Luis Buñuel

Highly detailed and exacting in its use of documentary evidence, this meticulous biography, originally published in Spain in 2009, fills in the scant details of a little-known but important time in the life of Luis Buñuel, the Spanish filmmaker best known for the 1929 surrealist film Un chien andalou, which he made with Salvador Dalí. Cinema, propaganda, art, society, government, politics, and personality make up the heady brew that Gubern (communication, Univ. Autónoma de Barcelona) and Hammond (The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema) deftly analyze in this essential study of Buñuel during the years leading up to and including the Spanish civil war. The authors piece together this complicated story by patiently sifting through Buñuel's conflicting recollections and weaving them together with threads from the historical record. A picture emerges that illuminates our understanding of Buñuel's communist politics, his efforts in support of Republican Spain, and the filmmaker himself.