Luis Buñuel, the father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of film, received a strict Jesuit education that instilled in him an obsession with both religion and subversive behavior. He then moved to Madrid to study at the university, where he befriended Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca.
After relocating to Paris, Buñuel worked in various film-related jobs, including assisting director Jean Epstein. With financial support from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he produced his first film, the 17-minute Un chien andalou (1929),which catapulted him into film history with its shocking imagery.
The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, Buñuel created his first feature, the scathing L'Age d'Or (1930),which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes. This theme would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career.
However, by the mid-1930s, he found work increasingly difficult to come by, and after the Spanish Civil War, he emigrated to the US, where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros.
In the late 1940s, Buñuel moved to Mexico and teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers. After a couple of unremarkable efforts, he shot back to international attention with the lacerating The Young and the Damned (1950),winning the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Despite this renewed acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made a significant impact outside Spanish-speaking countries. However, in 1961, General Franco invited Buñuel back to his native country, and Buñuel promptly responded by making Viridiana (1961),which was banned in Spain on grounds of blasphemy, though it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
This marked the beginning of Buñuel's last great period, during which he collaborated with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière to create seven extraordinary late masterpieces, starting with Diary of a Chambermaid (1964). Although often featuring major stars like Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve, the films demonstrated that even in old age, Buñuel had lost none of his youthful vigor.
After declaring that every one of his films from Belle de Jour (1967) onwards would be his last, Buñuel finally kept his promise with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977),after which he wrote a memorable autobiography, in which he stated he would be happy to burn all the prints of all his films, a classic Surrealist gesture if ever there was one.
