It’s Been Surreal: The Films of Luis Buñuel
L’AGE D’OR (1930) / VIRIDIANA (1961)
Tonight - 7:30PM Egyptian Theatre
Presented by the American Cinematheque and the Luis Buñuel Film Institute.
Production-related gems from the Buñuel Institute archive will be on display. See what the program to Bunuel’s L’AGE D’OR looked like, read the director’s letter about the making of VIRIDIANA, and view rare production photos of the films - both of which were targeted by censors!
Wonderfully bizarre and spun together with the allusive dictates of dream logic, the second collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí is a series of gleefully irreverent vignettes, the most sustained of which centers on Gaston Modot and Lya Lys, lovers attempting to consummate their passion but continuously stalled by some of Buñuel’s favorite fixations - the church and the bourgeoisie! Featuring an infamous sequence in which Lys fellates the toe of a religious statue, L’AGE D’OR was banned from distribution for nearly 50 years after its initial release in 1930. With Surrealism co-founder Max Ernst. In French with English subtitles.
VIRIDIANA is One of director Luis Buñuel’s most brilliant, scandalous films was banned in his homeland of Spain and almost got him arrested in Milan. A novice nun (Silvia Pinal) finds herself corrupted by her spectacularly nefarious uncle, Fernando Rey - until she turns the tables on her tio by installing a group of beggars and lepers in his rural mansion. Buñuel gradually, mischievously weaves a web of contradictory impulses: Faith, charity and selflessness become inextricably bound up with lust, hypocrisy and greed in the schizophrenic universe of Old World Latin Catholicism. With longtime Buñuel friend Francisco Rabal. In Spanish with English subtitles.
35mm prints of both films will be screened.
OMG. I love Portland. I love the Hollywood Theatre. but hot damn if the amcinematheque isn’t after mine own heart and after working with them last year for Viscera, I know that they’re some fantastic folks, too.