L'age d'or
1930

scr: Luis Bunuel (Salvador Dali offered some ideas for this film)
dir: Luis Bunuel
prod: Visconte de Noailles
ed: Luis bunuel
ph: Albert Duverger

st:
Gaston Modot
Lya Lys


Film Notes

The production of L'age d'or was financed by a patron of the arts, the Visconte de Noailles, and Bunuel was given complete creative freedom. It was originally to have been called "the frozen waters of egotistical calculation" (an expression of the Communist Manifesto).

The original program notes stated "...in everyday life, accidents occur in bourgeois society while that society pays no attention whatsoever. But such accidents further weaken an already rotting society that is trying to prolong its existence artificially through priests and policemen...but it is LOVE that brings about the transition from pessimism to action; Love, denounced in the bourgeois demonology as the root of all evil. For Love demands the sacrifice of every other value: status, family, and honor."

L'age d'or was presented to the Board of Censors as the dream of a madman and obtained a screening permit. The first few weeks of screenings at Studio 28 were unmarked by incidents. On the evening of December 3, 1930, members of the fascist League of Patriots and of the Anti-Semitic League interrupted the screening, shouting "Down with the Jews," throwing stink bombs and purple ink at the screen; furnishings were destroyed and paintings (by Dali, Max Ernst, and Man Ray) were slashed. As a result the film was banned by police commissioner Chiappe. L'age d'or is very much a reflection of its own era and the 1930 surrealist revolt.**