Das goldene Zeitalter
Dalí became interested in film when he was young, going to the theater most Sundays. By the late 1920s he was fascinated by the potential of film to reveal "the unlimited fantasy born of things themselves" and went on to collaborate with the director Luis Buñuel on two Surrealist films: the 17-minute short "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and the feature film "L'Age d'Or" (1930). Dalí and Buñuel agree that they jointly developed the script and imagery of "Un Chien Andalou", but there is controversy over the extent of Dalí's contribution to "L'Age d'Or". "Un Chien Andalou" features a graphic opening scene of a human eyeball being slashed with a razor and develops surreal imagery and irrational discontinuities in time and space to produce a dreamlike quality. "L'Age d'Or" is more overtly anti-clerical and anti-establishment, and was banned after right-wing groups staged a riot in the Parisian theater where it was being shown. Summarizing the impact of these two films on the Surrealist film movement, one commentator has stated: "If Un Chien Andalou stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then L'Âge d'Or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."