L'Amour Fou: nationalism, patriarchy and the nuptial farce in L'Âge d'or and Un chapeau de paille d'Italie

Abstract

Though it has mainly been analyzed in terms of its relation to the Surrealist movement, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's L'Âge d'or (1930) was deeply engaged with debates over the relationship between art, commerce and politics that preoccupied film-makers of the time. In fact, L'Âge d'or was in part a reaction to and a commentary upon René Clair's comedic masterpiece, Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (1928). Indeed, Clair's professional trajectory and the positions he took as a well-known film critic made him a figure of special interest to the young Spanish film-makers. Because of his background in the avant-garde, his stature in the industry, and his well-known political positions in defense of French ‘national’ cinema, Clair's work was an obvious choice for cinematic pastiche. In effect, the two films represent diverging responses to the growing crisis facing the French film industry in the late 1920s.