TSPDT - Luis Bunuel

Luis Buñuel

Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)

Gilles Jacob's 5 Best Directors

Derek Malcolm's 5 Best Directors

David Robinson's 5 Best Directors

Angel Fernández Santos' 5 Best Directors

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

● The Wild Bunch... 50 of the Movies' Maddest Visionaries

See Also

Pedro Almodóvar

Robert Bresson

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Jean-Luc Godard

James Ivory

Joseph Losey

David Lynch

Jean Renoir

Jean Vigo

Fred Zinnemann

Director / Screenwriter / Editor

1900 - 1983

Born February 22, Calanda, Teruel, Aragón, Spain

Key Production Countries: Mexico, France, Spain

Key Genres: Satire, Drama, Black Comedy, Surrealist Film, Comedy, Avant-garde/Experimental, Comedy Drama, Religious Comedy, Short Film

Key Collaborators: Carlos Savage (Editor), Jean-Claude Carriere (Screenwriter), Gabriel Figueroa (Cinematographer), Edward Fitzgerald (Production Designer), Serge Silberman (Producer), Oscar Dancigers (Producer), Luis Alcoriza (Screenwriter), Julio Alejandro (Screenwriter), Michel Piccoli (Leading Character Player), Fernando Rey (Leading Player)

Highly Recommended: L'Âge d'or (1930), Los Olvidados (1950), El (1952), The Young One (1960), Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

Recommended: Land Without Bread (1932), The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), Nazarín (1958), Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), Simon of the Desert (1965), Belle de jour (1967), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Spanish Buñuel Site ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Strictly Film School ] [ kamera Feature ] [ Flickhead Article ] [ Telegraph Article (2006) ] [ Australian Article by Adrian Martin (2007) ] [ Baseline Biography ]

Books: [ Bunuel (John Baxter) ] [ Luis Bunuel: New Readings ] [ The Films of Luis Buñuel: Subjectivity and Desire ] [ Luis Buñuel: A Critical Biography ] [ Objects of Desire: Conversations with Luis Buñuel ] [ My Last Sigh ] [ Luis Buñuel ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Un chien andalou (1928), L'Âge d'or (1930), Land Without Bread (1932), Los Olvidados (1950), El (1952), The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), Nazarín (1958), Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), Simon of the Desert (1965), Belle de jour (1967), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own: The Great Madcap (1949), La Fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)


	"Perhaps the easiest way to deal with Buñuel's career is to suggest that certain avatars of Luis Buñuel may be identified at different historical periods. The first Luis Buñuel is the Surrealist. The second Luis Buñuel is the all-but-anonymous journeyman film professional. The third is the Mexican director. The fourth is the Luis Buñuel who gradually made his way back to Europe by way of a few French films made in alternation with films in Mexico. The last Luis Buñuel, following his emergence in the mid-1960s, was the past master, at once awesome and beloved." - E. Rubinstein (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)

	"Though the Church and bourgeoisie were his prime targets, beggars might be thieves and rapists, blind men paedophiles, virginal cripples harridans, and housewives afternoon whores; all were calmly and coolly examined as if insects under the microscope, with the fascinated, bemused Buñuel never hammering home a moral sermon, but merely revealing, in a strange spirit of sympathy, the fundamental comedy of the human condition. He was, in short, one of cinema's greatest, most unassertive masters." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

	"Although Buñuel made some haunting films in the early 1950s - most notably El Bruto and El, the richest period of his work runs from 1958 to 1970, years in which Buñuel produced a series of shattering works that could almost claim to be considered masterpieces of the cinema." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)

	"Surreal comedies laced with complex psychology are representative of Bunuel's talents." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

	"Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether." - Luis Buñuel