Film Art is a form of Media Art originally made possible by the creation of celluloid film technologies since the late 1800s to present, for instance: Un Chien Andalou — Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel (1929)
Un Chien Andalou is a Film Art collab. Dali is well known as a Surrealist artist. Buñuel continued in Cinema (movies) with an extensive film career and filmography as a Director.
Un Chien Andalou is well known for a particular shot sequence, however, i love many other aspects of this film such as these characters, actions, and moments.
The most famous film sequence from Un Chien Andalou is a series of shots and ‘cuts’ which show the slicing of an eyeball in closeup. This seems to be the eye of one of the characters, the Young Girl, played by Simone Mareuil. Of course, in actuality, this is a low-budget special effect that is very effective. In the film, the cutting of the eye with a razor blade is intercut with a cloud slicing The Moon. The visual comparison is tight and well-crafted. The moment is literal and narrative as well as simultaneously leading audiences to consider symbolic and metaphorical meanings (although the artists would deny these interpretations).
Much has been written and said about this sequence, because it is taught in almost every Cinema school and Film Art program. One of the most basic and still important meanings of the razor blade cutting sequence is that during the time of its making, artists cut film literally with razor blades. This is the reason a ‘cut’ between shots in a film is called a ‘cut’. This is also the reason you click a razor blade icon when you edit digital video files in apps and software. The razor blade icon is a metaphor from a literal Media Art Hystories of making cuts. Cutting film is both literal and transformative. Buñuel himself sat with a razor cutting the film, at home, in his own kitchen, to create the edit that we know today.
Cutting in films, in Cinema, creates meanings because we make meaning from one cut to the next, even in nonlinear narratives. Mayhaps cuts are especially important for nonlinear narratives such as Un Chien Andalou, which exemplifies Surrealist filmmaking and moves from one moment to the next on the basis of dream logic. During nonlinear narratives, we are not following a traditional story structure, but instead, we are making meanings ourselves, on the basis of what we are shown and what we know.
The horror and humor of Un Chien Andalou unfolds over time, through the pacing, or rhythm of the film, as well as the events we see or imagine. Our experience of time and the structure of the film which is intended to disorient us. Dalí and Buñuel established a grammar of experimental Film Art with their collaboration, however, that was not their goal. In tone and subject matter, they meant to push boundaries and shock audiences. They hoped to challenge audiences expectations, but rather than being rejected, this artwork has become a hallmark of the Avant-garde. Their style became iconic. Exploring themes of identity displacement, the Surrealist fascination with subconscious desire, sexuality, violence, and death they integrated influences of their time from Catholicism to the urban experience of Paris of the 1920s. The lasting influence of Un Chien Andalou is profound and continues to be a source of inspiration that is now in the Public Domain.
How will we work with this film in ways that Dalí and Buñuel could never have imagined almost 100 years ago? Who will glitch our expectations even further, using this material to move beyond what even Surrealism or Glitch Art has to offer? The real surprise lies ahead, now in 2025, as Un Chien Andalou enters the Public Domain!
Un Chien Andalou, Public Domain 2025 — written by jonCates, an open education resource for glitch.school Media Art Hystories, January 1rst 2025
