Before being one of the most important films in the history of cinema, El perro andaluz (1928) had to be the first collection of poems by the future filmmaker Luis Buñuel. But the lyrical potential of the author ended up taking land in the cinema to the joy of the seventh art. “According to him, he wanted to dedicate himself to writing, but when Buñuel discovered the cinema he realized the possibilities of the audiovisual medium. He saw that it was made for the cinema, ”says Jordi Xifra, editor of the book El perro andaluz published by Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, and director of the Buñuel de Calanda Center.
In 1925, Buñuel went to Paris, where he worked as an assistant director for the filmmaker and philosopher Jean Epstein, and the following year he decided to dedicate himself to cinema. This collection of poems was made up of the poems in verse and prose that Buñuel wrote between 1927 and 1929. The publication brings together the proposal for a collection of poems, as it had to be in view of the texts that are known today, as well as the original script of the film that caused a furor among the surrealists, who quickly integrated Buñuel and Dalí into their movement.
In addition, the literary script that is published is based on the one that appeared in its day in the maximum organ of expression of the surrealist group, La Révolution surréaliste, no. 12, of December 15, 1929. The University Press book de Zaragoza also includes the content of the typed text that is deposited in the Buñuel Archive of the Spanish Film Library and that the public will also find reproduced. A real gem for followers of the genius of Calanda.
Approaching the writer Buñuel is opening up, once again, to a dream world full of images and some characteristic traits of his cinematographic style such as black humor and psychoanalysis, as well as the fragmentation of the self and all kinds of mutilations that are later joined ( collage) and the objectification of people. These motifs that obsessed Buñuel throughout his career are also reflected in his poems. "I was surprised by the visual power of the collection of poems," remarks Xifra, who highlights the brilliance of poems such as It does not seem good or bad to me or A Ricardo Corazón de León.
One of the most interesting exercises that Xifra proposes is to immerse yourself in reading the poems and watching her film, which includes the iconic and unbeatable image of a woman's eye torn by a freshly sharpened razor. “The reader will be able to verify the intertextual relationships between the literary text and the film, which prove that Buñuel's contribution in Un perro andaluz was not limited to his technical knowledge as a film director, but rather collected ideas and images already present in his films. poems”, adds the also professor of the Department of Communication of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
“The title of my book right now is El perro andaluz, which made Dalí and I piss with laughter when we found it. I must warn that there is no dog in the entire book. But it is very good and very docile. In addition to smiling and idiot. As soon as it comes out in a month or so, I'll send you a copy." In 1929, a young Luis Buñuel addressed his friend Pepín Bello, another member of the Madrid Student Residence, with these words. This anecdote is one of the many that are collected in Xifra's notes that enhance each of the filmmaker's poems.
"The reality is that when Buñuel started working on his film Un perro andaluz, not only did he keep the title planned for the book, unintentionally changing the article, but he buried this publishing project and, temporarily, his facet as a writer," he comments. Xifra, who highlights the positive acceptance that these texts have had among specialists. “What has surprised me the most is that he is a much better poet than people may think. And what experts highlight most about the poems is humor. If Buñuel had dedicated himself to poetry, he could have gone a long way, ”she says.
For Xifra, El perro andaluz can be considered a collection of poems composed of cinepoems, since in Buñuel's work images circulate from literature to cinema. “His cultural baggage of him was impressive. Buñuel, Dalí and Lorca were three privileged minds that met and there are communicating vessels between their creations. In addition, there is no filmmaker in the world who has been surrounded by writers as great as the generation of '27 and the Latin American boom”, Xifra points out. This edition will arouse in the readers the curiosity of approaching a different Buñuel who, in reality, is the same as always.
