This obscure object of the desire

This obscure object of the desire is the 32e and last film of the realizer Luis Buñuel. Film free - Spanish left in 1977. Coécrit with its partner (since the Years 1960) Jean-Claude Carrière, the scenario is inspired by the novel of Pierre Louÿs, the Woman and the puppet . The title is drawn from an expression of the novel “this pale object of the desire” that Carrière and Buñuel adapted by changing the adjective and by adding conclusive to give This obscure object of the desire

Scenario

This obscure object of the desire is an adaptation of the book of Pierre Louÿs the Woman and the puppet . The scenario was written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière at the time of a stay in Mexico (place of writing of Buñuel). Already, in the Years 1950, Buñuel had written an adaptation of the novel with Vittorio De Sica and Mylène Demongeot in the main roles, but the project fell through. Mylène Demongeot reports it in its memories:
I Juan Luis Buñuel, the son of Luis.
- Know you meet that my father wanted to work with you? He says me. It had been contacted to put in scene the Woman and the puppet . The subject interested it much. It had given its agreement to a condition. That it can have Mylène Demongeot as interprets. The producer refused. The film was for Bardot, which it had under contrat.
Et Buñuel, replaced by Duvivier, was withdrawn from the project! Because of me!

Synopsis

At the time of a voyage by train, Mathieu Faber tells with the passengers of his compartment his loves with Conchita, woman tempting whom it tries to have. But it is always concealed with its advances after him to have made hope for happiness.

A setting in theatrical scene

The decorations and the colors of film are volontairements artificial, the actors are doubled and the film is told by its main actor. Don Matteo is like only on scene in a fiction directed by Conchita. The techniques used by Bunuel are those of the discrete charm of the middle-class (scene of the theater). Matteo east ages, it leaves the world which surrounds it.

Data sheet

Distribution

Subject

The film treats desire, Buñuel described there the mechanics of a desire without end, with the limit of dead as well as frustrations of the love not consumed. The height of this frustration is symbolized by the undergarment which Conchita slips on and which, of erotic object, transforms itself into belt of chastity, impossible to untie.

The title of work explains the ambiguity of the desire clearly that Bunuel tries to update in its work. Carrère will say: " Certain time it is desire of which we are eager, we like to be has a state of desire, a state which us high with the top of the usual flatness of the life, the title parraissait to us being completely appropriate to this history without end . "

This obscure object of the desire is also a political film with subjects as Christian education (the film has Spanish protagonists and the cross reigns in the universe family of Conchita), the middle-class company and the attacks.

The figure of the desire: the character of Conchita

The great originality of Buñuel in this film is to make interpret the role of Conchita by two very different actresses.

Buñuel, which was not accustomed to working the psychological character of a character during a work, wondered at the time of the writing of the scenario if the character of Conchita were not too incredible. From there came the idea to use two actresses to play the part of Conchita. A scenario division was carried out with these two women from which one “elegant, distant and was even distinguished, a little cold” and other “popular, opened the, accessible one, smiling and even a little arousing”. But Buñuel was not satisfied with this idea that it described like a one day whim rainy.

However, after 4 days of turning, with only one actress, at the time of the shooting of the “scene of the grid”, Buñuel realized that it could not make film thus. It thus decided to stop. Its producer (Serge Zimmermann) went to Barcelona to take glass with him and to try to save his investment. Buñuel required of him: Do Serge, you know a woman who could be all the women? Serge Zimmermann answered him instinctively: you want to make film with two… or three actresses? . Serge Zimmermann saw there a manner of saving his film and an extremely interesting idea. New tests were then carried out for the role of Conchita; Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina was selected. The film was started again 2 to 3 months later in Paris.

This not-attribution of a character to an actor (not-identification) had never been made with the cinema whereas it was a current practice of the theater. This artifice reinforces the idea that Conchita is an object of the obscure desire making it possible to embrace the complexity of a glance deteriorated by the desire. Thanks to this duplicity, Conchita can “be all the women” and Buñuel can lead it where it wishes it. One of the great originalities of film of Buñuel is thus simply a contingency of the ambition of this work.

Terrorism

Terrorism plays a big role in film, several scenes speaks about the subject. The GAREJ (revolutionary group armed with the Jesus child) is evoked in the scene with Edouard the cousin prefect, Conchita also refuses has Don Matteo one evening after having attended an attack in the adjacent street with their room and of course the final scene. Bunuel thought that terrorism was a language of the companies of today, new a language. Thus Bunuel uses it with the length of film like a metaphor of the relationship between the protagonists in love.

Around film

a work with repriser (24 ' 00 ) of Luc Lagier is an documentary-interview of Jean-Claude Carrière which constitutes a single document as for the analysis of film. Jean-Claude Carrière there tells the construction of film and proposes its analysis of this last opus (will?) of Buñuel. The documentary one breaks up into 3 parts which analyze various axes of film:
  1. an adaptation of Pierre Louÿs
  2. the one day Whim rainy
  3. a world of artifices
  4. final Scene

the Woman and the puppet had already been the subject of three major adaptations:

External bond

Random links:Gathering for the Republic | Geografía de Botswana | Plethodon wehrlei | Planescape | Hugues III of Burgundy | Dobong-gu | 1_²_d'E+15_m