Editing L'Age d'Or

{{Short description|1930 French surrealist comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel}}
{{for multi|the German record label|L'Age D'Or (record label)|The Shostakovich Ballet|The Golden Age (Shostakovich)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = L'Age d'Or
| image          = L'Age_d'Or.jpg
| caption        = Poster for a 1970s re-release of ''L'Age d'Or''
| director       = [[Luis Buñuel]]
| producer       = [[Charles de Noailles|Vicomte Charles de Noailles]]<br />[[Marie-Laure de Noailles]]
| writer         = Luis Buñuel<br />[[Salvador Dalí]]
| starring       = [[Gaston Modot]]<br />[[Lya Lys]]<br />Caridad de Laberdesque<br />Lionel Salem<br />[[Max Ernst]]<br />Germaine Noizet<br />[[Josep Llorens Artigas]]<br />Duchange<br />[[Bonaventura Ibáñez]]<!-- per poster -->
| music          = Luis Buñuel<br />[[Georges van Parys]]<!-- orig. music only -->
| cinematography = Albert Duverger
| editing        = Luis Buñuel
| distributor    = Corinth Films (1979 U.S.&nbsp;release)
| released       = {{Film date|1930|11|29|df=y}}
| runtime        = 63 minutes
| country        = France
| language       = French
| budget         = 1 million [[franc]]s
}}

'''''L'Age d'Or''''' ({{langx|fr|L'Âge d'or}}, {{IPA|fr|lɑʒ dɔʁ|pron}}), commonly translated as '''''The Golden Age''''' or '''''Age of Gold''''', is a 1930 French [[Surrealism|surrealist]] [[satire|satirical]] [[comedy film]] directed by [[Luis Buñuel]]; the film is about the insanities of modern life, the hypocrisy of the [[Mores|sexual mores]] of [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] society, and the [[value system]] of the [[Catholic Church]]. The [[screenplay]] is by Buñuel and [[Salvador Dalí]].<ref>''Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia'' Third Edition (1987) p. 140</ref> Although ''L'Age d'Or'' was one of the first [[sound film]]s made in France, along with ''[[Miss Europe (1930 film)|Miss Europe]]'' and ''[[Under the Roofs of Paris]],'' much of the story is told with [[title cards]] like a predominantly [[silent film]].

==Synopsis==
The first scene of the film is a documentary about [[scorpion]]s. After that, the film is a series of [[Vignette (literature)|vignettes]], wherein a couple's attempts at consummating their romantic relationship are continually thwarted by the bourgeois values and sexual mores of family, church, and society.

The couple are first seen creating a disturbance by making love in the mud during a religious ceremony. The man is apprehended and led away by two men who struggle to control their captive's sudden impulses. He momentarily breaks free long enough to kick a small dog. Later he struggles free to aggressively crush a beetle with his shoe. As he is escorted through city streets, he sees an advertisement that inspires him to fantasize a woman's hand rubbing herself, and becomes transfixed by another advertisement showing a woman's legs in silk stockings. He eventually escapes his handlers, inexplicably assaults a blind man standing at a curb, and gets into a taxi.

Meanwhile, the woman is at home, where she tells her mother she hurt her finger, which is wrapped in a bandage that disappears and reappears from scene to scene. The woman and her parents attend a party where the guests seem oblivious to alarming or incongruous events in their midst: a maid screams and falls to the floor after emerging from a doorway where flames are visible; a horse-drawn cart filled with rowdy men drinking from large bottles passes through the elegant company in the ballroom; the father converses with guests while ignoring several flies on his face; a small boy is shot and killed for a minor prank.

The man arrives at the party and sees his lover from across the room. He behaves brusquely toward the other guests while looking ardently in the woman's direction, and she looks longingly at him. The woman's mother hands the man a drink, but spills a drop on his hand. He becomes enraged and slaps her, which seems to excite the daughter. Seeking sexual release and satisfaction, the couple go into the garden and make love next to a marble statue, while the rest of the party guests assemble outdoors for an orchestral performance of ''[[Liebestod]]''. When the man is called away to answer a telephone call, the woman [[Sublimation (psychology)|sublimates]] her sexual passion by [[fellatio|fellating]] the toe of the statue until the man returns.

The ''Liebestod'' music stops abruptly when the conductor, his hands gripping his head, walks away, and wanders into the garden where the couple are. The woman runs to comfort the elderly conductor before finally [[French kissing]] him. The man stands up, bumping his head on a hanging flower pot, and grasps his head in pain as he leaves the garden. He stumbles away to her bedroom where he throws a burning tree, a bishop, a plow, the bishop's staff, a giraffe statue and handfuls of pillow feathers out the window.

The final vignette is an allusion to the [[Marquis de Sade]]'s 1785 novel (first published in 1904) ''[[The 120 Days of Sodom]]''—the intertitle reads: ''120 Days of Depraved Acts''—and is about an orgy in a castle, wherein the surviving orgiasts are ready to emerge to the light of mainstream society. From the castle door emerges the bearded and berobed Duc de Blangis (a character from de Sade's novel) who resembles common images of Jesus, the [[Christ]], and who comforts a young woman who has run out from the castle, before he takes her back inside. Afterwards, a woman's scream is heard, and only the Duc re-emerges; and he is beardless. The concluding image is a [[Christian cross]] festooned with the scalps of women; to the accompaniment of jovial music, the scalps sway in the wind.

==Cast==
* [[Gaston Modot]] as The Man
* [[Lya Lys]] as the Young Girl
* Caridad de Laberdesque as a Chambermaid and Little Girl
* [[Max Ernst]] as the Leader of men in cottage
* [[Josep Llorens Artigas]] as Governor
* Lionel Salem as Duke of Blangis
* Germaine Noizet as Marquise
* Duchange as Conductor
* [[Valentine Penrose]] as a Spirit

==Production==
''L'Age d'Or'' began as the second artistic collaboration between [[Luis Buñuel]] and [[Salvador Dalí]], who had fallen out by the time of the film's production. A neophyte cinéast, Buñuel overcame his ignorance of cinematic production technique by sequentially filming most of the screenplay; the 63-minute film is composed of almost every meter of film exposed and dramatic sequence photographed.

The production budget was a million [[French franc|francs]], and was financed and produced by the [[Vicomte]] [[Charles de Noailles]] (1891–1981), a [[French nobility|nobleman]] who, beginning in 1928, yearly commissioned a film as a birthday gift to his wife, the Vicomtesse [[Marie-Laure de Noailles]] (1902–1970), who was a renowned [[Patronage|patroness]] of the arts and of artists, such as Dalí and Buñuel, [[Balthus]], [[Jean Cocteau]], [[Man Ray]], [[Francis Poulenc]], [[Jean Hugo]], [[Jean-Michel Frank]] and others.<ref name="Movie Diva">[http://www.moviediva.com/website/MD_root/reviewpages/L'Age%20D'Or.html ''L'Age d'Or''] entry in the Movie Diva website.</ref>

''L'Age d'Or'' included actors who were famous artists, such as Max Ernst and Josep Llorens Artigas.<ref name=hammond>{{cite book|last=Hammond|first=Paul|title=Constellations of Miró, Breton|date=2000|publisher=City Lights Books|location=San Francisco|isbn=0872863727|page=23|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0872863727}}</ref>

==Reception==
Upon receiving a cinematic exhibition permit from the Board of Censors, ''L'Age d'Or'' had its premiere presentation at Studio 28, Paris, on 29 November 1930. Later, on 3 December, the great popular success of the film provoked attacks by the [[right-wing]] ''[[Ligue des Patriotes]]'' (League of Patriots), whose angry viewers took umbrage at the visual statements made by Buñuel and Dalí. The [[reactionary]] French ''Patriots'' interrupted the screening by throwing ink at the cinema screen and assaulting viewers who opposed them. They then went to the lobby and destroyed art works by Dalí, [[Joan Miró]], [[Man Ray]], [[Yves Tanguy]], and others. On 10 December, the Prefect of Police of Paris, [[Jean Chiappe]], arranged to have the film banned from further public exhibition after the Board of Censors re-reviewed the film.<ref name="Movie Diva"/>

A contemporary right-wing Spanish newspaper published a condemnation of the film and of Buñuel and Dalí, which described the content of the film as "...the most repulsive corruption of our age ... the new poison which [[Judaism]], [[Freemasonry|Masonry]], and rabid, [[revolution]]ary sectarianism want to use in order to corrupt the people".<ref>Morris, C. B. ''This Loving Darkness: The Cinema and Spanish Writers 1920–1936'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1980), pp. 28–9.</ref> In response, the de Noailles family withdrew ''L'Age d'Or'' from commercial distribution and public exhibition for more than forty years; nonetheless, three years later, in 1933, the film was privately exhibited at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], in New York City. Forty-nine years later, from 1–15 November 1979, the film had its legal U.S. premiere at the [[Roxie Theater|Roxie Cinema]] in San Francisco.

The film critic Robert Short said that the scalp-decorated crucifix and the scenes of socially repressive violence, wherein the love-struck protagonist is manhandled by two men, indicate that the social and [[Psychological repression|psychological]] repression of the [[libido]] and of romantic passion and emotion, by the [[Mores|sexual mores]] of [[bourgeois]] society and by the [[value system]] of the [[Roman Catholic Church]], breed violence in the relations among people, and violence by men against women.<ref>''L'Age d'Or'' commentary by Robert Short, published by British Film Institute (BFI).</ref>

==Legacy==
Today, ''L'Age d'Or'' is widely regarded as one of the key works of [[surrealist cinema]]. British critic [[Philip French]] noted that the film, alongside Buñuel's ''[[Un Chien Andalou]]'' (1929), featured "bizarre sequences that assault bourgeois values and sexual oppression while making no logical sense, and they were acclaimed by the leading arbiters of surrealism as the first authentic surrealist films".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/may/29/lage-dor-bunuel-chien-andalou-philip-french|title=L'Age d'Or/ Un Chien Andalou|last=French|first=Philip|author-link=Philip French|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=28 May 2011|access-date=7 March 2016}}</ref> In the [[British Film Institute]]'s 2012 ''[[Sight & Sound]]'' polls, 15 critics and six directors named ''L'Age d'Or'' one of their 10 favorite films in history.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a5074d0|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312050922/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a5074d0|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 March 2016 |title=L'Age d'Or (1930)|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=7 March 2016}}</ref> Ed Gonzalez of ''[[Slant Magazine|Slant]]'' analyzed the film's [[sound design]] in relation to his argument that Buñuel's overriding message is the ability of love to "conquer all sorts of moral restraints".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/lage-dor/|title=L'Age d'Or|last=Gonzalez|first=Ed|magazine=[[Slant Magazine]]|date=17 April 2002}}</ref>

[[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports an average rating of 8.7/10 among 28 critics, with 89% approval overall.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_golden_age_1930|title=L'Age d'Or (Age of Gold) (The Golden Age)|website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]|publisher=[[Fandango Media|Fandango]]|access-date=19 June 2024}}</ref>

The band [[Tin Machine]], fronted by [[David Bowie]], re-enacted the toe sucking scene in their video for the 1991 song "[[You Belong in Rock n' Roll]]".<ref>{{cite book|last=Pegg|first=Nicholas|title=The Complete David Bowie|page=319|edition=2016}}</ref>

The screening of ''L'Age d'Or'' is dramatized in the 2018 Spanish-Dutch animated film ''[[Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles]].''<ref>{{cite news|title='Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles' Review: Animating a Surrealist|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/movies/bunuel-in-the-labyrinth-of-turtles-review.html|last=Kenny|first=Glenn|author-link=Glenn Kenny|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=15 August 2019|access-date=19 June 2024}}</ref>

In April 2019, a restored version of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the [[2019 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Cannes Classics 2019|url=https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/press-releases/cannes-classics-2019/|publisher=Cannes Film Festiva|access-date=19 June 2024|date=26 April 2019}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of works by Salvador Dalí]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|0021577}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|lage_dor}}

{{Luis Buñuel}}
{{Salvador Dalí}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Age D'or}}
[[Category:1930 films]]
[[Category:1930s avant-garde and experimental films]]
[[Category:1930 comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:Existentialist films]]
[[Category:French black-and-white films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Luis Buñuel]]
[[Category:French avant-garde and experimental films]]
[[Category:French comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:1930s French-language films]]
[[Category:Film with screenplays by Salvador Dalí]]
[[Category:Surrealist films]]
[[Category:Non-narrative films]]
[[Category:Art works that caused riots]]
[[Category:Obscenity controversies in film]]
[[Category:Religious controversies in film]]
[[Category:Political controversies in film]]
[[Category:Censored films]]
[[Category:Films based on works by the Marquis de Sade]]
[[Category:1930s French films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Georges Van Parys]]
[[Category:French-language comedy-drama films]]