Un Chien Andalou

I have selected Un Chien Andalou from the Broken Screen list because it gave birth to experimental and non-linear filmmaking techniques. The title translates to An Andalusian Dog. Released in 1929, Un Chien Andalou is a black-and-white short-subject conceived by Salvador Dali and Louis Bunuel. Bunuel directed the movie, which is listed in Broken Screen under Structural Manipulation: Subverting linear storylines through technical expression. Indeed, Un Chien Andalou does not portray a linear storyline, but presents a series of bizarre scenes that may or may not have any real narrative quality. The artistry of Un Chien Andalou lies in the disjointed, dreamlike staging and sequencing of the scenes. For example, a shot of a cloud moving across the moon is juxtaposed with a shot of a knife slicing through a woman's eye. A scene showing ants crawling out of a hole in a man's palm is intercut with shots of a woman prodding a severed hand lying in the middle of a road.

These seemingly meaningless images are not meant to serve a narrative. They feel more like a montage depicting completely irrational happenings, arranged without formula. As a result, time is manipulated to the point of apparent insignificance in Un Chien Andalou. Conveyed through title cards, scenes skip ahead eight years into the future; then to 3 am; then to sixteen years prior; then simply to "Spring." This seemingly random manipulation of time serves the film by creating a fantastical, spontaneous, and open-ended atmosphere in which the bizarre vision of Dali and Bunuel is allowed to flourish.

One scene that best depicts the irrational chronology of Un Chien Andalou is a sequence depicting an exchange between a bicycle-riding man and a woman. The biker, transporting a small striped box, crashes into the sidewalk, and the woman rushes to his aid. This dissovles to a shot of the woman opening the box and removing a striped tie. She sets these objects on her bed along with the man's clothing. Then she sits in her chair and gazes at the bed. Suddenly the man appears in the room, staring at his hand. Ants crawl from a hole in his palm. This cuts directly to the streets, where a severed hand lies surrounded by a crowd. A girl pokes at the hand with a cane, then reveals that she posesses the aformentioned striped box. The man and woman watch from above as the girl is suddenly run down by a car. The man marvels at the carnage, then turns on the woman with lust. He begins to grope her. As he does this, her clothing melts into invisiblilty (using dissolves) and the man grips flesh. The woman espcapes his grasp for a moment, and she is again clothed. All at once the man is shown pulling a piano containing a dead donkey and two priests across the floor. The woman runs out the door and shuts it on the man's outstretched, ant-spewing hand. Then the film jumps ahead eight years, this time showing the man in bed, dressed in the clothes laid there by the woman.

The nudity and disturbing images in this strangely executed segment, along with its irrational sequencing, evoke a nightmarish quality. Highly controversial for its time, Un Chien Andalou cannot be dismissed as a mere montage of random images. It is a collection of feelings generated by the content and presentation of these images.