Un Chien Andalou, Luis Bunuel, 1929 Spain is a silent film that carries the iconoclastic spirit and aesthetics of surrealism. The mechanism through which the film works is a collision. This collision is an act of dialectic annihilation of antinomies that gives birth to a third entity - an ineffable entity that can be perceived viscerally but analyzed intellectually. As Andre Breton, the founder of the movement, stated, the surreal is a world born from the collision of the real and the unreal. In Bunuel's film a critical observer can behold this and many other conflicts in all the elements of the cinematic language. The paramount dialectic collision, though, is the discrepancy between the semiotic characteristics of the iconography and its formal structure. The various cognitive and sensory layers interact with each other in asynchrony, but follow an underlain logic .I will discuss the first two scenes of the movie.
Murnau's Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau USA is a film structured according to a rigid cinematic paradigm. It explores fundamental moral issues and portrays the dualistic nature of the human soul. Furthermore the concept of dualism is the pivotal technical formula trough which the artwork communicates with the spectator. In contrast to Un Chien Andolou, Sunrise applies synchrony as a principal model in which leading is the concord of form and content. The polyphony of the means of expression and the narrative gist is vividly perceptible in the two sequences I will discuss: the scene in which the man is seduced by the woman from the city and the one in which he tries to drown his wife.
I will start my analysis of Bunuel’s work with discussion of the bulding blocks of every film – the shots. Although this may appear contradictory, the iconography in Un Chien Andalou is subordinate to the principle of formal realism.. Shot entirely on location, the film utilizes the film milieu as a naturalistic fundament, rather similarly to the cinematic approach of the Italian Neorealists. The natural setting provides the organic atmosphere of the frame, a superficial realism which is only a formal mould in which the phantasmal substance is poured. Unlike the deliberately distorted sets that symbolically represent the internal world of the character found in the films of German Expressionism, Un Chien Andalou embarks upon the idea of using realistic images to generate unreal ambiance. This is achieved trough collision of the formal and the semiotic characteristics of the image. What we see appears natural, but its meaning leads to absurdity. The lighting is high key and almost entirely natural, no chiaroscuro illumination techniques are applied. Yet the shadows of the crowd gathered around the hand create a graphic pattern, which stirs the viewer viscerally, but does not convey any direct allusion. This is quintessential for any surrealistic piece of art - the image does not delineate the illusion as a detached from reality unit but rather it presents the reality in the illusion, although in The Seashell and the Clergyman 1928 Germaine Dulac, France, arguably the first surrealistic film, Dulac utilizes light to create oneiric, illusory images. The paradoxical nature of the subconscious comes from the clash between its realistic appearance and its illogical gist. Hence, in Bunuel's film all the mise-en-scene elements - the costumes, the makeup, the set itself, have natural appearance; they're not allegoric or expressive. Surrealism denies the use of allegories or metaphors for they are limited entities, they refer to a finite notion and thus are subordinate to its definition. Allegories are poetic substitutions of a definite notion or concept and what Bunuel strives for is emancipation of the message from normative and conceptual constraints.
As far as the performance is concerned, the acting is stylized and hyperbolized. The erratic nature of the dreams is expressed trough the subterranean hysteria imbued in the performance. In odds with Stanislavski's method the actors don't impersonate characters but rather convey automatic whims of consciousness. Bereft of any true life and personality the characters are a manifestation of the auteur's arbitrary impressions. Their bestial demeanor on screen is an artistic representation of the psychological turbulence, and especially the effusion of suppressed sexual desires - a cinematic reference to Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. The acting is shaped in the standard pantomimic form characteristic for the silent era films, the gestures and movements of the individuals are unnaturally dramatic. The eccentric dramaturgy of the performances produces the sensation of an intimate bacchanalia of a whimsical self-reflective mind.
The cinematographic aspects of Un Chien Andalou are equally provocative. The composition of the shots is classic - well balanced and graphically elegant. That's indicative of the director's acquaintance with the conventional visual canon. Andrei Tarkovsky asserts that 'Bunuel's work is deeply rooted in the classical culture of Spain' p51 A Tarkovsky 1986, . Nevertheless the Spanish director utilizes the classical as a tool of deconstruction - the conflict of what we see and how it is displayed is present again. The framing is traditional. There are no canted angle shots, nor any low angle ones. The chief instrument, though, is the point of view shot. The movie abounds with it - from the woman witnessing the bicyclist's fall to the couple observing the androgyne and the mob from above. At these moments the high-angle shots, which at certain moments evolve in almost overhead ones, work on two levels. First they create spatial coherence and secondly they distance the spectator thus creating a psychological impression of voyeurism - again an allusion to the sexual desires in Freud's philosophy. There are very few close ups, and usually occur by necessity- when the object before the lens or the face of the performer simply demand a close look. Almost entirely emptied of their usual function of emotion-enhancing segments, close ups work on another plane. In the famous eye-slashing sequence the close up on the woman's face and the subsequent extreme close up of the eye being slit the shots work on two levels: first to disturb the spectator and second to graphically mach the shot between them - the cloud going through the moon. There is hardly any camera movement and if any the camera simply follows (and tracks in one shot) the protagonists. As a whole the cinematography of Bunuel is simple but refined. His minimalism is purposeful: the dialectic collision in the imagery is palpable. The dichotomy of Form and Content is surmounted and all margins - obliterated. According to Kant's philosophy, human is doomed to observe only the phenomenon - the appearance of things, but could never perceive rationally the noumenon, which is the thing in itself. Similarly Bunuel uses the fibres of the phenomenon - the realistic image - to interweave them in an abstract paradoxical pattern that contains the unfathomable essence - the noumenon.
The editing technique is in accord with the concept of collision. Contrary to the conventional continuity editing style Bunuel disrupts the space-time film continuum. The relationships between the shots are defined not by mechanical necessity but by psychological associations. Similar to Eisenstein's concept of overtonal montage, the editing in Un Chien Andalou works trough juxtaposition of logically incongruous shots. Bunuel takes associative montage to extremes, riding it of any intellectual preconceptions. The semiotic dimensions of the images are in conflict. A good example is the tree-shot graphic match sequence, where covered with ants palm of the character is juxtaposed with the armpit of a woman and a sea urchin. In that sequence the shots do not simply add up meaning to each other but collide, annihilate their initial content and multiply their autonomous meanings in order to generate a further subconscious impression. Another iconoclastic editing method is the deliberate undermining of spatial and time unity. The use of dissolves as transitions between shots from one and the same scene disturbs and challenges the spectator. The temporal integrity of the action is intentionally unsettled. As Robert Short notes: '...it is in the cuts - the very points at which classical narrative montage strives most for continuity - that the body of the film is dismembered.' p94 The Age of Gold The dissolves, usually used as portals to a completely new plane in time and space, are utilized as a boundary crossing components of the editing that enhance the dreamlike atmosphere of the moving image.
The sound of the film also works trough conflict based on Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis formula. Being a silent film, Un Chien Andalou relies on the musical score as the only information carrying element of sound. Leading is the conflict between the romantic grandeur of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and the absurd visual content. The choice of the music is yet not arbitrary. Wagner introduced tonal dissonance as an artistic form and renounced the limits of traditional harmonic theory. The movie itself bristles with visual and sound counterpoints. Oppositions can be found in the choice of music itself. The epic piece of classical music alternates with a cheap tango melody popular in Paris nightclubs and brothels at that time. In that way the sound amalgamates with the absurdity of the visuals and supplements their psychological impact.
Murnau’s Sunrise works rather differently. The element of the mise-en-scene is of major significance in the film. The properties of the images are clearly attuned to the model of dichotomy of absolutes: good and evil. In opposition to Bunuel's approach, Murnau explicitly reveals the psychological state of the character in the visuals trough the mise-e- scene. The director thus creates a reciprocal relation between the internal world of the protagonists and the external reality. The somber atmosphere in the first scene is a visual reverberation of the spiritual torment of the character; it complements the narrative and enhances the theme of moral depravity. Although shot on location and lacking the multidimensional distorted sets found in his previous works such as Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau Germany, the scene does not convey a sense of naturalism. The real objects carry symbolic connotations. The web of shadows that the tree branches cast on the house resembles an eerie labyrinth in which the protagonist's psyche is trapped. The fluttering fishing-nets metaphorically outline the character's anxiety. A key symbolic component in the scene is the mist. As Nedelcho Milev states: 'The motif of the mist has attained an important formative significance in the whole history of cinema'. Milev p. 93 1998 Mist has become a priory pictorial indicator of tranquility but also a cinematic leitmotif element of fear. In the context of the sequence it renders the picture a minor sounding.
The costume design also underlines the dualistic model that the film elements follow. Leading is the opposition of white and black. The woman from the city is dressed up in a black gown while the wife wears a light-coloured dress. The dichotomy of spiritual corruptness and virginal immaculacy is conveyed directly. Reminiscent of the expressionistic techniques in Murnau's previous films is the use of light. The shadowy low-key lighting in the first scene establishes an uneasy environment that is in harmony with the emotional intensity of the particular part of the storyline. The stark contrast is generated trough artificial light sources and the illumination itself is utilized as an instrument of shaping space as a plastic form. Again the allusions follow the classic pattern light - good, dark - evil. The boundaries between the antinomies are underlined. In the boat scene the woman's face is highlighted while light falls on the man from low side angle illuminating half of his figure. The visual message is immediate - the radiance of the woman's innocence is juxtaposed to the man's tormented soul. The shadows in the first scene attain allegoric meaning; they are a visual reflection of man's internal conflict. Indicative is the image of the man walking through the field to meet the seductress is shot in contre-jour. The details are obscured and the spectator beholds an opaque silhouette of a person. Thereby the cinematographer has rendered another visual metaphor, symptomatic of the cinematic stance towards reality. As a whole the mise-en-scene is turned to an expressive medium of personified actuality and yet the graphic phrasing is not as strongly outspoken as in Murnau's previous works. The iconography is symbolic but restrained. This positions the film aesthetically in a slot between the poetics of German Expressionism and the narrative conventions of Hollywood melodrama.
The cinematography follows the polyphony of the semantic and formal dimensions of the cinematic elements alongside the dualistic formula. Contrary to Bunuel's mostly static camera in Sunrise Murnau places the accent on the elaborately composed takes in which the camera movement delineates the space. Worth discussing is the irrefutably complex for its time tracking shot in the first scene where the camera follows the protagonist on his way to the tryst. Godard stated in several interviews that the tracking shot is a moral act. In this particular case the camera movement works on two planes. First it intensifies the alarming feel of the mise en scene. This is due to the length of the take - around ninety seconds in which the onscreen and the off-screen time are equalized. Secondly the camera moulds the concepts of off-screen and onscreen space which are ontologically connected to the polarization of objectivity and subjectivity. The camera in the sequence is an active participant rather than a detached observer, it interacts with the performers. First the camera follows the man from behind, then tracks him from a lateral angle and finally it faces him directly until the man walks out of the frame after which it pans to establish a frame for the rendezvous. The subjectivity of the camera is evident in the second scene as well. Here leading is the use of dramatic angles. The sinister man is continuously shot from low angle while the innocent woman is viewed from a high angle. This spatial relationship escalates progressively until the angles become extreme. This progression is accompanied by the alteration in the scale of the frames. In the beginning the shots vary from medium long to medium and in the emotional climax the man is shot in close up.
The editing in the movie follows the rules and conventions of Hollywood continuity editing. In the boat scene the 180 degree rule and the eyeline match principle remain unbroken as well as the classical shot-reverse shot model. The temporal pattern of the shot lengths works to create a rhythm that is harmonized with the internal rhythm of the motion within the images. Here one could draw a parallel to Eisenstein's concept of rhythmic montage, yet this would be irrelevant for in Sunrise there is no moment of conflict, neither semantic nor syntactic. All the shots are diegetically homogenous. Their relations are clear and logical, working towards fluidity of the visual narrative. As mentioned before the tracking shot in the first scene sculpts the action spatially but also temporally by slowing the editing pace down. The omnipresent logical coherence of form and style is clearly evident in the editing. The montage doesn't analyze or question the narrative but simply follows it.
The performance is expressive and theatrical. It is in the norms of the classical silent Hollywood melodrama and is characterized by pantomimic symbolism and stylization. The excessive gesticulation and body movement are dramatic manifestation of the internal turbulence of the characters. The polarization of the psychological planes is obvious. The man's hectic rowing contrasts the woman’s stillness and allegorically distinguishes his aggression and her humility. The hysterically overacted dance of the woman from the city in the first scene serves as aesthetic exaggeration of her vile ecstasy. Similar to Un Chien Andalou the performance doesn't pursue realism. The difference lies in that Murnau's film epitomizes symbolic acting that conveys direct messages while the performance in Bunuel's film is stylized but does not lead to explicit meanings.
Being an artwork from the silent era, Sunrise relies on the musical score as an only auditory means of expression. Written specially for the film, the score is in accord with the visuals, they interact intellectually and emotionally to form a sensorial polyphony. The dramatic theme in the boat scene is interrupted by the sound of a tolling bell, thus the non-musical sound effect
Conclusively, both benchmarks of the silent era cinema, the two films are very different in their utilization of the cinematic elements. The classic, almost mythological, theme Sunrise is based on and the classic style in which it is presented is in contrasts with the idiosyncratic poetics of Un Chien Andalou. While Sunrise applies artistic techniques following a plain formula of dualism where a harmony between style and content is established, Un Chien Andalou relies on intentional discordance of the formal and semantic features of the motion picture. The classic, almost mythological, theme .
Bibliography
Nedelcho Milev Theory of the elements of cinema 1998 'Sv. Kliment Ohridski University press Sofia
Andrey Tarkovsky 1986 Sculpting in Time University of Texas Press, Ausitn
The Age of Gold Surrealist Cinema 2003 Criterion Books
Manifesto of Surrealism Andre Breton 1924 - Extract from the book Manifestoes of Surrealism 1974 by University of Michigan Press United States of America
Filmography:
Un Chien Andalou 1929 Luis Bunuel France
Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau USA
The Seashell and the Clergyman 1928 Germaine Dulac, France
Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau Germany
Murnau's Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau USA is a film structured according to a rigid cinematic paradigm. It explores fundamental moral issues and portrays the dualistic nature of the human soul. Furthermore the concept of dualism is the pivotal technical formula trough which the artwork communicates with the spectator. In contrast to Un Chien Andolou, Sunrise applies synchrony as a principal model in which leading is the concord of form and content. The polyphony of the means of expression and the narrative gist is vividly perceptible in the two sequences I will discuss: the scene in which the man is seduced by the woman from the city and the one in which he tries to drown his wife.
I will start my analysis of Bunuel’s work with discussion of the bulding blocks of every film – the shots. Although this may appear contradictory, the iconography in Un Chien Andalou is subordinate to the principle of formal realism.. Shot entirely on location, the film utilizes the film milieu as a naturalistic fundament, rather similarly to the cinematic approach of the Italian Neorealists. The natural setting provides the organic atmosphere of the frame, a superficial realism which is only a formal mould in which the phantasmal substance is poured. Unlike the deliberately distorted sets that symbolically represent the internal world of the character found in the films of German Expressionism, Un Chien Andalou embarks upon the idea of using realistic images to generate unreal ambiance. This is achieved trough collision of the formal and the semiotic characteristics of the image. What we see appears natural, but its meaning leads to absurdity. The lighting is high key and almost entirely natural, no chiaroscuro illumination techniques are applied. Yet the shadows of the crowd gathered around the hand create a graphic pattern, which stirs the viewer viscerally, but does not convey any direct allusion. This is quintessential for any surrealistic piece of art - the image does not delineate the illusion as a detached from reality unit but rather it presents the reality in the illusion, although in The Seashell and the Clergyman 1928 Germaine Dulac, France, arguably the first surrealistic film, Dulac utilizes light to create oneiric, illusory images. The paradoxical nature of the subconscious comes from the clash between its realistic appearance and its illogical gist. Hence, in Bunuel's film all the mise-en-scene elements - the costumes, the makeup, the set itself, have natural appearance; they're not allegoric or expressive. Surrealism denies the use of allegories or metaphors for they are limited entities, they refer to a finite notion and thus are subordinate to its definition. Allegories are poetic substitutions of a definite notion or concept and what Bunuel strives for is emancipation of the message from normative and conceptual constraints.
As far as the performance is concerned, the acting is stylized and hyperbolized. The erratic nature of the dreams is expressed trough the subterranean hysteria imbued in the performance. In odds with Stanislavski's method the actors don't impersonate characters but rather convey automatic whims of consciousness. Bereft of any true life and personality the characters are a manifestation of the auteur's arbitrary impressions. Their bestial demeanor on screen is an artistic representation of the psychological turbulence, and especially the effusion of suppressed sexual desires - a cinematic reference to Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. The acting is shaped in the standard pantomimic form characteristic for the silent era films, the gestures and movements of the individuals are unnaturally dramatic. The eccentric dramaturgy of the performances produces the sensation of an intimate bacchanalia of a whimsical self-reflective mind.
The cinematographic aspects of Un Chien Andalou are equally provocative. The composition of the shots is classic - well balanced and graphically elegant. That's indicative of the director's acquaintance with the conventional visual canon. Andrei Tarkovsky asserts that 'Bunuel's work is deeply rooted in the classical culture of Spain' p51 A Tarkovsky 1986, . Nevertheless the Spanish director utilizes the classical as a tool of deconstruction - the conflict of what we see and how it is displayed is present again. The framing is traditional. There are no canted angle shots, nor any low angle ones. The chief instrument, though, is the point of view shot. The movie abounds with it - from the woman witnessing the bicyclist's fall to the couple observing the androgyne and the mob from above. At these moments the high-angle shots, which at certain moments evolve in almost overhead ones, work on two levels. First they create spatial coherence and secondly they distance the spectator thus creating a psychological impression of voyeurism - again an allusion to the sexual desires in Freud's philosophy. There are very few close ups, and usually occur by necessity- when the object before the lens or the face of the performer simply demand a close look. Almost entirely emptied of their usual function of emotion-enhancing segments, close ups work on another plane. In the famous eye-slashing sequence the close up on the woman's face and the subsequent extreme close up of the eye being slit the shots work on two levels: first to disturb the spectator and second to graphically mach the shot between them - the cloud going through the moon. There is hardly any camera movement and if any the camera simply follows (and tracks in one shot) the protagonists. As a whole the cinematography of Bunuel is simple but refined. His minimalism is purposeful: the dialectic collision in the imagery is palpable. The dichotomy of Form and Content is surmounted and all margins - obliterated. According to Kant's philosophy, human is doomed to observe only the phenomenon - the appearance of things, but could never perceive rationally the noumenon, which is the thing in itself. Similarly Bunuel uses the fibres of the phenomenon - the realistic image - to interweave them in an abstract paradoxical pattern that contains the unfathomable essence - the noumenon.
The editing technique is in accord with the concept of collision. Contrary to the conventional continuity editing style Bunuel disrupts the space-time film continuum. The relationships between the shots are defined not by mechanical necessity but by psychological associations. Similar to Eisenstein's concept of overtonal montage, the editing in Un Chien Andalou works trough juxtaposition of logically incongruous shots. Bunuel takes associative montage to extremes, riding it of any intellectual preconceptions. The semiotic dimensions of the images are in conflict. A good example is the tree-shot graphic match sequence, where covered with ants palm of the character is juxtaposed with the armpit of a woman and a sea urchin. In that sequence the shots do not simply add up meaning to each other but collide, annihilate their initial content and multiply their autonomous meanings in order to generate a further subconscious impression. Another iconoclastic editing method is the deliberate undermining of spatial and time unity. The use of dissolves as transitions between shots from one and the same scene disturbs and challenges the spectator. The temporal integrity of the action is intentionally unsettled. As Robert Short notes: '...it is in the cuts - the very points at which classical narrative montage strives most for continuity - that the body of the film is dismembered.' p94 The Age of Gold The dissolves, usually used as portals to a completely new plane in time and space, are utilized as a boundary crossing components of the editing that enhance the dreamlike atmosphere of the moving image.
The sound of the film also works trough conflict based on Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis formula. Being a silent film, Un Chien Andalou relies on the musical score as the only information carrying element of sound. Leading is the conflict between the romantic grandeur of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and the absurd visual content. The choice of the music is yet not arbitrary. Wagner introduced tonal dissonance as an artistic form and renounced the limits of traditional harmonic theory. The movie itself bristles with visual and sound counterpoints. Oppositions can be found in the choice of music itself. The epic piece of classical music alternates with a cheap tango melody popular in Paris nightclubs and brothels at that time. In that way the sound amalgamates with the absurdity of the visuals and supplements their psychological impact.
Murnau’s Sunrise works rather differently. The element of the mise-en-scene is of major significance in the film. The properties of the images are clearly attuned to the model of dichotomy of absolutes: good and evil. In opposition to Bunuel's approach, Murnau explicitly reveals the psychological state of the character in the visuals trough the mise-e- scene. The director thus creates a reciprocal relation between the internal world of the protagonists and the external reality. The somber atmosphere in the first scene is a visual reverberation of the spiritual torment of the character; it complements the narrative and enhances the theme of moral depravity. Although shot on location and lacking the multidimensional distorted sets found in his previous works such as Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau Germany, the scene does not convey a sense of naturalism. The real objects carry symbolic connotations. The web of shadows that the tree branches cast on the house resembles an eerie labyrinth in which the protagonist's psyche is trapped. The fluttering fishing-nets metaphorically outline the character's anxiety. A key symbolic component in the scene is the mist. As Nedelcho Milev states: 'The motif of the mist has attained an important formative significance in the whole history of cinema'. Milev p. 93 1998 Mist has become a priory pictorial indicator of tranquility but also a cinematic leitmotif element of fear. In the context of the sequence it renders the picture a minor sounding.
The costume design also underlines the dualistic model that the film elements follow. Leading is the opposition of white and black. The woman from the city is dressed up in a black gown while the wife wears a light-coloured dress. The dichotomy of spiritual corruptness and virginal immaculacy is conveyed directly. Reminiscent of the expressionistic techniques in Murnau's previous films is the use of light. The shadowy low-key lighting in the first scene establishes an uneasy environment that is in harmony with the emotional intensity of the particular part of the storyline. The stark contrast is generated trough artificial light sources and the illumination itself is utilized as an instrument of shaping space as a plastic form. Again the allusions follow the classic pattern light - good, dark - evil. The boundaries between the antinomies are underlined. In the boat scene the woman's face is highlighted while light falls on the man from low side angle illuminating half of his figure. The visual message is immediate - the radiance of the woman's innocence is juxtaposed to the man's tormented soul. The shadows in the first scene attain allegoric meaning; they are a visual reflection of man's internal conflict. Indicative is the image of the man walking through the field to meet the seductress is shot in contre-jour. The details are obscured and the spectator beholds an opaque silhouette of a person. Thereby the cinematographer has rendered another visual metaphor, symptomatic of the cinematic stance towards reality. As a whole the mise-en-scene is turned to an expressive medium of personified actuality and yet the graphic phrasing is not as strongly outspoken as in Murnau's previous works. The iconography is symbolic but restrained. This positions the film aesthetically in a slot between the poetics of German Expressionism and the narrative conventions of Hollywood melodrama.
The cinematography follows the polyphony of the semantic and formal dimensions of the cinematic elements alongside the dualistic formula. Contrary to Bunuel's mostly static camera in Sunrise Murnau places the accent on the elaborately composed takes in which the camera movement delineates the space. Worth discussing is the irrefutably complex for its time tracking shot in the first scene where the camera follows the protagonist on his way to the tryst. Godard stated in several interviews that the tracking shot is a moral act. In this particular case the camera movement works on two planes. First it intensifies the alarming feel of the mise en scene. This is due to the length of the take - around ninety seconds in which the onscreen and the off-screen time are equalized. Secondly the camera moulds the concepts of off-screen and onscreen space which are ontologically connected to the polarization of objectivity and subjectivity. The camera in the sequence is an active participant rather than a detached observer, it interacts with the performers. First the camera follows the man from behind, then tracks him from a lateral angle and finally it faces him directly until the man walks out of the frame after which it pans to establish a frame for the rendezvous. The subjectivity of the camera is evident in the second scene as well. Here leading is the use of dramatic angles. The sinister man is continuously shot from low angle while the innocent woman is viewed from a high angle. This spatial relationship escalates progressively until the angles become extreme. This progression is accompanied by the alteration in the scale of the frames. In the beginning the shots vary from medium long to medium and in the emotional climax the man is shot in close up.
The editing in the movie follows the rules and conventions of Hollywood continuity editing. In the boat scene the 180 degree rule and the eyeline match principle remain unbroken as well as the classical shot-reverse shot model. The temporal pattern of the shot lengths works to create a rhythm that is harmonized with the internal rhythm of the motion within the images. Here one could draw a parallel to Eisenstein's concept of rhythmic montage, yet this would be irrelevant for in Sunrise there is no moment of conflict, neither semantic nor syntactic. All the shots are diegetically homogenous. Their relations are clear and logical, working towards fluidity of the visual narrative. As mentioned before the tracking shot in the first scene sculpts the action spatially but also temporally by slowing the editing pace down. The omnipresent logical coherence of form and style is clearly evident in the editing. The montage doesn't analyze or question the narrative but simply follows it.
The performance is expressive and theatrical. It is in the norms of the classical silent Hollywood melodrama and is characterized by pantomimic symbolism and stylization. The excessive gesticulation and body movement are dramatic manifestation of the internal turbulence of the characters. The polarization of the psychological planes is obvious. The man's hectic rowing contrasts the woman’s stillness and allegorically distinguishes his aggression and her humility. The hysterically overacted dance of the woman from the city in the first scene serves as aesthetic exaggeration of her vile ecstasy. Similar to Un Chien Andalou the performance doesn't pursue realism. The difference lies in that Murnau's film epitomizes symbolic acting that conveys direct messages while the performance in Bunuel's film is stylized but does not lead to explicit meanings.
Being an artwork from the silent era, Sunrise relies on the musical score as an only auditory means of expression. Written specially for the film, the score is in accord with the visuals, they interact intellectually and emotionally to form a sensorial polyphony. The dramatic theme in the boat scene is interrupted by the sound of a tolling bell, thus the non-musical sound effect
Conclusively, both benchmarks of the silent era cinema, the two films are very different in their utilization of the cinematic elements. The classic, almost mythological, theme Sunrise is based on and the classic style in which it is presented is in contrasts with the idiosyncratic poetics of Un Chien Andalou. While Sunrise applies artistic techniques following a plain formula of dualism where a harmony between style and content is established, Un Chien Andalou relies on intentional discordance of the formal and semantic features of the motion picture. The classic, almost mythological, theme .
Bibliography
Nedelcho Milev Theory of the elements of cinema 1998 'Sv. Kliment Ohridski University press Sofia
Andrey Tarkovsky 1986 Sculpting in Time University of Texas Press, Ausitn
The Age of Gold Surrealist Cinema 2003 Criterion Books
Manifesto of Surrealism Andre Breton 1924 - Extract from the book Manifestoes of Surrealism 1974 by University of Michigan Press United States of America
Filmography:
Un Chien Andalou 1929 Luis Bunuel France
Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau USA
The Seashell and the Clergyman 1928 Germaine Dulac, France
Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau Germany