Luis Buñuel and the Evolution of the Surrealist Imagination

Malcolm Compitello
Mondays 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
July 8, 15, 22, 29 and August 5, 2019
Watch the video to learn more about this course

Luis Buñuel and the Evolution of the Surrealist Imagination

Summer 2019
In Session
Mondays
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
July 8, 15, 22, 29 and August 5, 2019

Location: 

Main Campus

Tuition: 

$165

The Spanish film Director Luis Buñuel played a decisive role in the development of modern cinema and contributed richly to the development of national cinemas in Spain, his country of origin, Mexico and France. A surrealist from the beginning to the end of his long career, Buñuel's films remained deeply experimental and socially engaged simultaneously.

This five-week class will trace the arc of Buñuel's film making. It begins by assessing the essential tension between social responsibility and artistic innovation in the director's work by looking at La Age D'Or and Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (Las Hurdes: a Land without Food). It will examine Buñuel's long period of filmmaking in Mexico through an examination of Los 0lvidados (The Forgotten). The Franco Regime's attempt to legitimize itself by inviting the exiled director to make the film Viridiana, and the unforeseen consequences of this experiment will occupy the fourth week of the class. The last week treats Buñuel's work in France through an examination of his Oscar winning The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and also assess Buñuel's legacy as a filmmaker.

Registration Opens Online: Monday, March 25, 2019 at 8AM (AZ Time)

Required Reading: 

Selections from My Ultimate Sigh (Buñuel's autobiography) and other critical works in PDF format.
The films are available on Amazon Prime and other online platforms. Public screenings of the films will also be arranged in the Rubel Room.

Meet Your Professor

Professor Emeritus
Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Malcolm Alan Compitello is Emeritus Professor of Spanish and former Program Director for the Humanities Seminars Program. He regularly taught classes in modern and contemporary Spanish culture and literature including the work of García Lorca. Professor Compitello is the Founding Editor of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies one of the premier scholarly journals in that field. He has published widely in venues in Europe and the United States and is currently engaged in several projects dealing with the interconnections between cities, cultural and capital as they play out in Spain since the 1960s.

  • Ted and Shirley Taubeneck Superior Teaching Award

Location

Poetry Center
Dorothy Rubel Room
1508 E Helen
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States
Located on the SE corner of Helen Street and Vine Avenue, one block north of Speedway and three blocks west of Campbell Ave.

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