensory’ per

ceptions are the psychic manifestation of the unconscious

• Oneiric

8 1/2 (1963)

Magic of Ingmar Bergman• Bergman’s films are noted f

or the bleak depiction of human vulnerability, loneliness and torment.

• Several stages of Bergman’s directorial career.

• Psychological tension, religious anguish, sexual guilt, and other spiritual torment are presented through oneric and magical images.

Ingmar Bergman

• Wild Strawberries (1957) - meditation of old age and the regret and guilt of adolescence

Ingmar Bergman

• Study of narcissistic but confused and alienated characters Persona (1966)