Syllabus
Weekly Schedule
Week 1
What is Surrealism?: An Introduction.
This week's seminars will focus on the meaning, origin, and aims of surrealism. Students will be encouraged to: (1) study André Breton's first surrealist manifesto; (2) explore the differences and similarities between dada and surrealism; (3) recognise the importance of Freud's theories on dreams and the unconscious on the surrealist movement's ideas; and (4) analyse two surrealist film classics, both of which were made close to the start of the movement's development: Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou (1929, FR) and Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (1933, FR). They will also compare and contrast Un Chien Andalou with Max Ernst's short film Desire (1947, US), and explore the surreal elements of some of Ernst's greatest paintings and collages. In order to clarify the differences between dada and surrealism, they will study two short classic dada films: Hans Richter's Filmstudie (1926, GR) and Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928, GR). (If there's time, students will also examine the final section of the short dada film Entr'acte [1924, René Clair, Francis Picabia].) In preparation for the later seminars on 'documentary surrealism', students will be shown arguably the first surrealist documentary ever made, Jean Vigo's À Propos de Nice (1930).
Films:
ñ Un Chien Andalou (1929, Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dali, 21 minutes)
ñ Europe After the Rain: Dada & Surrealism (1978, Mick Gold, 90 minutes)
ñ Zero for Conduct (1933, Jean Vigo, 41 minutes)
ñ À Propos de Nice (1930, Jean Vigo, 25 minutes)
ñ Desire (1947, Max Ernst, 10-minutes), from the surrealist film Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947)
ñ Darkness Light Darkness (1989, Jan Švankmajer, 6 minutes)
ñ Filmstudie (1926, Hans Richter, 5 minutes)
ñ Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928, Hans Richter, 6 minutes)
Required readings:
- 'First Surrealist Manifesto' by André Breton, provided by course tutor
- 'What is Surrealism?' handout, provided by the course tutor
Week 2
More Buñuel: 'Belle De Jour' (1967) + The Marquis de Sade
'One of the most politically orientated avant-garde movements of twentieth-century art, the Surrealists, re-discovered Sade and transformed his reputation into a philosophical and revolutionary hero.' - Professor Neil Cox, Art Historian
In this week's seminar, we will return to the work of the surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel, focusing on his classic surrealist film Belle de Jour (1967). Students will be asked to consider what makes Belle de jour a surrealist film; explore what the film tells us about love, desire, repression, dream and reality; and examine the inter-textual presence in the film of Lewis Carroll's Alice books and Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs (1870). They will also read and study the ideas expressed in the third part of the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795) and learn of the importance of Sade's writings to Buñuel and the surrealist movement as a whole (students will be shown a range of surrealist art works inspired by Sade's work, including those by Toyen and Magritte). In preparation for the upcoming 'surrealism-and-feminism' seminars, we will discuss (with reference to texts on Sade by writers such as Angela Carter, Simone de Beauvoir, and Andrea Dworkin) whether or not Sade can be said to have been a feminist.
Films:
ñ Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967)
ñ Luis Buñuel's L'âge d'or (1930) – may show excerpts from
ñ Jan Švankmajer's Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) – may show excerpts from
ñ Jan Švankmajer's Lunacy (2005) – may show excerpts from
Required readings:
- the third part of the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), available online in full (for free and in English) here
- Selected interviews, articles and essays, provided by the course tutor,including an essay in which the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm provides a definition of the unconscious
Week 3
Surrealism and Feminism 1: Nelly Kaplan's 'A Very Curious Girl' (1969) & Věra Chytilová's 'Daisies' (1966)
This week seminar will focus on Nelly Kaplan's A Very Curious Girl (1969) and Věra Chytilová's Daisies (1966). Students will be asked to analyse and evaluate the films and, in doing so, consider some of the following questions: (1) What makes these films surrealist films? Are the films more dada than surreal? (2) What are the similarities and differences between the films and other surrealist films? (3) Are the films feminist films? (4) How does consideration of the films as surrealist help to illuminate them or surrealism?
Films:
ñ Nelly Kaplan's A Very Curious Girl (1969)
ñ Věra Chytilová's Daisies (1966)
ñ Věra Chytilová's Something Different (1963) – may show excerpts from
ñ Jan Němec's Mucedníci lásky / Martyrs of Love (1967) – may show excerpts from
ñ Jiří Menzel's Larks on A String (1969) – may show excerpts from
Required readings:
- 'On Patriarchy' by bell hooks, provided by the course tutor
- Chapter on Daisies in Peter Hames' The Czechoslovak New Wave, provided by the course tutor
- 'What is Surrealism?' by André Breton: http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html
Week 4
Surrealism and Feminism 2: Vítězslav Nezval's 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' (1970) & Louis Malle's 'Black Moon' (1975)
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Annotation
Course Description
'Surrealism is a journey into the depths of the soul... it is [an] adventure.' - Jan Švankmajer, Czech Surrealist
This course has three main aims. First, to study some of the greatest surrealist films ever made, such as Věra Chytilová's Daisies (1966), Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967), Jan Švankmajer's Alice (1988, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's novella Alice in Wonderland), and Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg (2007). Second, to explore what it is that makes a surrealist film surreal. Third, to open all of its participants' eyes to a realm beyond the limits of everyday reality. Students will learn about the origin and aims of the surrealist movement, as well as the significant differences between surrealism and dadaism. They will also be introduced to a number of the surrealist movement's most important thinkers (e.g. André Breton, George Bataille), artists (e.g. Toyen, Claude Cahun, Max Ernst), and progenitors (e.g. Marquis de Sade, Lewis Carroll). Furthermore, they will be taught a variety of theories and theoretical concepts – from feminism, psychoanalysis, cinema studies, and surrealism itself – useful for the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of surrealist texts (these include bell hooks' definition of patriarchal ideology, Julia Kristeva's notion of 'the abject', Salvador Dali's 'paranoiac-critical method', and Sigmund Freud's understanding of the working of dreams).
The course consists of one 2-hour seminar +and+ one film screening per week (note: length of films vary).