Date of Award

Spring 2016

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

LACS: French

First Advisor

Sara Kippur

Second Advisor

Prashad Vijay

Abstract

The surrealist movement began as a consequence of the social, economical, and political disruptions caused by World War I. Artists, poets, photographers, painters, and movie producers recognized that elements of the surrealist movement formed a medium well-matched to attain their artistic goals. The founder of the movement, André Breton, was highly inspired by the psychoanalytical techniques of Freud, while explaining theories of surrealism and dreams. In 1924, Breton defined surrealism for the first time in his book, Surrealism Manifesto, “surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought.” The mesmerizing phenomenon that people refer to surrealism is not limited to being technical or thematic in terms of its art form. In fact, it is an individual perspective, and according to Wilkins it is a “way of life”, interconnected with the theories of Freud and Marx. The goal of this movement is to cause an upheaval amongst the traditional way of things, to liberate art from rules and norms, while also giving a new meaning to the notion of dreams. In this paper, I will be analyzing three well-known surrealist movies: La Coquille et Le Clergyman (Germaine Du Lac), Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel), and Étoile De Mer (Man Ray). In this analysis, I will explain how the notion of dreams brings the spectators a new understanding of surrealist movies.

Comments

Senior thesis completed at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in French.

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