FU Seminar: Surrealism

As a place for the imagination, the cinema provided the best pre-requisites for the surrealists' aim of drawing upon the unconscious. In the two most well-known surrealist films UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929, June 14) und L'ÂGE D'OR (1930, June 14), Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí create a series of highly unconventional associations by using montage to bring together elements seemingly alien to one another, an strategy much in keeping with the ideas in the head of surrealist André Breton. Both films make use of shock tactics, with the razor blade that cuts through an eyeball in the prologue of UN CHIEN ANDALOU becoming infamous. Marcel Duchamp’s hypnotic rotoreliefs can also be seen as an attack on the predominance of the eye and are on display in Hans Richter's DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1947, June 28) accompanied by music by John Cage. Richter brought together his old avant-garde companions for this episodic film, which was produced in the America after the Second World War; as such, in addition to Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray and Fernand Léger were also involved in the film. Both of the programs will be shown as a part of the FU seminar on Surrealism. (Jürgen Dehm)