The Phantom of Liberty
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Luis Buñuel
Julien Bertheau
Adriana Asti
Jean Rochefort
Pierre-francois Pistorio
Jean-claude Brialy
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
One of Luis Bunuel's most free-form and purely Surrealist films, consisting of a series of only vaguely related episodes - most famously, the dinner party scene where people sit on lavatories round a dinner table on, occasionally retiring to a little room to eat.
Director
Luis Buñuel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Articles
Luis Bunuel's The Phantom of Liberty on DVD
The film opens with a still of a famous painting by Francisco Jose de Goya, The Executions of May 3, 1808, wherein a line of Napoleonic soldiers are shown firing their bayonets at a group of wounded Spanish patriots. The sound of gunfire overlaps with the painting, subtitles provide some background, and action then shifts to the first enacted scene, which echoes Goya's painting by showing a similar execution, but this time we also hear the people about to be executed cry out "Long live chains!" in Spanish (the subtitles translate it as "Down with liberty!"). In her book on surrealists, Linda Williams explains that:
"Although a cry of defiance to the occupying French army, Vivan las caenas! Is shouted at the forces of revolution – at the Napoleonic army 'freeing' Europe from the tyrannies of monarchy and church (among those executed is a priest, played by Bunuel himself). Exactly what we are to make of this scene and cry remains problematic at this point. Only one thing is certain: there is no obvious or easy division between the forces of tyranny and the forces of liberation, while the Spanish loyalists typically represent the tyranny of king and church; yet in this case the presumed forces of liberation, the Napoleonic soldiers, oppress the presumed forces of tyranny, the Spanish loyalists. Perhaps the cry Long live chains! Ironically means that the Spanish loyalists prefer the chains of monarchy to the 'liberty' that here executes them. At any rate, one effect of this cry is to make freedom and tyranny appear as very relative forces. Not only is one person's freedom another's enslavement, but the Spanish patriots who cry Long live chains! (or Down with liberty!) may also acknowledge a truth inherent in any defiance of oppression: that the dream of freedom depends on the very existence of slavery; because there are chains, we desire to be set free." (Figures of Desire; A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film)
Williams' goes on to systematically analyze the ensuing episodes (she acknowledges that by her own count there are eight distinct segments, but others count as many as 12). What each episode shares is a nod to the "thesis and antithesis" as well as a relay-race format in which different characters pass the baton, metaphorically, to provide a segue into the scenes that follow. Gary Indiana alludes to this template in his liner notes to the Criterion dvd when he mentions how "In published conversation with José de la Colina and Tomás Pérez Turrent, Bunuel mentions that he doesn't especially care for Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and thought it would be a far more interesting book if, as Raskolnikov ascends the stairs to murder the old pawnbroker, a boy on his way to buy a loaf of bread rushed past him and suddenly became the focus of the narrative instead of Raskolnikov." (The Serpentine Movements of Chance)
Bunuel's affinity for a cinematic stream-of-consciousness is coupled with an incisive awareness of political realities that are given free reign in The Phantom of Liberty. In the reprinted and excerpted interviews between Bunuel and Mexican film critics Colina and Turrent provided in Criterion's liner notes the interviewers ask Bunuel about the director's use of showing characters defecating during a social gathering or the topics of excrement, ecology, and pollution in another segment's lecture, to which Bunuel replies:
"I acknowledge that mankind's irrational destruction of nature bothers me a lot. Mankind is slowly committing suicide – or not so slowly; each day it accelerates – producing all kinds of wastes: corporal, industrial, atomic, poisoning the earth, the sea, and the air. He destroys the very environment that gives him sustenance. Centuries and centuries of civilization to arrive at this: What a piece of work is man!" (Don Luis Bunuel on The Phantom of Liberty)
Indeed, each segment of The Phantom of Liberty offers an incredulous looks at this "piece of work" through the unique looking glass of Bunuel's lens. Viewers who mistake the proceedings as being random or whimsical will miss the point. Whether it's a sniper who picks off pedestrians from a high rise and then is released to an adoring throng (and here Bunuel alludes to actual terrorists who were released after negotiations to a hero's welcome in their home countries) to the previously mentioned scene where the private act of defecation is inverted into a social role while the public role of eating is also inverted into an act done in private (inspired by Bunuel's military service where the crowded toilet pits made it so that "you got used to it and later chatted with your companion"), each segment is meant to cut through our own limited fog and matrix of presuppositions and morals and cast the absurdity of our species into a sharper focus.
The Criterion Collection dvd of The Phantom of Liberty includes a video introduction by screenwriter, and frequent Bunuel collaborator, Jean-Claude Carriere, an original theatrical trailer, and a 1.66:1 high-definition digital transfer with improved subtitles.
For more information about The Phantom of Liberty, visit Criterion Collection. To order The Phantom of Liberty, go to TCM Shopping.
by Pablo Kjolseth
Luis Bunuel's The Phantom of Liberty on DVD
Quotes
Good evening, madame. Do you know what this is?- Le pere Gabriel/Father Gabriel
Yes, it's an image.- La dame en noir et la soeur du premier prefet/Prefect's Sister
A miraculous image of St. Joseph. It sometimes has amazing effects on the sick.- Le pere Gabriel/Father Gabriel
Really?- La dame en noir et la soeur du premier prefet/Prefect's Sister
Sometimes faith succeeds where science fails. We just came from the Marquise of Pomarede. She was near death. We brought her the image, we prayed, and this morning when we left the chateau...- Le pere Gabriel/Father Gabriel
You have cancer of the liver.- Le docteur de Legendre/Doctor Pasolini
Cancer? Me?- Legendre/Mr. Legendre
It's in a fairly advanced state. But today, you know, these things... Cigarette?- Le docteur de Legendre/Doctor Pasolini
Trivia
The title is a reference to "The Communist Manifesto" which in English begins: "A spectre is stalking Europe, the spectre of Communism." The French translation known to Bu?uel translated "spectre" as "fantome". So the title can be seen as a dig at the "Bourgeois" mentality which fears freedom, and also a sideswipe at the rather straightjacketed Communist parties of the time.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1974
Released in United States on Video November 9, 1988
Released in United States October 13, 1974
Released in United States December 23, 1990
Shown at New York Film Festival October 13, 1974.
Shown at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA December 23, 1990.
Released in United States 1974
Released in United States on Video November 9, 1988
Released in United States December 23, 1990 (Shown at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA December 23, 1990.)
Released in United States October 13, 1974 (Shown at New York Film Festival October 13, 1974.)