Buñuel, Luis (1900-1983)

Spanish-born film director. He is widely considered one of the giants of European art cinema, responsible for such enduring classics as Los olvidados/The Young and the Damned (1950), Viridiana (1961), Belle de jour (1966), and Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie/The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).

An early exponent of surrealist cinema, Buñuel collaborated with Salvador Dalí on Un chien andalou/An Andalusian Dog (1928) and L'Age d'or/The Golden Age (1930). After a brief production career in Spain, Buñuel went into exile following the Nationalists' triumph in the Spanish Civil War. With the exception of Viridiana, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Tristana (1970), both of which were filmed in Spain, the majority of his subsequent career was spent in France and Mexico. Although Un chien andalou remains his most purely surrealist film, Buñuel's involvement with the Parisian surrealist movement in the 1920s left an indelible mark on the remainder of his career, as evidenced by the irreverent anticlericalism and ironic critique of bourgeois institutions and morality that characterize many of his later works.

His credits also include Las Hurdes/Land Without Bread (1932), El/This Strange Passion (1952), Ensayo de un crimen/The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), Nazarín (1958), El ángel exterminador/The Exterminating Angel (1962), and Cet obscur objet du désir/That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).