i assume nothing about bunuel, and never try to overinterpret him. and i never try to stay one step ahead of him and think i know what he’s thinking. his films consciously shun that.
Thanks again, Rodney. Bunuel and his beliefs are fascinating. He took the problems of religion and meaninglessness seriously. Avoiding dogma, he pushed his ideas forward through a potent combination of rebellion and humility. He always struck me as a thoughtful badass who is brutal and empathetic in equal measure to the human condition.
Rodney, great info provided, and Vellaem I agree with your conclusion about brutality and empathy. I have always felt a bit cheated by Viridiana, there’s something overly schematic about it: whether she had been raised in a convent or raised outside of one, it would have been difficult to deal with a perverse uncle who hangs himself over you. The fact that she feels so tainted that she has to stay on at the plantation and redeem herself somehow may be one of those “ludicrous” consequences of too much religion, but there’s also some kind of trauma she’s working through, and which she only makes worse by bringing more trauma upon herself. But I don’t believe that the film really finds a place of freedom, sexual or otherwise, that would illuminate the human condition any better. The life of the guy in it, and the fact that his will comes to dominate the household in the end, seems just as empty as anything else. In a later, non-religious film like Belle de Jour, Bunuel makes a stronger case, I think, for how sexuality really does offer a kind of liberation from bourgeois values, but even there, total freedom is itself a kind of enslavement, and Belle is shown as being unable to have it all. But it’s about as ambiguous as the jaws of a bear-trap.
(Too bad I won’t get a reply from Justin for this, but certainly others may have some thoughts along these lines)
I don’t feel cheated by Viridiana because she does as she was taught to, what has been framed for her the correct path, expression. This connects with what Bunuel says above about “What would the character actually do?” After the trauma she goes through, her thought may be to leave, but then it is to try to do God’s work. Too bad she’s on earth.
One of the best parts about Viridiana is that it seems at first to paint an entirely scathing commentary on the upper classes, but then plays out so that it is the people she invites inside who are one of the primary causes of her failure. It’s done subtly enough that people on their own could be satisfied with the “Yeah, rich people SUCK” aspects of it except how Bunuel points out the failings of the poor in equal measure. It’s not equal measure so that their, call it, crimes are held with the same punishment or sneer, but a sort of detached observation to the human habit.
—PolarisDiB
Rodney Welch
This is in reference to a comment Alonso Díaz de la Vega made in the “One Film Introduction” thread.
Alonso — This is where I tend to part company with a lot of people on Bunuel. I think sometimes people assume certain things about him because he’s an atheist. There’s little question that Bunuel totally rejected God and religion — and yet, it fascinates him, too. In both Nazarin and Viridiana he presents devout people who are, you might say, mugged by reality, yet I do not see either of these characters, naive as they may be, as fools or caricatures, or that the world would be a better place or they would be happier people if they adopted a supposedly more rational way of living.
Both of them are concerned, caring, decent people whose generosity is thrown back in their face, and at some level a lot of viewers wonder if he’s not saying that generosity of any kind is useless. Pauline Kael, for one, pointed to the scene in Viridiana where Jorge saves a dog who is tied to a leash and trailing along his master’s horse-drawn cart; no sooner is the dog set free than another cart passes by, with another dog tied to it — as if to suggest that any act of kindness is, in the long run, meaningless. Kael wondered if Bunuel thought it isn’t equally pointless to aid starving children.
Actually, what it all comes down to with Bunuel, I think, is ambiguity — and this is why his films remain so interesting, because they are mysterious, because just as soon as you think you’ve cornered what Bunuel really believes, there’s an open question.
From an interview:
Bunuel: …I don’t try to show that Nazarin has regained his faith in either religion or mankind, or that he has completely lost his faith. What I can tell you is that Nazarin’s attitude intrigues me … And it moves me. What will happen to this man after so many experiences? I don’t know.
Colina: We have bumped up against the famous Bunuel ambiguity…
Bunuel: (Laughs) Ambiguity is always present… But, speaking seriously, it’s not that I tell myself to put things in my films that
can themselves be interpreted in black and white. That would be self-deceptive. What I know is that, in a situation similar to
Nazarin’s, any man has contradictory reactions. Let’s suppose I am Nazarin and inside I am destroyed, overwhelmed by my failure both as a priest and as a man. Someone offers me a pineapple out of pity and my first reaction is to reject it. It has come down to pineapples for me now! Then I take a few steps and reconsider: this poor woman has offered me the only thing she can give; she doesn’t see me either as a priest or a criminal, but only an unfortunate man, and I have refused her gesture violently, with a lack of humility. So, I turn around and accept the pineapple. There are no theories or metaphysics in the scene. I would have acted the same way. Nazarin is very close to me.
From another interview:
Bunuel: … Luckily, even as a young man I was able to glimpse something that, on the spiritual and poetic plane, goes far beyond
Christian morality. I’m not so presumptuous as to want to make the world over. I know that in this sense my experience is sterile, but it
does help me to clarify my films somewhat . . . I cannot be untrue to myself. My morality is —
Poniatowska: The morality of Nazarin?
Bunuel: Nazarin is entirely compatible with my morality.
Poniatowska: The Nazarin who fails? The Nazarin who can do nothing with the Church? The unfrocked Nazarin, who strides through the fields followed by two hysterical women?
Bunuel:Yes, that Nazarin.
Poniatowska: But why? Christ —
Bunuel: Christ was crucified after He was found guilty. Wouldn’t you call that a failure? Do you believe it is possible to be Christian in he
absolute sense of the word?
Poniatowska: Yes, by giving up everything, by withdrawing from the world.
Bunuel: No, no! I’m speaking of the world , of the earth on which we live. If Christ were to return, they’d crucify Him again. It is
possible to be relatively Christian, but the absolutely pure, the absolutely innocent man — he’s bound to fail. He’s licked before he
starts. I am sure that if Christ came back, the Church, the powerful churchmen, would condemn him again.
Poniatowska: As a film, Nazarin seems to me strange and ambiguous.
Bunuel: You say ambiguous. I agree. The style is ambiguous and that’s why it interests me. If a work is obvious, as far as I’m concerned it’s finished. As for the religious problem, I’m convinced that the Christian in the pure and absolute meaning of the world has no place on
this earth.
Poniatowska: But why not?
Bunuel: Because in a world so badly made, as ours is, there is only one road — rebellion.
Poniatowska: It’s always the rebels who interest you? The doubters? People who are looking for something?
Bunuel: Mystery interests me. Mystery is the essential element of every work of art. I will never grow tired of repeating this.