The Golden Age(L'Age d'Or)
Dir: Luis Buñuel
France, 1930, French, 64mins, DCP
Cast: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Max Ernst
The insanities of modern life, and the hypocrisy of the sexual mores of bourgeois society are laid bare in this series of tightly interlinked surrealist vignettes of extreme images. Starting off as a documentary about scorpion attacks, it soon descends into a scandalous essay on Eros and civilisation, wherein a couple is constantly torn apart from passionate lovemaking by the police, high society and the church. Denounced by extremists and banned for decades for its outright blasphemy, Buñuel’s feature debut is gleefully inventive and wickedly funny – though Dalí would disagree. Screening with An Andalusian Dog .
The 4K restoration of The Golden Age was carried out by La Cinémathèque française and the Center Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Experimental Cinema Service, at the Hiventy laboratory for the image and at the L.E. Diapason studio for the sound, thanks to the support of Pathé and the House of Champagne Piper-Heidsieck, patrons of La Cinémathèque française.
