332 Viridiana

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Michael · #1 Post by **Michael** » Fri May 06, 2005 8:44 am

Viridiana

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/1091/332_box_348x490_w100.jpg[/img]

Novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism. Banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Bunuel's irreverent vision of life as a beggar's banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In it, novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism. Winner of the Palme d'or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, Viridiana is as audacious today as ever.

Special Features

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- New video interviews with Silvia Pinal and author Richard Porton
- Excerpts from a 1964 episode of Cinèastes de notre temps on Luis Bunuel's early career
- U.S. release trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Plus: A booklet featuring Michael Wood and an interview with Bunuel

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justinbaker2 · #2 Post by **justinbaker2** » Fri May 06, 2005 9:42 am

Michael wrote:I saw Viridiana for the first time last night on TCM and whoa...I was totally blown away. Way past our bedtime, my partner and I were krazy-glued to what I think now is Bunuel's best film from the very first frame to the stunning last.

Agreed re: this film is wonderful; I don't know how I'd never known about it before.

I'm still laughing over Viridiana being goaded to milk the cow, the last supper pose, and the "card game."

bunuelian · #3 Post by **bunuelian** » Fri May 06, 2005 12:41 pm

I think the story about the making of Viridiana really gives it that special something that pushes it to the top of Bunuel's canon in my estimation It's a great big middle finger to Franco - and it was made right under his nose, and with his money!

Michael · #4 Post by **Michael** » Fri May 06, 2005 4:47 pm

I'm still laughing over Viridiana being goaded to milk the cow, the last supper pose, and the "card game."

Thinking it was going to be a very dreary, boring, same-old film about the hypocrisy of the organized religions (especially right after watching Nazarin which I found very medicore), Viridiana threw me off guard.. it got me laughing so hard all the way through. The funniest film I've seen since Waiting For Guffman (that was a very long time ago). I enjoy a few of Bunuel films but Viridiana is the top.

bunuelian · #5 Post by **bunuelian** » Fri May 06, 2005 6:46 pm

I was hooked at the shot of her taking off her stockings: a sexualized nun! Imagine the old ladies' heads that got set on fire with that one!

Michael · #6 Post by **Michael** » Sat May 07, 2005 8:39 am

I had just finished catching up with the Mexican Bunuels. The Exterminating Angel is fantastic and I think it would make the perfect companion to Bunuel's later film The Discreet Charm... The Criterion Collection should have released those two as a set since they share the remarkably similar themes, settings and characters.

Los Olvadados, Nazarin and Simon of the Desert are okay and they didn't really keep my attention as much as Viridiana did. I love Viridiana - absolutely the best of Bunuel. I couldn't stop thinking about it and I want so badly to see it again. No film has ever jumped on my list of all-time favorite films as quick as Viridiana did two nights ago. 8 1/2, Eraserhead and Viridiana are my top 3 now.

Viridiana finds herself in the world of hell. Whose fault is it? The Mother Superior! Having seen the film only once, I couldn't figure out the whole "card game" ending. What does it suppose to signify?

justinbaker2 · #7 Post by **justinbaker2** » Sat May 07, 2005 11:43 am

Michael wrote:I couldn't figure out the whole "card game" ending. What does it suppose to signify?

I figured it suggested they were going to have a threesome.

bunuelian · #8 Post by **bunuelian** » Sat May 07, 2005 1:07 pm

justinbaker2 wrote:
Michael wrote:I couldn't figure out the whole "card game" ending. What does it suppose to signify?
I figured it suggested they were going to have a threesome.

That's right. In the original script it was much more explicit - she was simply going to go into the bedroom and close the door behind her. The card game idea was actually proposed by the Spanish censor who reviewed the film. Bunuel thought it was a big improvement over his ending, so he had no problem complying.

FilmFanSea · #9 Post by **FilmFanSea** » Sat May 07, 2005 1:09 pm

Michael wrote:Having seen the film only once, I couldn't figure out the whole "card game" ending. What does it suppose to signify?

The film was originally supposed to end with Viridiana knocking on the bedroom door of her cousin Jorge, and being escorted inside. The Spanish censors rejected that ending because it implied that this convent-educated virgin would initiate her own seduction.

So Buñuel devised the three-handed card game between Viridiana, Jorge, and Ramona. Though it was passed by the censors, Buñuel considered it even more shocking, because it suggested that Viridiana had consented to a ménage à trois. Other than this possibility of sexual perversion, the card game itself was not meant to have any other meanings (the trio could just as easily have played another game).

#10 Post by **zedz** » Sun May 08, 2005 6:30 pm

tryavna wrote: Just watched Simon of the Desert last night -- Superb film, I might add. Love that ending!

Simon might be my favourite Bunuel. He manages to fit in so much in such a compact timeframe (Satan / Jesus dropkicking that lamb is a high point), the performances are razor sharp, and that ending is bleak, hilarious and unnerving all at once.

justeleblanc · #11 Post by **justeleblanc** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:46 am

I watched this last night with a friend and she was very curious as to the foot themes Bunuel sets up in the movie.

Besides the Jesus cleaning the feet, do these symbolize anything else in the film? Is there any other significance of the feet?

swingo · #12 Post by **swingo** » Wed May 11, 2005 2:48 pm

JusteLeblanc wrote:I watched this last night with a friend and she was very curious as to the foot themes Bunuel sets up in the movie.

Besides the Jesus cleaning the feet, do these symbolize anything else in the film? Is there any other significance of the feet?

He loved women's legs.

justeleblanc · #13 Post by **justeleblanc** » Wed May 11, 2005 3:55 pm

Right, and he always wanted to have sex with an unconscious Mrs. Franco.

But there are a lot of men's feet as well. Men's legs. Sometimes just feet. I don't know, was it just the Jesus cleaning of people's feet?

bunuelian · #14 Post by **bunuelian** » Wed May 11, 2005 4:24 pm

Bunuel was a devoted and unabashed foot fetishist. Feet and shoes appear in most of his films in one guise or another (my favorite being Francisco watching the feet at the start of El). He also recognized how expressive they could be, as in Belle de Jour when he focuses only on Severine's feet as she climbs the stairs to Madame Anais's apartment.

Viridiana is nine months pregnant with symbolism. Gwynne Edwards gives a good treatment of it in "The Discreet Charm of Luis Bunuel." But the feet are (probably) purely Bunuel.

It's worth noting that ankles and feet are very common in literature and art - just look at Homer. The other night I came across a passage in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in which Zarathustra was praising the pretty ankles of dancing girls . . .

Anyone who has given or recieved a flirtatious footrub should appreciate where Bunuel is coming from.

justeleblanc · #15 Post by **justeleblanc** » Wed May 11, 2005 4:37 pm

bunuelian wrote:Viridiana is nine months pregnant with symbolism.

Nice way to put it. I was able to catch most of the symbolism, or hopefully most. I always felt a little handicapped watching a Bunuel film, being jewish and all.

As for the feet, they just seemed a bit more pronounced in Viridiana, or at least after my friend mentioned it, that was all I saw.

bunuelian · #16 Post by **bunuelian** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:55 am

I'm reluctant to find an intentional homoerotic element in Bunuel's films. From what I've read, it sounds like he never abandoned the cultural homophobia of his Spanish umbringing. One piece I read suggested that he wasn't aware that Lorca was gay, or that he looked the other way, because he'd never associate with him if he knew . . . I don't know the extent to which this is true, or just speculation, but I see no reason to think otherwise.

Still, a viewer is free to find whatever she wants in his films - and I think it's not unreasonable to see a certain quasi-homoeroticism in the priest washing the childrens' feet turning Francisco on in unconscious ways - though he channels it into lust for a woman.

Bunuel loved to put his audience into a mood of religious purity and then pull the rug out from beneath them to reveal that their animal instincts haven't gone anywhere despite all the gestures and eye-rolling. Whenever a church ceremony is on the screen, a viewer can expect Bunuel to flip its meaning in some way. It's important to view the ceremony for what it would appear to be to a devout Catholic. Most of Bunuel, and especially Viridiana, rely on the viewer appreciating the religious solemnity of these events. Then contrast it with Francisco's excitement at seeing the pretty pair of a woman's feet. Even in the midst of sanctity, sex retains all its potency.

This is seen in Viridiana as well. She does her die-hard devotionals, then we see her taking off her stockings in a shockingly errotic scene - for a nun. I laughed for half an hour when I first saw that scene.

justeleblanc · #17 Post by **justeleblanc** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:12 am

I feel like I probably missed a lot of the Franco references in the film. I'm not too well-versed in Franco's cultural politics. Would anyone care to enlighten me as to the inside jokes or cuts that Bunuel threw into Viridiana at Franco's expense. Or is it just the themes as a whole. Right now, I've just been under the impression that it's just the criticism of religion as a whole. Are there specific references?

Rhetorical questions:
And does anyone else find it weird when you hear an English song in a foreign film?
Also, is it me or are Spanish blondes the most beautiful women ever?

bunuelian · #18 Post by **bunuelian** » Thu May 12, 2005 12:01 pm

Bunuel's beef wasn't with religion in general but with the Catholic church specifically. Franco and the church were tight - the church actively supported Franco, and vice versa. So Bunuel's attacks on the church are equally attacks on Franco. The oft-quoted "I am still an atheist, thank god," is of dubious origin: I've read that Bunuel never in fact said that, but it was attributed to him and somehow stuck. There are plenty of indications that Bunuel wasn't as staunchly atheist as his legacy suggests.

The rock n' roll song indicates the erosion of traditional, conservative mores, as well as a breaking down of insular cultural identity by external, liberalizing influences. It plays into Viridiana's transformation very effectively.

numediaman2 · #19 Post by **numediaman2** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:51 pm

As I drift toward my last sigh I often imagine a final joke. I convoke around my deathbed my friends who are confirmed atheists, as I am. Then a priest, whom I have summoned, arrives; and to the horror of my friends I make my confession, ask for absolution for my sins, and receive extreme unction. After which I turn over on my side and expire.

But will I have the strength to joke at that moment?

from Luis Bunuel's book My Last Sigh

bunuelian · #20 Post by **bunuelian** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:32 pm

A number of authors (including, if I'm remembering correctly, Carriere) were not as confident that Bunuel was "as atheist as they come" as Bunuel let on. Some describe him as "religious in his own way" but for the Catholic Church's purpose, he might as well have been an atheist. It could be that Bunuel's presonal religious views lent power to the religious iconography of his films, because he could imbue in them what he accepted as religious truth, by reducing them to worldly things.

Whatever his views were (whether they were strictly atheist or something different) his films certainly give no quarter to traditional Catholic theism. Just watch Nazarin.

I don't think that quote from My Last Sigh proves that he was an atheist. His friends would be as shocked by his calling for a Catholic priest as a sign of his abandoning his political views as much as a sign that he was abandoning atheism. Don't forget that many of Bunuel's friends were killed during the Civil War.

Michael · #21 Post by **Michael** » Fri May 13, 2005 9:46 am

Can someone please post an image of the Last Supper scene from Viridiana on here?

ola t · #22 Post by **ola t** » Fri May 13, 2005 2:25 pm

This one's straight from the French DVD.

Michael · #23 Post by **Michael** » Fri May 13, 2005 2:48 pm

Seeing that image again brought tears to my eyes. Ultimately one of the best images in the history of cinema. Period.

tryavna · #24 Post by **tryavna** » Fri May 13, 2005 3:26 pm

Here's Da Vinci's original, if anyone wants a quick comparison

jorencain · #25 Post by **jorencain** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:36 am

I just saw this at the the AFI Silver near D.C. and loved it. I really enjoyed how the story developed from one thing to something totally different. I wasn't expecting Fernando Rey's character to really commit suicide, and the film became something else entirely when Viridiana brought home all the beggars. The Last Supper scene was great, as well as them dancing around to the Hallelujah Chorus. I really hope this makes it onto DVD soon.