Reframing Reality: The Aesthetics of the Surrealist Object in French and Czech Cinema

Marcel Duchamp’s urinal re-named ‘fountain’ and placed in an art gallery. The classic image that can be seen as a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it. A random object that grabs your attention and, like a Freudian slip, sums up whatever’s on your mind. These are just a few examples of surrealist objects, items from everyday life that have something to tell us about the workings of the unconscious. In Reframing Reality, Alison Frank argues that the surrealist object offers a promising new way of understanding surrealism’s legacy in cinema. Early studies of surrealist cinema restricted themselves to the handful of films that received official approval from the surrealist group. More recent studies have looked more broadly at films that explore the unconscious as a theme. Reframing Reality is the first to use the specifically surrealist concept of the surrealist object to trace the influence of surrealism in a broader range of films. When objects to do more than just advance the storyline, or have a mysterious meaning that is never fully explained, they are imitating the form of the surrealist object. Reframing Reality finds surrealist objects in films by Luis Buñuel and Jan Švankmajer, who acknowledged the importance of surrealism in their work, but also in the films of René Clair, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the directors of the Czech New Wave, for whom surrealism was just one of many influences. By looking more closely at the role of objects in films, particularly those made during times of great change in the industry, we can gain a better understanding of both the legacy of surrealism in cinema and film language more generally.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Surrealist Objects and Cinema The notion of the surrealist object The hybrid object versus the surrealist object; cinema versus surrealism Objects in surrealist cinema: Un Chien andalou Chapter 2: Style and the Hybrid Object in Á Nous la liberté Style in Á Nous la liberté Object analysis Chapter 3: The Everyday and the Hybrid Object in the Czech New Wave and Jan Švankmajer The context of a cultural renewal Czech surrealism from its beginnings to the 1960s Common concerns of Czech surrealism and Czech New Wave Hybrid objects and the Czech New Wave Hybrid Objects and Jan Švankmajer’s short films of the 1960s Chapter 4: Genre and the Hybrid Object in Late Bunuel Generic hybridity and subjectivity in the 1930s and 60s Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie Belle de Jour Cet obscure objet du désir Chapter 5: Media Objects in Le Fabuluex destin d’Amélie Poulain Jean-Pierre Jeunet and René Clair Cinéma du look Postmodernism Media of expression and communication as objects Conclusion Bibliography Index