Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou and the Language of Desire

According to Rosemary Lambert in the Cambridge Introduction to the History of Art: The Twentieth Century, "Surrealism was concerned with exploring and illustrating the unconscious mind" (40-41). This exploration and illustration was carried out with the use of dream imagery, symbols, puns, and with a general attitude of complete freedom of expression. The surrealists were concerned with liberating the imagination from its rational and scientific chains by making use of dreams and fantasy (41). Bunuel, himself, in his Notes on the Making of Un Chien Andalou, has the following to say about the surrealist movement and its relation to his film:

Un Chien Andalou would not have existed if
Bunuel and Dali make use of dream imagery, symbolism, and the pun in an all out attack on social convention in an attempt to force the audience to deal with the repressed and taboo subjects of sexual desire, violence and death (63-64). While, on the one hand, Bunuel admits that the film is, indeed, a surrealist work, on the other hand, he is adamant in stating that "NOTHING in the film SYMBOLIZES ANYTHING" (Stauffacher 30 [Bunuel 's emphasis]). This statement seems rather silly at best and at worst ludicrous, for at a very basic level, at least, it would seem that once something (whether animate or inanimate) is placed before a camera and filmed it immediately upon projection can become symbolic of something in some way, shape, or form. As Dudley Andrew so succinctly puts it in Concepts in Film Theory: "Cinema, as a cultural institution, is by definition a symbolic system, mediating the spectator and the world in countless exchangeable ways" (150). For example, a gun can be symbolic of death and violence, a book can be symbolic of education and culture, the color white can be symbolic of purity or innocence, and a priest is usually symbolic of religion. All of the examples mentioned above (however obvious) and more, at least possibly, are in operation in Un
These counter feelings are symbolized by the severed hand, (fear of castration?), and the woman poking at it (the woman is dressed as a man recalling the original sexual ambiguity of the young man when we first see him riding the bicycle decked out in the feminine, white frills). The young man 's sexual desires eventually override the feelings of guilt and shame when the severed hand is placed in the striped box (out of sight out of mind). This is the very same box that the young man was wearing around his neck, indicating his powerful, sexual desires are, now, hidden and safely locked away. However, once his sexual desires have been aroused, they can no longer be safely kept hidden; in fact, they become so overpowering that trying to suppress them leads to violence. Hence, the young man watches with great excitement, and in apparent ecstasy, as the androgynous woman is run over by a car, thus completely squelching the conflicting feelings of guilt and shame--at least for the moment, for they are sure to return. We have seen the young man stirred from his original state of dispassion to a sexual awakening and