Thoughts on Surrealist Cinema

Since I've been watching David Lynch films I've taken it upon myself to study the Surrealist style of filmmaking. Tonight I read part of a short book about Surrealist Cinema. In it the author defines what Realism in Cinema is, then describes what Surrealism in Cinema is. After I finished reading I watched some films which I had seen before at MoMa during their retrospective about Salvador Dali and Film. Perhaps the most famous scene in the film Un Chien un Andalou is when the male character slits open the female character's eye. It's a good scene, quite shocking at first, or even second view.

I've watched a lot of Realist Cinema. I've seen many films from the Italian Neo-realist period and a number from the French New Wave as well as the New Hollywood and New German Cinema all of which have several realist masterpieces. I was a committed Realist. In one of my classes I declared that I was a Realist. Yet, I am drawn to Surrealist Cinema for it's inventiveness, it's creativity, and it's acceptance of subjectivity. The author of the book made clear the Surrealist Cinema makes no claims to be objective. He said, and the book was published some years ago, that films should show an opinion of the director, the director's stylist impression should made on the film. He goes on to say that Realist film is dragged down in the banality of everyday life. He muses that who really wants to see the events of everyday life? Aren't the events of everyday life banal? Are they not devoid of entertainment? Of meaning?

I haven't researched much into Surrealism as an art movement, but I'm making head way into it. Obviously it is not Social Realism a la the Soviet or, what I'm most familiar with, Chinese Communist Social Realism. Surrealist Cinema is deeply formalist. It does things, like the author of the book said, that don't make sense. In fact the author said that if you are making a Surrealist film you should eschew plot, get rid of thinking in terms of a definitive beginning, middle, and end. That's what draws me to Surrealism. It's imaginative qualities.

So, for the remainder of the Summer I will make an effort, I rarely accomplish everything I set out to do during the Summer, to watch and blog about Surrealist films. Hopefully I will grow as a film student, and, more importantly, a screenwriter and director. Whatever happens it should be fun.