Michael Richardson,
Surrealism and cinema.
Oxford: Berg, 2006.
ISBN: 1 84520 226 0
202pp
£14.99 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Berg publications)
Michael Richardson’s Surrealism and cinema addresses misconceptions about surrealism and dispels any limited notion of what surrealism might be. He shows that surrealism is an activity, a living thing or a tension within the work rather than it is a style, a movement or anything tied to a fixed thing. It exists in many different styles and variations: in popular film, such as some genres of the Hollywood film, the documentary and animation. Although he acknowledges that the early twentieth century period of surrealism may never be repeated, owing to the loss of the silent film and the mystery of entering a darkened room, he nevertheless shows that surrealism exists beyond that era.
Richardson’s aim is clear: “…the current work is an attempt to bring analysis to bear on the relation between surrealism and cinema precisely in a broad perspective” (7). Therefore, the significance of the title: Surrealism and cinema and not Surrealist cinema. This clarity of intent Richardson gains from André Breton’s Surrealism and painting: Breton “was seeking not to trace a ‘surrealist art’ but rather to situate surrealism within painting” (4-5). Richardson situates surrealism within cinema as a “shifting point of magnetism around which the collective activity of the surrealists revolves” (3). Surrealism is not your usual set of contradictions; it is a converging point, “a relation between things” (10). “Transformation”, “marvellous”, “provocative”, “spontaneity”, “collective” and “contagious” are just some of the major concepts that belong to surrealism.
The existing literature on surrealism and the cinema is identified as incomplete. In his survey of the literature, on the cinema and in English, Richardson shows the need to fill that gap. Ado Kyrou’s Le Surréalism au cinéma(1953, revised 1963) is considered a starting point. It has shortcomings. While it argues that the cinema “is in essence surrealist”, it fails to justify that statement. Like Breton’s Surrealism and painting, it is a definitive book; it is also incomplete and subjective. Paul Hammond’s The Shadow and its shadow (1978) is considered the most useful, but that too is seen to have shortcomings. Others limit themselves to Luis Buñuel.
Richardson sifts through different films and filmmakers and clears up common misconceptions. Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or (France 1930) is considered a key film even more so than Un chien andalou (France 1928). Most of Maya Deren’s films, he argues are not really surreal and Man Ray’s are “a little more than home movies” (11). For complex reasons, Entr’acte (René Clair, 1924) and others are said to belong to Dada. In a more recent example, the films of David Lynch are considered to be in the spirit of mind games rather than in the spirit of surrealism: “They may evoke surrealism in their visual texture, but they do so only to assimilate it to a set of empty signifiers” (73).
Surrealism and cinema covers a loose chronological pattern, a variety of countries and a range of filmmakers, many of who do not necessarily work in their country of birth. This is shown to be for different reasons: Nelly Kaplan and Alejandro Jodorowsky chose exile, while Raúl Ruiz’s exile was the consequence of Pinochet’s coup in 1973 (149). While there is a recognized overall intensity of surrealism in France, Richardson does not limit his study to France. Neither does the activity of surrealist groups within a country mean that there will be surrealist films as a result. For example, there has been a pervasive presence in Eastern Europe with surrealist groups, but not so with film. Czechoslovakia is considered an exception with animator Jan Svankmajer, who is said to be one of the most original and productive of all surrealist filmmakers (121). The chapter on Ruiz brings us to Latin America and more recent times; nevertheless, Ruiz is shown to have a disparate range of work and it is his 70s and 80s’ films that best display surrealism.
An important recognition in this book, one that opens up modern debate, is the special relation surrealism has with popular culture. Richardson informs us that the surrealist movement has always had a contradictory interest in popular culture. The surrealists were aware that popular culture was a part of the commercial apparatus; at the same time, they were interested in it as a disruption against dominant cultural traditions. Unlike postmodernism, which collapses the differences between high and low culture and tends to valorize the low, the surrealists saw popular culture as some kind of parallel to their own activity. They valued Georges Méliès, not so much for the fantasy, as for the “marvellous”. Where fantasy accepts the convention of realism, the marvellous does not: the marvellous “refuses the realist demand for verisimilitude, and reconciles – or holds tension” (20). The surrealists also liked Louis Feuillade who was considered to have an even greater sense of the marvellous than Méliès. The anarchy and spontaneity in Feuillade’s work was considered special to the surrealist attitude. Spontaneity, or “automatic writing”, is an important surrealist notion, something which, Richardson argues, has perhaps not resurfaced in such a way until Ruiz.
Richardson points out that Hollywood would seem at odds with surrealism. At the same time, he shows that the Hollywood genre films, particularly those of the early thirties, were of value, if not fascinating, to the surrealists. The overwhelming amount of films made in Hollywood were seen to regulate the dreams it produced and destroy spontaneity; on the other hand, “the Hollywood system still left a place for the imagination” (61). Even if the films were unintentionally surrealist, the surrealists found in Hollywood an ‘involuntary’ surrealism – a disruption of narrative and an opening up of meaning other than the intended one (68). Films of particular value to the surrealists were the horror films between 1932-1935: the stories of Frankenstein, Dracula and King Kong. More surprising than the horror film, was the surrealist appeal to the idea of the couple and the treatment of ‘love’ in many Hollywood films from 1920-1950. The comedy genre was also highly regarded; this was mostly for its moral value and its “taste of anarchy”. The Marx Brothers, Charles Chaplin, W.C.Fields, and especially Buster Keaton, are just some of those mentioned.
One of the most enlightening chapters is on surrealism and the documentary. Richardson explores this neglected area. He claims that while it may seem contradictory to put surrealism and documentary together, surrealism as anti-realist and documentary as realist, surrealism has always had a documentary element (77). Chris Marker and Alain Resnais would be the obvious contenders for discussion here. Richardson recognizes the contribution of these two and goes beyond the obvious. It is fascinating to read about Jean Painlevé, a natural history film maker whose films were mostly about underwater sea creatures. His films are described as having a different kind of ‘wonder’ to those of David Attenborough. Painlevé’s films are not educational. His intent is “to bring into question a human centered way of relating to the natural world” (83). Humphrey Jennings is somewhat of a surprise. Richardson informs us that he was an even more engaged surrealist than Buñuel, having been an active member of the English Surrealist Group. His films, however, are noted for their contradictions: they are anti-surrealist in the way they follow a positive line and as contributions to the British war effort.
The filmmakers Richardson chooses to write about come from a variety of artistic backgrounds and their work can often be both surrealist and anti-surrealist. This aspect seems to highlight surrealism’s inability to be pinned down to any one thing, or even one person. Jacques Prévert, amongst many other things, is a poet and a screenwriter; he worked with many directors – among them, Marcel Carné and Jean Renoir. L’Affaire est dans le sac (France 1932), a film Prévert made with his brother is thought to belong to the surrealist milieu as much as does Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or. Some of the filmmakers’ works may be considered prime examples of surrealism and others may not be surreal at all and some may develop into something else. Walerian Borowczyk, for example, a famous animator of the 60s, is noted for his surrealist films based on surrealist writers. Later in his career his films turn into pornography. Jodorowsky is shown to be comparable with Salvador Dalí with his dazzling, extravagant qualities; in other ways, Jodorowsky is divided from him for having integrity in his work that Dalí lacked (137). Moreover, Jodorowsky’s concern for ‘liberation’ is at odds with surrealism. Referring to Breton, Richardson informs us that “Surrealism denies the very idea of liberation” (141).
Richardson shows concern over where surrealism is heading: its diffuse and elusive nature may put it in danger of losing any specificity at all. Today the word surreal is often used arbitrarily and surrealism must be wary of the fashionable and the marketable. ‘Magic realism’ has clouded the picture in Latin America and we are informed that it needs to be treated with as much caution as any realism. The newly coined, ‘Black surrealism’ is also a trend to be wary of. This expansive study contributes to maintaining a notion of what surrealism within cinema might be without restricting it to a set of rules or conditions. Even if one may not have seen many of the films analyzed, and some apparently are impossible to see, it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s the ‘contagious’ spirit of surrealism that this study best conveys.
June Werrett
Flinders University, Australia.