Still charming at 50: Luis Buñuel's greatest hit
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 5, 2024


Still charming at 50: Luis Buñuel's greatest hit
Manners matter in “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” starring, from left, Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Bulle Ogier, Milena Vukotic, Paul Frankeur, Stéphane Audran and Fernando Rey. Photo: Rialto Pictures.

by J. Hoberman



NEW YORK, NY.- Luis Buñuel is a filmmaker with few peers and a unique career trajectory. A hardcore Surrealist in 1920s Paris and a propagandist for Republican Spain during the Civil War, Buñuel found refuge in the Mexican film industry before making a triumphant, late-life return to France and the art cinema pantheon.

“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” was Buñuel’s greatest commercial and critical success, capped with the 1972 Oscar for best foreign film. Given a new 4K digital restoration, it has been revived for a two-week run at Film Forum in Manhattan.

Buñuel, who died in 1983, intended “The Discreet Charm” as his last film (it was not), and it recapitulates certain career-long concerns. The movie is typically described as a comedy of frustration in which a sextet of well-heeled, super-civilized haute bourgeois (five French people and the ambassador from an imaginary South American country) repeatedly attempt and fail to sit down at dinner. As such, it elaborates on the thwarted desires that fuel two earlier masterpieces of his: “L’age d’Or,” made with Salvador Dalí in 1930, and Buñuel’s penultimate Mexican production, “The Exterminating Angel” (1962).

The movie is suavely irrational, predicated on interlocking dreams (and dreams within dreams), as well as assorted terrorists, gangsters and army officers, along with an extremely obliging bishop (Julien Bertheau). It is also an avant-garde sitcom. The men are ruling-class criminals — although the ambassador (Fernando Rey) is far craftier than his French buddies (Paul Frankeur and Jean-Pierre Cassel). The two older women (Delphine Seyrig and Stéphane Audran) are ferociously poised fashion police; the group’s youngest member (Bulle Ogier) is a bit of a wild card. Much of the humor relies on their inane observations and absurd sang-froid in a succession of increasingly awkward social situations. (Imagine a smart tearoom running out of tea!)

A few scenes of torture notwithstanding, American critics swooned for “The Discreet Charm.” Andrew Sarris called it “clearly the film of the year.” Vincent Canby’s New York Times review hailed it as “the unique creation of a director who, at 72, has never been more fully in control of his talents, as a filmmaker, a moralist, social critic and humorist.” While it is hard to disagree with this assessment, it’s possible to prefer Buñuel’s less digestible works — particularly “Viridiana” (1961), which sneaked past Spain’s fascist censors, and the low-budget Mexican films that were, of necessity, directed against the grain.

“The Discreet Charm” is not without its pleasures. Seyrig, Audran and Ogier are magnificent farceurs. Buñuel might be shooting fish in a barrel, but French manners have seldom been so expertly ridiculed. A few of the movie’s pranks (an inconvenient death disrupts one dinner) still shock; others (Ogier parading around in Napoleon’s hat) remain laugh-out-loud funny. It’s fascinating to see Buñuel’s engagement with the Godard of “La Chinoise” and “Weekend” and even, in the casting of Rey, “The French Connection.”

And yet, while “The Discreet Charm” is not exactly complacent, neither is it unreconciled. For all its unpatriotic and anticlerical jibes, the movie is too expansively genial to be truly discomfiting. The Oscar is the tipoff, even if Buñuel did suggest that his producer had bribed the Academy to get it.

Event Info:

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Through July 7 at Film Forum in Manhattan; filmforum.org.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

June 26, 2022

FBI raids Orlando Museum and removes Basquiat paintings

San Francisco school board reverses vote on mural removal

Exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Monaco marks the twentieth anniversary of Paul McCarthy's Pirate Project

British art dealer Miles Wynn Cato discovers a long-lost portrait of the great English philosopher, John Locke

Exhibition examines the work of six artists and their artistic engagement with lifeforms

James Cohan opens an exhibition of drawings and related sculptural works by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Naotaka Hiro's first solo exhibition at Bortolami opens in New York

Jeppe Hein presents an interactive public art installation on Rockefeller Center's Center Plaza

Still charming at 50: Luis Buñuel's greatest hit

From New York to Venice, a survey of abstract painting at Museum Ca' Pesaro

Museum of Sonoma County presents Collective Arising: The Insistence of Black Bay Area Artists

South African artist Zander Blom's second solo exhibition with signs and symbols opens in New York

Harry Gesner, architect of soaring California style, dies at 97

Exhibition features a representative selection of ten videos made by William E. Jones over the last three decades

Baxter Black, who elevated cowboy poetry to folk art, dies at 77

The 'most real Richard III there's ever been'

New exhibition celebrates the brief creative life & legacy of self-taught designer who challenged fashion

On Broadway, one show decides to keep masks. No, it's not 'Phantom.'

Before Riccardo Muti leaves Chicago, a Verdi farewell

The Netrebko question

Pacific Northwest Ballet finally makes it back to New York

Ken Knowlton, a father of computer art and animation, dies at 91

The FLAG Art Foundation opens an exhibition of works drawn from the collection of Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman

Garment District Space for Public Art presents mixed-media exhibition created by New York-based artist Rita Wilmers

What is the best lamp for Manicures?

Why So Many Urban Riders Prefer Foldable Electric Bikes?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful