Analyse how one or both experimental surrealist films you have studied use mise-en-scene to create a surrealist aesthetic [15].
Knee jerk reaction - MES is used to an extensive level to construct a comprehensive and shocking surrealist aesthetic.
Plan
MES
Performance
Lighting
Editing
Soundtrack
Macro element: narrative
Settings
Props
Transgression
Freud
Sex and death
Fetishism
Bunuel
Unconventional
Subconscious desire
Donkey dragger
Eye cut
Dream logic
Looks like dreams
- MES is used to an extensive level to construct a comprehensive and shocking surrealist aesthetic. A surrealist aesthetic refers to the look and feel of the unconscious mind.
- One perfect example of how MES constructs a surrealistic aesthetic can be found in the scene where The Man announces that he has diplomatic immunity.
- The MES of the mud covering the man constructs a surrealist aesthetic by presenting disgusting and abject imagery. The man is covered in mud after publicly attempting to have sex with a woman next to a funeral procession. Yet here, the mud soaked man walks through a quiet Parisian suburb, constructing a binary opposition between the passionate id, ego, and social norms.
- The man swears aggressively at a passer by, his obscene gesture again forming a binary opposition with the quiet and civilised street. The MES of tree lined gardens connote wealth, yet the filthy man connotes poverty, again constructing a dreamlike aesthetic
- The document that the man hands over to demonstrate his diplomatic immunity is highly ambiguous. It seems to resemble a poster or architectural blueprints, yet the man reads in an insulting tone from this wordless document, again constructing a confusing and bizarre surrealist aesthetic.
- This scene, like almost every scene in LD, is an attack on the ideology of the bourgeoisie. It is symbolic of the inequality of French society in the early 20th century, and uses surrealist imagery to make a powerful point.
- However, the most dreamlike and truly surrealist sequence in L’age d’or occurs in the garden towards the end of the film. In a montage of shots, we cut between the conductor, an older gentleman in an expensive suit that symbolises wealth and social status, to a series of close ups of The Woman, played by Lya Lys, who sensually and sexually sucks the lifeless toe of a pure white statue. Once more, a binary opposition is constructed between transgressive sex and wealth and society.
- The performance of The Woman is highly expressive, symbolising passion and the fulfilment of the id
- The orchestra plays The Liebestod from the conclusion of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, an opera about life, death and how these two concepts cannot be operated. Here the MES of the cold dead foot contrasts with the frantic performance and sensuous MES of the woman’s makeup, constructing a strange, dreamlike and surrealist aesthetic
