Luis Bunuel: Reality and Illusion - Rufus Seeger

1. FACT

00 February 22 born at Calanda, Zaragoza, Aragon.

12 "Bachillerato" Jesuit school, Zaragoza.

17 Madrid, Student Residence.

18 Agronomic Engineering School.

20 Literature and philosophy at Central University.

23 Degree and Paris.

24 Assistant editor in French film laboratories.

26 With Jean Epstein, assistant director Mauprat (George Sand), La Sirene des Tropiques, with Josephine Baker.

27 First assistant on La Chute de la Maison Usher /The Fall of the House of Usher.

28 First film as director UN CHIEN ANDALOU, Paris.

30 L'AGE D'OR, also written with Salvador Dali. Contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hollywood, 1,000 pesos per annum. Incinerates the contract after three months, and back to France.

32 Spain, LAS HURDES/TERRE SANS PAIN/LAND WITHOUT BREAD, a documentary on poverty.

33 Paris, with Pierre Unik, a script for a surreal Le Haute de Hurlevent/Wuthering Heights. Fire at studios, produced:

35 Don Quintin El Amargao/The Bitter Man and La Hija de Juan Simon/ Juan Simon's Daughter.

36 Quien Me Quiere a Mi / Who Loves Me and Centinela Alerta / AIert Sentinel

37 Civil War. Edited newsreels including ESPANA LEAL EN ARMAS. A sound version of LAS HURDES in Paris.

38 to 41 Collaborated on documentaries at Museum of Modern Art, New York, including TEJIDOS CANCEROSOS/CANCEROUS TISSUES and AVES EMIGRATORIAS/MIGRATING BIRDS.

41 Six year contract with Warner Brothers, laboratory work.

47 Mexico, prepared La Casa de Bernard a Alba / The House of Bernarda Alba,

48 Mexico, GRAN CASINO.

49 EL GRAN CALAVERA / THE GREAT MERRYMAKER.

50 LOS OLVID ADOS/ THE FORGOTTEN ONES/THE YOUNG AND THE DAMNED, Directors' Prize, Cannes Film Festival. "The only film I am responsible for since TERRE SANS PAIN.

51 SUSAN A, LA HIJA DEL ENGADO, UNA MUJER SIN AMOR /WOMAN WITHOUT LOVE, SUBIDA AL CIELO.

52 EL BRUTO/THE BRUTE, with Pedro Armendariz and Katy Jurado. ROBINSON CRUSOE, with Dan O'Herlihy and James Fernandez. EL/HE, with Arturo de Cordova and Delia Garces.

53 ABISMOS DE PASION/WUTHERING HEIGHTS (not the version of 33).

54 LA ILLUSION VIAJA EN TRANVI A /ILLUSION TRAVELS BY STREETCAR. EL RIO Y LA MUERTA/THE RIVER AND DEATH.

55 THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ. CELA S'APPELLE L'AURORE.

56 LA MORT EN CE JARDIN, with Simone Signoret, Georges Marchse and Charles Vanel, made in France and Mexico.

58 NAZARIN.

59 LA FIEVRE MONTE A EL PAO, with Gerard Philipe, Jean Servais and Maria Felix (Philipe's last film).

60 THE YOUNG ONE, with Zachary Scott.

61 Asked by Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry to prepare two films The Failures of Providence Street and The Young Hero and plans twenty films using scripts by such writers as Jean- Paul Sartre and Francoise Sagan. Returns to Spain and makes VIRIDIANA. Awarded Golden Palm at Cannes Festival.

2. FANTASY

The above information is hard and real, the skeleton of the man, hooked on to time and the work pinned down in hard type. Treasure it, preserve it, copy it, blow it up into a photomural. Regard it, remem- ber to remember it, tear it out and put it in your wallet. Act on it, subvert your way into the nearest film society and rig the ballot and run a programme of Bufiuel, not for the others but just for yourself. Spend all your money on hiring projectors and what copies you can get your hands on1 .

The list is designed to prod the sluggish memories of the lazy consumers of anarchist literature, to stir their murky minds, to throw up half digested reviews in all the posh Sundays they've read in the past fifteen years, to trigger their minds with misgivings over the films they missed and the ones they heard about and the ones they were glad they didn't see. Do you dimly remember that season of Bunuel's at the National Film Theatre in the Summer of '55? I am rather reluctant to advocate further passive consumption of entertainment and art, but in Bunuel's case I offer active participation, the scouring of What's On to find the odd fleapit or Classic or Odeon at Harlesden that might be showing a Bufiuel on Sunday. An arduous three change trip by public transport into strange wastelands to see a film. As my mother used to say, only the things that you have to fight for are the things that you really enjoy.

As far as time goes, Bufiuel has a thirty-two year lead on me, and I have very little qualification to be writing about him, except that I was a pre-television child and therefore a cinema kid, a particularly bad /good one, an avid consumer in fact. It all started when I left the Wolf Cubs owing 4s. 9d. subs, and I was precipitated into the nine- pennies and averaged one hundred and eighty visits a year, and all double features too. The addiction reached its height in the summer of 1948 when in one delirious week I saw nineteen films. I put myself on a cure and tapered off my shots, but even in my twenty-fifth year if I didn't get to a cinema every ten days I suffered withdrawal symptoms. Bunuel, Welles, Vigo, Chaplin and the Marx Brothers can bring on another jag right away (Ingmar Bergman was the monkey on my back the year before last).

I have laboured you with my own case history in order that you respect, and act on, my recommendation. I have refrained from the usual journalese of quoting some juicy passage from any one or all of the films to whet your flagging jaded palate. I have suffered and enjoyed countless (about 4,000 in fact) films, mostly Bones, and offer this saving in time. Approaches I haven't tried are those which take a psychological or national character view of the man, you can see how easy it would be to caricature Bufiuel as a Spanish Hero of his Time. Another is the fate of art cinema versus Hollywood and the hard world of hard cash. Dwight Macdonaid who is now writing on films in Esquire, is well worth pursuing in this connection and Orson Welles has gone through it and is highly articulate about it

Even for the sake of Anarchy and anarchy I cannot claim Bunuel for our side, but to raise my consumer's flag again, here is the only man of the cinema that I would be a one man procession for, a man that can make films that kick my guts, humble me, excite me, wet my eyes for me and fill me with compassion. There they all are, in CAPITALS above, the failures and triumphs. See them.

• 1The key to this and boundless information is the British Film Institute. 81 Dean Street, London W.I., who have a warm, cheerful and most helpful staff who can tell you who has what film and what size, how much, and how to get hold of it.