Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or mise en scene comparison

Analyse how one or both experimental surrealist films you have studied use mise-en-scène to create a surrealist aesthetic. [15]

-Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or

Luis Bunuel in both 'L'Age d'Or' and 'Un Chien Andalou' in the definition of the surreal presents an intense irrational reality of dreams and thus the unconscious mind, his auteurial intentions heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. Particularly, a naturalistic mise-en-scene is utilised to aid a sense of security within the spectator. With surrealist film interested in giving the spectator an experience rather than just visual storytelling, Bunuel jolts the spectator in presenting illogical behaviour against a naturalistic setting (a bourgeoise setting in both films as a projection of his criticism towards that class), makeup and costume typical of late 1920s fashion. In combination with editing, a surrealist aesthetic is created through a visual expression of Freud's 'free association' theory. In L'Age d'Or', two lovers - in naturalistic costume - tussle in mud (a surreal representation of their passion), their sexual interests forbidden by the surrounding bourgeoise class. A chronology of cuts is shown: the woman sitting on a toilet in an unestablished location with a flowing piece of light material staged to her left in surrealistic dreamlike movement in contrast to her static position, followed by a cut of grotesque bubbling mud; such imagery is designed to disturb the viewer, using Freud's theory of 'free association' to link images and form a set of ideas. This is similarly used in 'Un Chien Andalou' with the use of match cuts during a series of shots: each element of mise-en-scene, the prop urchin, underarm hair, and crawling ants out of a hand all presented as associated through their similar colours, staging, and forms. Such illogical imagery through the mise-en-scene choices in combination with editing expressively creates a sense of the surreal. As a result, free association is provoked in the spectator, where thoughts and ideas are brought from this in an attempt to link and understand them, ultimately a psychoanalytic process to access the unconscious mind, a theory backing Bunuel's intentions and interest in surrealism. Surrealists, led by artists like Bunuel, were inspired by dreams since this is an expression of the unconscious mind, so they attempt to replicate their processes in illogical and irrational disruptions and absurdist aesthetic imagery. Thus the atmosphere of dreams  - something that appears normal and familiar but what happens within is illogical and disruptive -  is created through a naturalistic mise-en-scene. 

Both films also attempt to explore the behaviour of the unconscious mind in relation to Freud's theory of psychoanalysis, particularly in relation to the ID or primal, instinctual desires such as sex and violence. In 'L'Age d'Or' this is a persistent narrative idea, the repressed sexual desires of two lovers expressed through the various illogical (and thus surreal) props violently thrown out of a bourgeoise window by the man: a burning tree, a priest, spear, ship mast, and artificial giraffe of which falls into an unexplained body of water. This connection made between violence and sex is similarly explored in Un Chien Andalou: a man after witnessing the murder of an androgynous figure (their costume and lack of feminine makeup signifies this, further adding to the film's aesthetic irregularity) begins to grope a nearby woman, a shot of his face grotesquely drooling provoking a disturbed spectator response. This juxtaposition of props to location and setting creates a surrealist aesthetic that explores repressed desires of the unconscious mind, the ambiguity of such props, setting, and staging creating multiple spectator connotations - a motive for the surrealist movement.