What is Surrealism? Definition and Examples for Filmmakers

To Define Surreal

What does surreal mean?

How do we define surreal? Surrealism gives us the ability to share our ideas in as raw and uninhibited of a way as possible. By understanding how Surrealism is used by masterclass artists and filmmakers, we’re better prepared to apply it in our own productions. 

Here's a quick example: A character is walking down the street and sees something peculiar out of the corner of his eye. It looks like chaos in the courthouse. As he reaches the scene, everything has been thrown into disarray. The benches have bite marks in them; a man in a business suit has gathered glass from a broken chandelier and is strumming like he’s playing the xylophone; the jurors have been replaced by elephants and dressed full Tory and Whig style — this is Surrealism. 

For more than 100 years, Surrealism has given artists free reign over their collective subconscious. The end result has been some of the most daring and provocative works the world has ever seen.

Now that we have defined Surrealism in film, let’s remind ourselves of the term’s origins. This next video gives us backstory on Surrealism and makes a great case for its use.

Movement Beginnings

Where did Surrealism originate?

Surrealism was “officially” founded in Paris in 1924, but the seeds of the movement were planted long before then. The early age of the movement was largely influenced by the works of Karl Marx (1818-1893), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and Carl Jung (1875-1961), among others.

Surrealism has deep roots in the theory of epistemology — or how we come to understand the world. Within the theory of epistemology, there are two dominant perspectives: rationalism and empiricism.

Rationalism says that the world is what it is, it exists within a reality and that reality is real. Empiricists say that it’s impossible to know whether the world is real so we have to rely on our senses to construct a reality.

But what happens when that “reality” is twisted, contorted, and flat-out ridiculed? Then one could say that the reality has become surreal.

Artists like Andre Breton, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí used surrealistic techniques to become titans of their fields. Let’s take a look at a quick video to see how they did it.

In many ways, Surrealism was born from the ashes of World War I. The scale and magnitude of “the Great War” changed Europe and its inhabitants forever. Breton was a medic in WWI, and like many other veterans, he returned from the war a different man. For Breton, there was no return to normalcy. The world had reared its true colors to him and millions of others.

Our “society” masked the truth that laid beyond the veil. The only true way to break free of the restraints that chained us to rationalism was to release our unconscious. How does one release their unconscious? Through art: paintings, poetry, literature, and yes, cinema.

Dawn of Surrealist Cinema

The early era: Dalí, Buñuel, and Dulac

Surrealist cinema took off immediately, right from the inception of Breton’s movement. Parisian artists and Dadaists (followers of the Dada Manifesto) flocked to group meetings to engage in critical discourse. Artists shared their works with one another, and with their community. This period during the mid-1920s in Paris represented a radical shift in the way artists approached their work.

Artists like Salvador Dalí weren’t restricted by the mediums in which they created. Although Dalí is most famous today for his paintings, he was once a filmmaker as well. Now that we’ve gone over the history of the term, let’s jump into some Surrealism examples.

First Surreal Movies

The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)

Germaine Dulac was a prolific director, theorist, and writer. Her film The Seashell and the Clergyman is widely cited as the first Surrealist film. Let’s take a look at some selected clips from the movie:

The Seashell and the Clergyman follows the story of a priest who dreams of and desires a beautiful young woman. Many contemporary critics praise the film for its brilliant editing and ‘seemingly’ progressive story. I say ‘seemingly’ because your analysis is just as good as mine.

The Seashell and the Clergyman, like other successful Surrealist films, succeeds and fails in its ambiguity. Calling a Surrealist film obtuse isn’t a slight against Surrealist filmmakers; it’s a complement. In other words, one could argue there is no surreal meaning.

French Surrealist Cinema

Un Chien Andalou (1928)

Although The Seashell and the Clergyman is widely regarded as the first Surrealist film, it's legacy is somewhat overshadowed by Buñuel and Dalí’s 1929 film Un Chien Andalou. Luis Buñuel was a Spanish filmmaker who aligned himself with the Surrealism movement. To fully understand where Surrealist cinema started, we have to take a look at a clip from Un Chien Andalou.

If you’re thinking, “what the hell did I just watch?”, good! In many ways, Surrealist cinema isn’t supposed to make sense, at least not in the way we think. Surrealist cinema is all about making us feel a certain way, whether it be confused, happy, outraged, etc.

Trying to decipher meaning behind a Surrealist film can be an exercise in insanity. Consider turning off that critical part of your brain and focus instead on how Surrealist films make you feel.

According to star Ingrid Bergman, the full dream sequence was 20 minutes long. In the final cut of the film, it was reduced from 20 minutes to two. Still, the inclusion of it in the first place marked a major leap forward for the inclusion of Surrealism in major motion pictures.

Iconic Surrealist Examples

Destino (1945-2003)

After the release of Spellbound, Dalí was hired to help storyboard Destino, a short film for Walt Disney. But the project was quickly scrapped due to Disney’s lack of available capital at the time.

Fifty-four years after development began on Destino, Roy E. Disney rebooted the project. The short was finished in 2003, and went on to receive an Academy Award Nomination — and it was screened in the famed Tate Modern museum. Here’s how the final cut came together:

Destino is filled with reverence for classic Surrealist cinema. Notice anything strange about the shot of the person’s hand? It quite directly connects back to Buñuel and Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou in which the young man has ants crawl out of his hand.

Dreamlike Surrealist Films

8 ½ (1963)

Elsewhere, Surrealism in film had begun to take new forms. Take the works of Federico Fellini for example. After the huge success of his film La Dolce Vita, Fellini started to experiment with more lucid and Surrealist films.

Fellini’s 8 ½ — which is largely considered his magnum opus and one of the greatest films of all time, uses Surrealism to great effect. Let’s take a look at the film’s opening scene:

Here, we see Fellini inspired by the works of Carl Jung. The middle stage of Fellini’s career was dominated by an obsession with the “dream-state.” Jung’s interpretation of the dream-state is that we’re naturally inclined to construct stories with archetypes.

Through the existence of a collective unconscious, people of all cultures and creeds share a way of viewing the world. How does this perspective translate to Surrealism? As with most things relating to Surrealism, there’s no definitive answer. But Jungian interpretations of dream-states usually focus on how systems operate and what effect those systems have on individuals.

Fantasy Meets Surreal Definition

City of Women (1980)

Sigmund Freud on the other hand had a different view of the dream-state. Freudian interpretations of the dream-state tend to focus on sex and desire. In many of Fellini’s films, characters are stripped to their most basic and carnal roots. Let’s take a look at how Fellini used a Freudian plot to create a masterful piece of Surrealist cinema: