Luis Buñuel Portolés
11 min read
Reading time
2,106
Words
Published
31
Film credits
10
Books
11
Awards
Luis Buñuel launched cinematic surrealism with Un Chien Andalou 1929, featuring the iconic sliced eyeball. He won the Palme d’Or for Viridiana 1961 and directed Belle de Jour 1967. His career spanned Spain, France, Mexico, and the US, earning him the nickname ‘The Scourge of the Bourgeoisie’.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Luis Buñuel — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Luis Buñuel by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Luis Buñuel — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
In 1900, Buñuel was born in Calanda, Aragon, to Leonardo Buñuel González. A strict Jesuit education at the College of the Savior in Zaragoza sowed the seeds of his lifelong obsession with religion and subversion. He later studied at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he formed close friendships with Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca.
In 1929, Buñuel collaborated with Dalí to create Un Chien Andalou, a 17-minute short that stunned audiences with its surreal imagery, including a sliced eyeball. The film earned him entry into the Surrealist Group. The following year, his first feature L’Age d’Or 1930 attacked the church and bourgeoisie, themes he would explore for decades.
After a fallow period during the Spanish Civil War, he moved to Mexico in the late 1940s and teamed with producer Óscar Dancigers. The film The Young and the Damned 1950 won him the Cannes Best Director Award. In 1961, Franco invited him back to Spain, where Buñuel made Viridiana, which won the Palme d’Or but was banned for blasphemy.
His late period began with Diary of a Chambermaid 1964, collaborating with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière. He directed seven masterpieces, including Belle de Jour 1967 and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Buñuel married Jeanne Buñuel, and they had a son, Juan Luis Buñuel, who also became a filmmaker. He was religious in his youth, serving Mass daily until age 16, when he grew disgusted with the Church’s power. He became a Mexican citizen in 1949 and lived in Mexico City until his death. In his later years, he suffered from severe hearing loss, which caused him anguish but did not affect his tight control over film sound design.
Alfred Hitchcock praised Buñuel as the best director ever. Seven of his films appear on Sight & Sound’s 2012 critics’ poll of the top 250 films. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 1968 and 1972. Woody Allen offered him $30,000 for a cameo in Annie Hall 1977, but he declined. Buñuel’s subversive, surreal style continues to influence filmmakers, and his autobiography remains a provocative read.
The complete filmography of Luis Buñuel — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Luis Buñuel — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Luis Buñuel's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from Luis Buñuel — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I Have a Soft Spot for Secret Passageways, Bookshelves That Open into Silence, Staircases That Go Down into a Void, and Hidden Safes. I Even Have One Myself, but I Won’t Tell You Where. at the Other End of the Spectrum Are Statistics Which I Hate with All My Heart.
I’ve Always Found Insects Exciting.
Nothing Would Disgust Me More Morally Than Winning an Oscar.
Thank God, I’m an Atheist.
Sex Without Religion Is Like Cooking an Egg Without Salt. Sin Gives More Chances to Desire.
I Can Only Wait for the Final Amnesia, the One That Can Erase an Entire Life.
All My Life I’ve Been Harassed by Questions: Why Is Something This Way and Not Another? How Do You Account for That? This Rage to Understand, to Fill in the Blanks, Only Makes Life More Banal. If We Could Only Find the Courage to Leave Our Destiny to Chance, to Accept the Fundamental Mystery of Our Lives, Then We Might Be Closer to the Sort of Happiness That Comes with Innocence.
You Have to Begin to Lose Your Memory, If Only in Bits and Pieces, to Realize That Memory Is What Makes Our Lives. Life Without Memory Is No Life at All, Just as an Intelligence Without the Possibility of Expression Is Not Really an Intelligence. Our Memory Is Our Coherence, Our Reason, Our Feeling, Even Our Action. Without It, We Are Nothing.
The Bar . . . Is an Exercise in Solitude. Above All Else, It Must Be Quiet, Dark, Very Comfortable And, Contrary to Modern Mores, No Music of Any Kind, No Matter How Faint. in Sum, There Should Be No More Than a Dozen Tables, and a Client That Doesn’t Like to Talk.
If Someone Were to Prove to Me Right This Minute That God, in All His Luminousness, Exists, It Wouldn’t Change a Single Aspect of My Behavior.
God and Country Are an Unbeatable Team; They Break All Records for Oppression and Bloodshed.
Give Me Two Hours a Day of Activity, and I’ll Take the Other 22 in Dreams.
Tobacco and Alcohol, Delicious Fathers of Abiding Friendships and Fertile Reveries.
A Paranoiac, Like a Poet, Is Born, Not Made.
Fortunately, Somewhere Between Chance and Mystery Lies Imagination, the Only Thing That Protects Our Freedom, Despite the Fact That People Keep Trying to Reduce It or Kill It off Altogether.
If You Were to Ask Me If I’d Ever Had the Bad Luck to Miss My Daily Cocktail, I’d Have to Say That I Doubt It; Where Certain Things Are Concerned, I Plan Ahead.
In the Name of Hippocrates, Doctors Have Invented the Most Exquisite Form of Torture Ever Known to Man: Survival.
Frankly, Despite My Horror of the Press, I’d Love to Rise from the Grave Every Ten Years or so and Go Buy a Few Newspapers.
Age Is Something That Doesn’t Matter, Unless You Are a Cheese.
A Writer of a Painter Cannot Change the World. but They Can Keep an Essential Margin of Nonconformity Alive.
I’ve Always Felt a Secret but Constant Link Between the Sexual Act and Death . . . :Lately My Own Sexual Desire Has Waned and Finally Disappeared, Even in Dreams, and I’m Delighted.
Hate to Leave While There’s so Much Going On. It’s Like Quitting in the Middle of a Serial.
Little-known facts about Luis Buñuel — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Alfred Hitchcock praised Buñuel as the best director ever.
Buñuel liked to daydream and frequently played tricks on his friends. In Mexico, one of his favorite victims was screenwriter Luis Alcoriza. During a hunting party, Alcoriza shot an eaglet from a tree, only to find a price tag on its paw: it was a stuffed bird placed there by Buñuel.
Besides his native Spanish, he spoke fluent French and English.
In 1966, he rejected an offer from Salvador Dalí to direct a sequel to Un chien andalou.
Entertainment Weekly voted him the 14th Greatest Director of all time.
He loathed Salvador Dalí’s wife, Gala Dalí, describing her as a woman who has never liked me, perhaps because I once attempted to strangle her.
He served as a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954.
Educated at Jesuit schools before attending the University of Madrid, where he formed friendships with Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca.
Nine of his films appear in the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
He became a Mexican citizen in 1949.
He worked as chief editor and chief of the writer department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1939 to 1943.
He was the father of filmmaker Rafael Buñuel.
A biography of him appears in John Wakeman’s World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945.
A 30-film retrospective of his work was held at the Berlinale in 2008.
He was the grandfather of Diego Bunuel.
In his youth, Buñuel was deeply religious, serving at Mass and taking Communion daily until age 16, when he grew disgusted with the Church’s illogicality and wealth.
He directed one Oscar-nominated performance: Dan O’Herlihy in Robinson Crusoe 1954.
Seven of his films are included in Sight & Sound’s 2012 critics’ poll of the top 250 films of all time.
Woody Allen offered Buñuel $30,000 to make a cameo in Annie Hall 1977, but he declined because he was working on That Obscure Object of Desire.
When The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1973, Buñuel posed for the official photo wearing a joke disguise of white wig, fake mustache, and glasses with surreal eyes.
Upon his death, the Mexican government proposed a state funeral, but his family turned it down, respecting his wishes for a small private ceremony and cremation.
He was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1968 and 1972.
He was father-in-law of filmmaker Joyce Buñuel.
From his late 30s, Buñuel suffered increasing hearing loss and in his later years was virtually deaf, but he maintained tight control over the sound design of his films.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Luis Buñuel.
Celebrities similar to Luis Buñuel — same craft, ranked by reach.
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