Lost the Plot - Surrealism And Narrative

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 Throughout the wide library of surrealist films, one narrative feature shines through as a significant feature of the narrative structure. This one narrative feature has a  surprising lack of any real narrative features. These films, which identify themselves as a part of the surrealism movement, consistently show audiences jumbled events which have no real relevance to any form of the greater plot. This incoherency creates a unique film style, with no surface-level meaning clearly available to audiences. To get an idea of a discernible plot, the viewer needs to investigate deeper into the film. Over the course of this article, I will be taking a look at 2 classic surrealists, Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’age D’or (1930), whilst comparing the two to a more modern take on surrealism, Martin Scorsese’s The Big Shave from 1967.


For every surrealist film, it is incredibly hard to delve deep into the plot because, to put it simply, there rarely is one. The script for Un Chien Andalou was written in just one week, and Salvador Dali stated that his and Louis Bunuel’s only writing technique was not to include any imagery or ideas that viewers could devise any rational meaning for. This certainly comes across in the film's 16 minutes run time. We see throughout the film what is essentially a series of dreamlike sequences with no relevance to the sequence that came before it or the sequence which is about to follow. The story is totally incoherent and follows a non-linear narrative construct, but this is not the type of non-linear narrative that we regularly see in other film movements such as Film Noir, this instance of the construct is so absurd that no real plot can be pulled from the film and we as an audience are forced to try and establish a meaning out of essentially nothing. It is as if these events are not connected at all, and a number of shocking things happening to the main characters throughout their lives have just been smashed together in the hopes of creating an illogical sequence of scenes.


One example of Un Chien Andalou’s incoherency is the scene where the lady has her eye cut open; this scene has no build-up and no consequences. It is not mentioned at all throughout the film once it has happened.


While Un Chien Andalou was Louis Bunuel’s first film, his first feature-length film came a year later in the form of L’age D’or. The classic surrealist film stands an hour long and follows a similar narrative structure to that of its predecessor. Much like Un Chien Andalou, L’age D’or is significantly incoherent and could be seen as a string of short dream sequences with no particular relevance to an overarching plot. While the film has more of a plot than Louis’ previous creation, it is less of a storyline and more of a theme that most (but not all) events have sprinklings of. The general idea is that a man and a woman want to be together, but every attempt at a physical connection is disturbed somehow. This, however, in traditional surrealist fashion, is not the case in every sequence. Most noticeably, the film opens with what appears to be a short documentary on scorpions. This, just like every other part of the film, is not even referenced again throughout the film. The main thing that is prominently missing in both L’age D’or, Un Chien Andalou and, in fact, throughout most surrealist films over the course of history, is the idea of Cause and Effect. Things happen during these films that no audience member could possibly expect without any build-up, and directly following the event, viewers will also not have any time to react as the film has already moved on. 


While the surrealist film movement may have peaked in the early 30s with the work of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, it hasn’t stopped there, and even today, we have smaller indie filmmakers creating Surrealist pieces of work. In 1967, a young Martin Scorsese gave creating a surrealist film a go. The Big Shave is different from the likes of Un Chien Andalou and L’age D’or as instead of having a string of dream-like sequences where nothing really makes sense, and there is just one scene, one sequence, one thing happening. The Big Shave moves away from classic surrealism’s ideals and dives into the deep end, progressively shocking audiences more and more as its short 5-minute run time goes on. It starts off with a standard clip of a man shaving until he starts to cut his face more and more, culminating in him slicing his neck open, truly horrifying most viewers. While there is a build-up to this moment, it still has elements of the classic surrealist ideals. The film has more meaning than Bunuel’s and Dali’s attempts of the late 20s and early 30s, as at the time, it stood as a way of Scorsese complaining about America's actions during the Vietnam War. At the very least, Un Chien Andalou and L’age D’or have some form of the relation between the events, although through characters mainly, direct relationships between the events don’t really exist in any of the 3 films.


“The power and nature of the film’s symbolism is unambiguous. The man’s self-destructive, obsessive behaviour stands as a metaphor for the United States’ involvement in the conflict”

(W. Cummings)


While The Big Shave film is significantly different in style from the two classics from Bunuel and Dali, the three films are fundamentally similar. All three lack any form of meaning. However, despite the lack of a real plot or storyline, I believe Narrative Structure is the most important factor in analysing a surrealist film. Their absurdity and total lack of sense are what defines them as surrealists, and this would not be possible without a coherent storyline. 




References

Un Chien Andalou (Bunuel, Dali) -  

Un Chien Andalou(1929)- High Definition Remaster(4K)


L’age D’or (Bunuel, Dali) -

L'Age D'Or 1930


The Big Shave (Scorsese) - 

The Big Shave (1967) 𝑨 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒏 𝑺𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝑭𝒊𝒍𝒎 𝟏𝟎𝟖𝟎𝐩


Cummings, William. “Martin Scorsese's The Big Shave | William Cummings.” William Cummings, 25 March 2013, https://bilcummings.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/martin-scorseses-the-big-shave/. Accessed 17 March 2022.

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