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Museum of Resistance and Resilience

Salvador Dali Dream Sequence from Spellbound (1945)

This video depicts the dream sequence scene from Alfred Hitchcock's psychological mystery thriller film noir Spellbound. Designed by Salvador Dalí, this dream sequence is filled with psychoanalytical symbols and abstract images. I chose this object because Spellbound is one of the first American films to use psychoanalysis and surrealism as a major element of the story. Hitchcock's decision to incorporate Surrealism into Spellbound was influenced by the aftermath of WWII where many families were suffering from PTSD and were seeking psychological treatment. In the context of film, the use of Surrealism was to unlock the unconscious mind of a character to divulge the details of a murder. As exemplified in Spellbound and relating to the origins of Surrealism, Surrealist cinema employs juxtapositions and shocking imagery in hopes to reveal the contradictions of reality and spur on revolution.

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2. Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) The surrealist movement surfaced shortly after the Dadaist movement in 1924. The short film Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí aired in 1929 and became one of the most famous films in the surrealist movement. The film’s random imagery and lack of storyline work to protest rational thought in art and encourage viewers to question the purpose of art. In the Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton, the recognized leader of the surrealist movement, Brenton defines surrealism as: “a pure state of mind that allows someone to express thoughts freely without the encumbrance of rational thought and societal rules”. Buñuel and Dalí try to showcase this state of mind in their film. It is said that a lot of the film's bizarre content comes from discussions between Buñuel and Dalí about their dreams. The surrealist movement focuses heavily on expressing dreams because this is where the mind is free from convention, and where our most basic, untainted instincts are stored. Buñuel and Dalí wanted to present the images that came from their "unconscious minds" on screen. The meaning of the film is that it means absolutely nothing. It is not a piece that is meant to be deeply scrutinized or analyzed. Instead, it is about what the random images mean to a viewer and what a viewer feels when seeing them. Buñuel and Dalí put together objects that don't usually go together (the ants in the hand, the woman's armpit, the sea urchin, and the severed hand) to stimulate the unconscious mind. The images that came from the directors' unconscious minds for a specific reason might provoke something entirely different in a viewer’s unconscious mind. But that’s the point. Surrealists argued that this kind of disjunction and randomness prevents viewers from being influenced by the outside world and provokes genuine, original thought. Buñuel and Dalí fade each image into the next to make viewers question what's real and what isn't, literally blurring the lines of reality and convention. The lack of storyline in the film gives the viewer a lack of conscious control, another of Buñuel and Dalí’s attempts to stimulate the unconscious mind in the film.