Luis Buñuel: A Life in Letters

PROSE Award for Excellence in Media and Cultural Studies Finalist 2020 Luis Buñuel: A Life in Letters provides access for the first time to an annotated English-language version of around 750 of the most important and most widely relevant of these letters. Buñuel (1900-1983) came to international attention with his first films, Un Chien Andalou (with Dalí, 1929) and L'Âge d'Or (1930): two surprisingly avant-garde productions that established his position as the undisputed master of Surrealist filmmaking. He went on to make 30 full-length features in France, the US and Mexico, and consolidated his international reputation with a Palme d'Or for Viridiana in 1961, and an Academy Award in 1973 for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. He corresponded with some of the most famous writers, directors, actors and artists of his generation and the list of these correspondents reads like a roll call of major twentieth-century cultural icons: Fellini, Truffaut, Vigo, Aragon, Dalí, Unik - and yet none of this material has been accessible outside specialist archives and a very small number of publications in Spanish and French.

Table of Contents:
Preface Editors' Introduction 250 Annotated Letters List of Correspondents Chronology Filmography Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Jo Evans is Senior Lecturer in the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London, UK. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on Spanish film and Hispanic literature, and is the author of books on the Franco Regime poet Ángela Figuera Aymerich and on the Spanish director Julio Medem. Breixo Viejo is Senior Research Associate in the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London, UK. He has published numerous articles and books chapters on film and is the author of monographs on film music and Jim Jarmusch, and editions on Samuel Beckett and Francisco Aranda.

Review :
[A] magnificent addition to Buñuel studies. A gift of much-needed Buñueliana, a last lingering visit with one of the 20th century's most lovable and acerbic troublemakers, as he slowly, and with a vast cabal of friends, carves out a singular cinematic highway, against the odds of mass entertainment fashion and commerce. This superb book gathers together a comprehensive collection of some of the most important and widely relevant examples of Luis Buñuel's correspondence ... [And] offers a wealth of insight into Buñuel's creative process and how he worked with his closest collaborators ... It's also fascinating to see how long Buñuel struggled for work ... In correspondence with close friends, Buñuel retains an unshakeable optimism that something will come up around the corner ... which sets a terrific example for artists trying to make their way in the world. Witty, humorous, revelatory, Buñuel's letters are a rich mine of information on one of the world's greatest film-makers. This superb edition of letters from and to Buñuel will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of world cinema. As much an essential companion piece to My Last Sigh as it is to Luis Buñuel's films, this correspondence from the battlefields of Mexican genre cinema, family life, exile, success, Hollywood and the European art house is the unholy grail for all those seeking to unpick the myth from the man. Amongst much else that is as intimate as it is open, these letters communicate Buñuel's wry, amused and bemused reflections, his memories as works-in-progress, and his frequent efforts to set straight twisted records. Garlanded with informative footnotes, this collection is a magnificent testament to the everyday burden and bonhomie of being Buñuel.