DOC Fifty Figure Drawings (Dover Anatomy for Artists) by George B. Bridgman in Arts-Photography

Review

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful. A highwayscribery Book ReportBy Stephen SicilianoAh science! Could you not have revealed that Luis Buntilde;uel was no 1930s Stalinist; but rather as he remembered; a whimsical surrealist who casually meandered into filmmaking history?No; of course not.Instead; "Buntilde;uel: The Red Years;" straightens out the timeline put forth in the Oscar-winning directors (Best Foreign Film) endearing autobiography; "My Last Sigh;" dismissing anecdotes as impossible given the evidence; blowing holes in his very memory.Which is kind of fun when one considers how "My Last Sigh;" opens with a meditation on memory:"You have to begin to lose your memory;" says the director; "if only in bits and pieces; to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all; just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence; our reason; our feeling; even our action. Without it we are nothing."Even with it; "The Red Years;" implies; we may not be who we remember ourselves to be.Authors Roman Gubern and Paul Hammond get excited when their investigation has marked a discrepancy between the story of his life; as Buntilde;uel told it; and what some document they pulled out of the French Embassy or the checka files confirms to the contrary.But theyre not malicious about it; just doing their jobs; demythologizing the heck out of another romantic epoch.The text begins as a typical filmography and this is because Buntilde;uels earliest years comprised his efforts as a surrealist and maker of films guided by the dictates of that artistic credo.There is a detailing of the groups internal strife as it first rushed to embrace the French Communist Party; and then split when a goodly portion found the reds petty and obsessed with rules. It is an old story of factionalism over the finer points; personalism; resentment and political cannibalism that consumed the hopes of leftists the world over.The High Pope of Surrealism; Andre Breton; broke in the name of intellectual independence. Buntilde;uel; by contrast; joined the Spanish Communist Party and; well; enslaved himself; for a time at least; to the hard and cruel rules of Stalinism.In "My Last Sigh;" Buntilde;uel portrays his time in 20s Hollywood as a kind of lark during which he disdained the big studio process and acted scandalously before being asked to leave.But "The Red Years;" proposes a more ambitious and careerist Buntilde;uel picking up something of the industrial studios techniques; because he returned to Madrid and became an all-purpose producer; set handyman; and anonymous director for Spains first legitimate commercial enterprise; Filmoacute;fono.In making that production houses few and popular folkloric melodramas (long tarried over here); Buntilde;uel often pushed the director aside in order to meet his own strict deadlines and slim budgets.The films made good money; and Buntilde;uel kept his name out of the credits. He wanted to maintain his cachet as the "avant" creator of "Un Chien Andalou;" and "LAge Dor."Upon the outset of the Spanish Civil War; the title "The Red Years;" begins to impose itself and; while the books latter third may clear up certain questions haunting Buntilde;uel scholars; the turn towards a more turgid and technical read is undeniable.Aligned with the ascendant communists in the war time Spanish Republic; the director enlisted in the espionage game while coordinating film propaganda from Paris.The authors spend an inordinate amount of time disentangling oral and written accounts; receipts; records; letters etc.; to determine the directors role in two propaganda films telling Republican Spains story to the world; "Espantilde;a 36;" and "Espantilde;a 37."Why? Presumably because its "The Red Years;" and; once again; one can comprehend why Breton made his break; rather than get involved in this gray world of apparatchiks and quirky little dictators.It is not without interest to see what Buntilde;uel and his fellow travelers were thinking during tumultuous times that put the average European in harms way.Buntilde;uel could have been killed at any time. The business of propaganda and serving as a conduit for money and documents in favor of the Republic was not so much a choice as an imposed duty.Clearly; radical films purchased with the money of cosmopolitan French aristocrats were not the order of the day and so the actual Red years present thin pickings for filmophiles.This is small-bore stuff that assumes prior reading on Eurocommunism and a deep interest in the directors political activities.1 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A Wretched TomeBy ACThis is truly a miserable book. The authors write in a wordy; at times incomprehensible academic style. Most of the book isnt about Bunuel at all (since actual information about the director during this period is thin on the ground) but rather about his associates; or people he might have been associated with. It jumps back and forth rather than follow a coherent timeline. But its worst offence is that the authors genuinely seem to hate their subject; and pillory him at every turn. In this sense The Red Years resembles Martin Esslins awful book about Brecht; A Choice of Evils. Esslin couldnt forgive Brecht for the crime of being a communist: these guys cant forgive Don Luis for the same infraction; though the actual evidence that he was ever a party member is almost nil. However; his career was certainly stymied by enemies who accused him of being a commie - think Dali. Luckily they write too late to have much meaningful effect on his work! But the overall feeling of The Red Years is one of jealous spite.