The Phantom of freedom

the Phantom of freedom the 31e and before last film of the realizer Shine Buñuel. Franco-Italian film left in 1974 and coécrit with its partner (since the years 1960) Jean-Claude Carrière. The scenario is inspired by a tale of Gustavo A. Becquer, poet romantic Spanish. The title is drawn from the first sentence of the Manifeste of the Communist party of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: “A phantom capitalism traverses Europe”.

The credits of film have a very particular function in this work. Exceeding the function of introduction clearly, it acts like an original matrix for the whole of work.

Synopsis

The film opens its credits on the table of Francisco de Goya, on May 3rd, 1808 , symbol of the insurrection of the Spanish people vis-a-vis the Napoleonean troops on which is registered in overprinting: “The action of this film starts with Tolède, in 1808, during the occupation of the city by the Napoleonean troops”.

Throughout the credits one then attends the installation of the alive reproduction of this table; arrived of, the protest firing squad of the men of the people and very last thing of the man shot with the foot of which appear already of other bodies. Only the plan varies because it is taken by the right-hand side and not by the left like the tableau.

The voice of a narrator is made hear. It is about good of the Foucauld couple butts against a difficult word whereas she reads a novel on the Napoleonean war in Spain. Escaping her monitoring, the girl of Foulcauld, Veronique followed an unknown which offered a series of postcards to him. The parents, to whom it young girl give the photographs, are horrified by looking at the photographs… famous monuments, in particular the Sacred Heart of Paris considered by the couple as more obscene.

A surrealist film

This film falls under the surrealist movement . It is based on a process which consists in following the history of a character, then that of another after both met and so on. A parallel is feasible between this construction and the realization of an exquisite corpse, forms invented by the surrealist ones. This parallel must be however moderate by the remarks of Bunuel itself:

" The same account which passes through different characters and which take turns. I had already foreseen that in the Old one of gold, where we started with scorpions, we continued by with the gangsters, the foundation of the city, then lovers and the festival in the living room, and we finished with the 120 day old characters of Sodome. The difference is that in the phantom of freedom, the episodes are bound, they run up less: they run naturally. (…) The phantom of Freedom does not make that to imitate the chance he was written in state of consciousness; it is not a dream nor a delirious flood of images."

One finds also the expensive oneiric approach with surrealist in the use of the animals. One will be able to quote:

  • an ostrich which passes in a room to sleep and which, at the end, observes the madness of the men
  • the fox driven out by the soldier that one will find empaillé before leaving the hotel
  • the cock which appears during the night of Mr. Foucauld
  • the squirrel
  • the assembly present at fine Al of film with the peacock, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the eagle, the bear and the lioness.

The figure of freedom

" Chance governs all things; necessity, which is far from having the same purity, comes only later. Yew I cuts has software spot for any one off my movies, it would Be for The Phantom off Liberty, because it sort to work out just this theme." (Buñuel, 1983)

At the time of the scene of the shooting in opening a man shouts: “With bottom freedom”.
Finds itself thus called into question the significance which one was on the point of giving under film: that which wants to impose the values of the freedom, incarnated by the French revolution and its Bonaparte continuator, proposes only the phantom of this freedom. The not very orthodoxe cry of shot subverts this interpretation or pushes us to carry it further: if Napoleon wants to be the representative of freedom then the " With bottom the liberté" is rather logical. This lucky find is probably part of the play to which Buñuel is delivered which does not have of cease, throughout film, to work the linguistic or pictorial form for unceasingly revealing possible again. The possible ones proliferate, it is enough to open doors, play to which the priests in the inn will deliver themselves. To remain under film about it, Buñuel gives an explanation much simpler in the talks of 1975 and 1979 carried out by Thomas Péres Turrent and Jose of Colina, of her origin:

“Of a collaboration between Marx and me. The first line of proclamation of the Communist party known as: " A phantom traverses Europe… " , etc For my part, I see freedom as a phantom which we try to catch and… we étreignons a misty form which leaves us an only little moisture in the hands. (…) In my film, the title emerged in an irrational way, like that of a Andalusian dog, and yet, I think that no title is more adequate, in a case as in the other, with the spirit of film”.

Sequence of the scenes

Formal matrix of the first sequence (generic) nevertheless will leave the principal episodes the contemporary time. The anticlericalism of the captain will answer the priests, the profaned gate vault being transformed into holy picture, the authoritative gesture of the stone statue will answer severity out of matter of the colonel in the barracks and especially, the cloth which discovers the intact woman of the commander, will answer again the cover raised by the nephew on the body of his aunt young girl. The dead with whom the captain wants to make love will also réincarnera in the sister of the prefect who telephones so that one comes to visit it in his vault. The cry “With bottom freedom” will also return in the various shapes or court of film

  • Scene in the park

  • Scene at Foucault
  • Scene of the dream in the room of Foucault
  • Scene in the doctor
- passage of relay with the nurse of the doctor who goes to Rouen
  • Scène of the car and meets with the soldiers
  • Scène of arrival to the hotel
  • Scène of the rooms
- passage of relay with the professor
  • Scene of course of bazaar to the police station
  • Scene of the course on the sisters with the police station
- Passage of relay enters the police officers and Mr. Legendre
  • Scène in the doctor
  • Scène at Legendre: refusal to announce the disease
  • Scène classifies some with Legendre: she refuses to listen to her daughter (surrealist scene with the last degree)
  • 1 ' 07 Scène with the police station with Legendre: reappearance of the table of the 3 mayo, the girl is always not really present in the scene in spite of its interactions with the other characters. Fabulous idea!
- 1 ' 10 passage of relay with the gunner thanks to the interlude of the shoeshiner of shoe (weak bond)
  • Scene of the gunner in the Montparnasse tower: surrealist terrorism act essentially,
  • Scene of the court:
  • Scene in the prefect
- passage of the relay with the prefect
  • Scene of the bar: reincarnation of the sister motre
  • Scene of the cemetery
  • Scene in the police chief
  • Scene in the prefect
  • Scene with the zoo
- Has low freedom, return of the ostrich

Denunciation of the middle-class

To write

Data sheet

  • Title: the phantom of freedom
  • Realization: Shine Buñuel
  • Scénario and Adaptation: Shine Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière
  • Dialog: Jean-Claude Carrière
  • Assistant realizer: Pierre Labry, Jacques Frankel
  • Images: Edmond Richard
  • Operator: Jean Harnois (turned in spherical Panavision)
  • Assistants operator: Andre Clément, Alain Herpe
  • Decorations: Pierre Guffroy, assisted of Maurice Sergeant
  • Assembly: Helene Plemiannokov, assisted of Nathalie Lafaurie
  • Sound: Guy the Villette, assisted of Jean Labourel
  • Studio auditorium of Paris-Studio-Cinema in Boulogne Billancourt
  • Assembly sound: Gina Pinier
  • Sound effects: Shine Buñuel
  • Script-girl: Suzanne Durrenberger
  • Mixing: Alex Pront, assisted of Claude Viland
  • Re-recording: Jacqueline Porel
  • Music publishings: Galaxy-music
  • Photographer of plate: Jean Distinghin
  • special Effects and accessories supplier of plate: François Sune
  • plastic Effects: Thierry Empties
  • Maquillage: Monique Archambault
  • Hairstyles: Alex Archambault
  • Costumes: Jacqueline Guyot, assisted of Olympe Watele
  • general Manager: Francis Peltier, assisted of Herve Lachize
  • external Manager: Pierre Lefait, assisted of Jean Revel
  • Production: Greenwitch-Films
  • Distribution: Twenty Century Fox and Lira Films
  • Directeur production: Serge Silberman, Ulrich Pickardt
  • Administrator: Jacqueline Dudilleux
  • countable Administrator: Jacqueline Oblin
  • machinist Chief: Rene Menuset
  • electrician Chief: Marcel Policard
  • Pulling: Laboratory Generic Franay L.T.C Saint-Cloud
  • : C.T.M
  • Country: France
  • Kind: Comico-dramatic fable
  • Format: 35mm, Color (proceeded: Eastmancolor) - Mono
  • Lasted: 103 minutes
  • Left: September 11th 1974

Distribution

External bond

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