L'Âge d'or

'The "Once upon a time" opening of Un Chien anda/lou

‘was meant to lull us into fairy-tale receptivity.

‘The footage of scurrying scorpions that opens ‘Age d'or

‘transports us not to Neverland, but to some documentary space and time

‘that is undefined, but hardly, surely, an age of gold.

‘What this start does establish is the clinically distanced position

‘which the film will take thereafter towards its human protagonists,

‘lovers and love's enemies alike.

‘The opening segment borrows entomological factual footage

‘from a pre-World War | popular science documentary.

‘The old film stock is fuzzy and the framing erratic,

‘but, by the same token,

‘it's true to Bufuel's and Dali's anti-artistic impulses.

‘It places all that's to follow in the framework of "natural history"

‘or “image fact".

‘This start is perhaps underwhelming by comparison with the first films,

‘put its provocative significance accumulates as the film progresses.

‘We see the scorpions fighting among themselves

‘and repelling an intruding rat.

‘It's immediately clear from the laconic intertitles

‘that what the documentary identifies

‘as the instinctive behaviour of the scorpion,

‘its venomous aggression, its survival capacity,

‘its treachery to its own species,

‘applies equally to humankind.

‘The scorpion is the zodiac sign

‘that governs the genitals and the anus.

‘As such, it's the symbol of sex, excrement, and death.

‘Thus, this opening sequence introduces the ambivalent dynamic

‘that powers our impulses of attraction and repulsion alike

‘and officiates at the alchemical marriage of shit and gold.

‘It's also the avatar for the startling diegetic raptures

‘which the film has in store.

‘It warns us that the film itself will behave like a scorpion

‘and mimic the shape and function of the scorpion’'s tail

‘formed "of a series of five prismatic articulations

“ending in a sixth vesicular joint, the poison sac."

‘The film also will be an organ of battle and information.

‘It, too, will deliver its most provocative thrust, in its last segment.

‘The warm reception of Un Chien andalou by "le tout Paris"

‘was both a blessing and a curse for Dali, Bunuel

‘and Surrealism generally.

‘While not going as far as to court martyrdom,

‘the movement was ambivalent about success,

‘especially commercial success.

‘Its popularity implied

‘that it was too easily recuperable by the Establishment.

‘Bunuel wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

'lf Un Chien anda/ou can be dismissed as poetry or a dream,

‘its Successor is stubbornly unclassifiable.

‘At just over an hour, it fits neither with the arty short

‘nor the conventional feature film.

'While Un Chien andalou is a darkly shining emblem

‘for Surrealism's adventures into the unconscious,

‘Age d'or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression

‘of the movement's revolutionary intent.

It's thus bizarre

‘that this desperate and sustained revolutionary manifesto

‘was funded by a wealthy aristocrat.

‘The opportunity to make a second film arrived hot on the heels

‘of the success of Un Chien andalou.

‘It came in the form of an invitation to Bunuel and Dali

‘in November 1929 from the Vicomte Charles de Noailles

‘to make a sequel, this time a talkie,

‘for the birthday of his wife, Marie-Laure.

‘Noailles had already established himself as a Maecenas to the avant-garde

‘and had recently commissioned a short film by Man Ray.

‘His wife was a modernist poet in her own right.

‘Marie-Laure was also a direct descendant of the Marquis de Sade.

‘The private commission suited Bunuel very well.

‘As an intending professional film-maker,

‘he needed to build on the reputation so recently acquired.

‘Initially it seems that L Age aor was meant to be another short film,

‘employing some of the "gags" that had been left over from its predecessor.

‘Its status as a sequel

‘was signalled in its original working title, La Béle andalouse.

‘The novelty was to be in the soundtrack,

‘making it, with Rene Clair's Sous les toits de Paris,

‘one of France's first talkies.

‘During the winter of 1929-30,

‘the script of what was eventually titled L Age d'or

‘grew exponentially,

‘with the generous compliance of its noble sponsor,

‘to justify the final 63-minute feature.

‘It came out way over Noailles' original budget,

‘at about eight times the cost of Un Chien andalou.

‘It was shot in three weeks at the same Billancourt studios,

‘filmed, it was claimed,

“in a state of euphoria, enthusiasm and destructive fever."

‘The contentious issue

‘of the respective contributions of Bunhuel and Dali to both our films

‘is too complex to be addressed here.

‘Suffice it to say that their relations

‘during the preparation of L Age d'or were now a lot less harmonious.

‘The earlier rapport had evaporated.

‘Dali's input was not as significant,

‘though it was a lot greater than early commentators allowed.

‘It seems that Dali's mind was elsewhere.

‘Gala had recently come into his life.

‘Bunuel loathed this surrealist muse and groupie

‘with the same jealousy as he'd earlier shown towards Lorca.

‘Financial difficulties, following the bankruptcy of his dealer,

‘forced Dali's absence from Paris.

'He forwarded ideas to Bunuel, perhaps a whole film script,

‘much of which, however, Bunuel did not use.

‘The film as eventually realised,

‘In terms of its narrative structure and ideological position,

‘was largely the work of Bunuel alone.

‘Subsequently the pair fell out

‘over just about everything to do with L Age d'or

‘Dali publicly disowned it

‘on the grounds that Bunuel had totally betrayed his intentions,

‘replacing his own “authentic sacrilege"

‘with a primary anticlericalism

‘and an over-explicit political message.

‘Whether Dali liked it or not,

‘Age d'or is a textbook, almost a catechism,

‘of the fundamental tenets of Surrealism

‘in perhaps its most incandescent period.

‘In the frankness of its eroticism, for instance,

‘it coincides with the group's ongoing "researches" into sexuality

‘while keeping faith with Breton's dictum

‘that the surrealistic "erotic" should be veiled

‘and not porno-reaiist.

‘The film chimed also with the group's most dedicated efforts

'to reconcile the world-views of Marx and Freud

‘in terms of their shared diagnosis of an incipient "cracking"

‘beneath the surface limpidity,

“the discreet charm" of the bourgeois order.

‘The film's anticlericalism follows the anarchist line

‘that religion is an agent of all repression

‘and coincides with the surrealists' militancy at the time

‘within the Communist Party's front organisation,

‘called "the antireligious struggle”.

‘With all this going for it, unlike its predecessor,

L ‘Age d'or received the group's imprimatur

‘before, rather than after, the event.

‘Their collective declaration, saluting the film's release, read,

“This is the indispensable moral complement

“to stock-exchange panics, whose effect will be very direct

“precisely because of its surrealist character."

‘Bunuel seems to have been determined to banish all equivocation

‘about his "demoralising" intentions in the second film.

‘Clarity, method and calculation

‘presided over the preparation of the scenario,

‘with little or no automatism

‘and at the expense of spontaneity and dream.

‘Correspondingly, the film style of L ‘Age d'or is largely functional

‘and unobtrusive, with limited camera movement

‘and little trick photography,

‘as if to give it the authority of a documentary.

‘Out go the iris effects and slow-motion shots

'of Un Chien andalou.

‘Avant-garde fast cutting,

‘the average shot length in the first film was three seconds,

‘gives way to a more normal take length of five and a half seconds.

If Un Chien andalou

‘plays on the opposition between sight and blindness,

‘then the corresponding duality in L'Age d'or

‘is between gold and shit.

‘The psychoanalytical and age-old linkage

‘between the basest and the most precious of substances

‘is the most likely key to the film's title.

‘Those who sell their souls to the Devil

‘find that the gold he gives them in exchange

‘eventually turns to excrement.

‘It seems certain that the title was lit upon

‘out of surrealist contrariness, by "anti-phrase”.

‘It's a contrary title in another sense, also,

‘for the argument of the film seems to be

‘that each age of mankind's history

‘repeats the same clash between impulse and inhibition.

‘The deliberate flattening of temporal perspective

‘emphasises that this is a film about our condition in the here and now.

‘Both films tell the story of thwarted passion

‘and explore the mechanisms that cause love to fail.

‘Both films have "bookend" opening and closing sequences,

‘prologues and epilogues,

‘from which some or all of the main protagonists are absent,

‘sequences that bracket the central narrative

‘and comment metaphorically upon it.

‘But L Age d'or differs in many important respects from its predecessor.

‘The second film stretches its canvas