the Spanish cinema as well as the avant garde. When he left Madrid for Paris in 1925, however, he was also influenced by the German cinema of Fritz Lang and his "Destiny." He realized what his vocation would be, and several years later he made his first major statement in the Spanish cinema.
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) was created along with Salvador Dali in order to shock the bourgeois with its imagery. The film had a dream-like quality and its mise en scene included a woman's eyeball being slashed by a razor, and dead donkeys lying on top of pianos, being hauled away by priests.
Pauline Kael said of the film that "some of the images have great poetic force, and at times they have an erotic humor that one has difficulty explaining, even to oneself" (Kael, 1982, p. 105). What is interesting about this work is that it shows that Bunuel is a product of the Spanish cinema, but his primary influences here are commercial neo-realism, horror films, and American comedies.
This film, along with "L'Age d'or" (1930), helped to get Bunuel a contract with MGM, but he turned this down after visiting Hollywood. From 1933 to 1935 Bunuel dubbed dialogue for Paramount in Paris and Warner Bros. in Spain. From 1935 until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the film maker produced popular musical comedies in Spain. During the conflict Bunuel served the Republican government, and he helped to compile newsreel footage to make a documentary.
When the Fascists took over, Bunuel moved from Spain to New York City, where he got a job
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