Luis Buñuel (February 22, 1900 – July 29, 1983) was a Spanish-born surrealist filmmaker and poet.

Life

Buñuel was born in Calanda , Teruel, Aragón, Spain. He had a strict Jesuit education and went to university in Madrid. He was a very close friend of Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca, among other important Spanish artists that were living in the Residencia de Estudiantes . After that, he moved to Paris to do film-related work.

He married Jeanne Rucar in 1925. Buñuel became a Mexican citizen in 1948. His sons are film-maker Rafael Buñuel and Juan Luis Buñuel .

He died in Mexico City of cirrhosis of the liver.

Works

After working on several films as a director's assistant (Jean Epstein on Mauprat and Mario Nalpas on La Sirène des Tropiques) he co-wrote and then filmed a 24 minute short film Un Chien Andalou (1929) with Salvador Dalí. This film, featuring a series of startling and sometimes horrifying images (such as the slow slicing of a woman's eyeball with a razor blade) was enthusiastically received by French surrealists of the time and continues to be shown regularly in film societies to this day.

He continued using this surreal imagery that found fertile ground in Mexico. Famous are his scenes where chickens populate nightmares, women grow beards and aspiring saints are desired by luscious women.

Most of his later films were openly critical of middle class morals and organised religion, mocking their pretensions with often vicious and overt attacks on the Church and priests.

Filmography (director)

• Cet obscur objet du désir (1977)
• Le fantôme de la liberté (1974)
• Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) (1972), won Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• Tristana (1970)
• La voie lactée (1969)
• Belle de jour (1967), starring Catherine Deneuve
• Simón del desierto (1965)
• Le journal d'une femme de chambre (1964), starring Jeanne Moreau
• El Ángel exterminador (1962)
• Viridiana (1961), won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival
• La joven (1960)
• La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)
• Nazarín (1959)
• La mort en ce jardin (1956)
• Cela s'appelle l'aurore (1955)
• El río y la muerte (1955)
• Ensayo de un crimen (1955)
• Las Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe (1954)
• Abismos de pasión (1954)
• La ilusión viaja en tranvía (1954)
• El (1953)
• El bruto (1953)
• Una mujer sin amor (1952)
• Subida al cielo (1952)
• La hija del engaño (1951)
• Susana (1951)
• Los olvidados (1950)
• El Gran Calavera (1949)
• Gran Casino (1947)
• Las Hurdes (1933)
• L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age) (1930)
• Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929)

External links

• Internet Movie Database
• AllMovie Guide