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This essay aims to discuss the difference between Surrealism in film and German Expressionism in film with reference to Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou (17) and Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (11).
Surrealism was a revolution in traditional art and literature. Un Chien Andalou was a product of this revolution and a product of the minds of Bunuel and Dali. Surrealism focuses on the dream state and the fact "…that dreams have a meaning and that this meaning directly concerns the dreamer himself." Un Chien Andalou is but just a dream.
In Un Chien Andalou there is a discontinuous narrative which lends itself to the fact that the mind does not follow a linear pattern and is rather quite disorganised. In Apollonian tradition people are portrayed as totally rational beings with control over their thoughts and they think in a perfect linear pattern. Surrealism subverts this concept. "(Dreams) are phenomena whose absurdity and incoherence disappear as soon as we know how to interpret them with the aid of a suitable scientific method." Dreams are incoherent and absurd so it would be considered Dionysian. We see that this Dionysian concept is being rationalised by an Apollonian concept, science. In subversive literature and art such as surrealism we find this constant tension between the Apollonian element and the Dionysian element.
Un Chien Andalou is set in as natural setting as possible. The directors used the outdoors, city landscapes and rooms. A real setting is used to juxtapose the unreality of dreams even though dreams "…express a wish and immediately ensure its realization." Cheap Custom Essays on Surrealism and German Expressionism in Film.
Symbols are abundant in Un Chien Andalou. The first scene shows a cloud moving past a moon being watched by a man smoking on his veranda. The scene dissolves into a scene where a women's eye is cut by a razor. The mind uses one image and another is conjured up with a specific meaning. In the scene where the man is trying to get to the nubile young woman he picks up a harness and drags a piano. The piano is symbolized as a bourgeois concept and the man is suffering under the weight of this social class system. In another scene a right hand is lying on the ground with people staring at it. The right hand is a symbol of power and authority, but the hand is severed and thus not in power. There are also everyday symbols that disturb such as the man on the bike with a box just falling over onto the pavement. Later on in the film the box becomes a symbol of the womb.
Un Chien Andalou portrays the dream state and in so doing subverting the idea that the unconscious does not play a major role in everyday life.
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was a reaction to the social problems that Germany faced after the First World War. Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer wrote Caligari because they felt a need to express the problem of authority and power.
Unlike Un Chien Andalou, Caligari has a continuous narrative. The original story by Mayer and Janowitz was distorted by director Dr Robert Wiene. He wanted to make a mainstream film so he added a scene at the start and a scene at the end of the film. At the start Francis is in the insane asylum and tells his story to his fellow madman. At the end Caligari is portrayed as a compassionate leader and with the interests of the sick at heart. The original version was now in brackets and a subversive film, subverted. It suffered the fate of commercialism.
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was filmed totally in a studio, but this meant that the creators of the set could create a feel of instability to the architecture which was reminiscent of the then current social instability in Germany. It portrayed frailty and a sense of chaos. "The retreat into the studio was part of the general retreat into a shell" for German Expressionist film.
The main symbols in Caligari are of authority. The stairs and high chairs the officials sit on are all symbols of power and authority. Dr Caligari himself is a symbol of an authority figure. The authority is portrayed as having an obsession for power and in the end even more power which must be gained at any cost. Cesare is symbolized as the conscripted male population of Germany. The military men have been forced to become murderers and in so doing lose touch with the basic human emotions and replace with the primal instincts of survival. Caligari controls Cesare, the somnambulist, and orders him to murder. Cesare is an innocent victim, just like the ones he murdered. The spirals at the fair are symbols of chaos which reflects the chaotic nature in Germany after the First World War. In Caligari's office there are books that represent the fact that knowledge equals power and there is also a skeleton which could represent that death surrounds Caligari.
The main difference between Surrealism, Un Chien Andalou, and German Expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, is that Surrealism was revolutionary whereas German Expressionist film such as Caligari was a reaction to social instability and a need for change.
Robert, M. The Psychoanalytical Revolution. George Allen & Unwin LTD. London.
Kracauer, S. From Caligari to Hitler. 147. Dennis Dobson LTD.
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