Surrealism in the moving image
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) Salvador Dali
What is Surrealism
Surrealism is a literary and artistic movement that began in the 1920s to interpret the creative workings of the subconscious through the juxtaposition of images. The movement defies rational thinking and control with the purpose to liberate the unconscious mind.
Studies and works of Sigmund Freud, Guillaume Apollinaire, Comte de Lautréamont and Karl Marx had great influence on the shaping of the movement.
Surrealism in film
Surrealist films use dream-like sequence of actions that can only be portrayed through symbolic language that cannot be understood or interpreted in a rational way. Elements of the everyday life, reworked in an imaginative way. Below are a selection of early exploration of surrealism in the moving image.
Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali
