Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

a tough question, but sometimes I say that the movement was successfulin its details and a failure in its essentials. Breton, Eluard,and Aragon are among the best French writers in this century; theirbooks have prominent positions on all library shelves. The work ofErnst, Magritte, and Dali is famous, high-priced, and hangs prominentlyin museums. There's no doubt that surrealism was a culturaland artistic success; but these were precisely the areas of least importanceto most surrealists. Their aim was not to establish a gloriousplace for themselves in the annals of art and literature, but to changethe world, to transform life itself. This was our essential purpose,but one good look around is evidence enough of our failure.Needless to say, any other outcome was impossible. Today, wesee the place of surrealism in the world as infinitesimal. Like theearth itself, devoured by monumental dreams, we were nothingjusta small group of insolent intellectuals who argued interminablyin cafes and published a journal; a handful of idealists, easily dividedwhere action was concerned. And yet my three-year sojourn in theexalted-and yes, chaotic-ranks of the movement changed my life.I treasure that access to the depths of the self which I so yearned for,that call to the irrational, to the impulses that spring from the darkside of the soul. It was the surrealists who first launched this appealwith a sustained force and courage, with insolence and playfulnessand an obstinate dedication to fight everything repressive in theconventional wisdom. Where these aspects of the movement areconcerned, I see nothing to repudiate.In fact, I'd even say that most surrealist intuitions were correctforexample, their attack on the notion of work, that cornerstone ofbourgeois civilization, as something sacrosanct. The surrealists werethe first to reveal the falseness of this ideal, to declare that salariedwork was fundamentally humiliating. In Tristana, Don Lope echoesthis attitude when he says to the young mute:"Poor workers! First they're cuckolded, and, as if that weren'tenough, then they're beaten! Work's a curse, Saturno. I say to hellwith the work you have to do to earn a living! That kind of work