A lovely book. A sharp new look at an great old film.
- George Melly,
One of the greatest collaborations of cinema history, L'Âge d'Or(1930) united the geniuses of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali in the making of a Surrealist masterpiece - a uniquely savage blend of visual poetry and social criticism. The film was banned and vilified for many years in many countries, becoming justly legendary for its subversive eroticism and its furious dissection of 'civilised' values.
In a remarkable, intuitive reading of L'Âge d'Or, Paul Hammond interweaves a detailed account of the extraordinary circumstances of its production with a dazzling interpretation of its aesthetic and political nuances. At once authoritative and polemical, this is a study entirely in tune with its subject, a fitting celebration of a major landmark in world cinema.
Foreword to the 2020 Edition
The first prismatic articulation
The second
The third
The fourth
The fifth
A sixth vesicular joint, the poison sac
Notes
Credits
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
"An indispensable part of every cineaste's bookcase" - Total Film
"Possibly the most bountiful book series in the history of film criticism." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment
"Magnificently concentrated examples of flowing freeform critical poetry." - Uncut
"The series is a landmark in film criticism." - Quarterly Review of Film and Video
"A formidable body of work collectively generating some fascinating insights into the evolution of cinema." -Times Higher Education
Celebrating film for over 30 years
The BFI Film Classics series introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema. Each volume offers an argument for the film's 'classic' status, together with discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of its technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the author's personal response to the film.