prettyunsmart

Idle Criterion Film Club Week 4: Viridiana (1961)

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Hi Thumbs,

 

This week, we're watching Luis Buñuel's Viridiana. I'll admit that I've never seen it before, but, if his other films are any indication, at least it won't be boring. Sorry for the delay in making the topic. I didn't have (consistent) internet access for a few days, so I'm just getting to watch the film now. I'll update with some initial thoughts and discussion questions later this afternoon.

 

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EDIT: By the way, after watching the film, I wanted to go back and add trigger warnings just in case. The film depicts some scenes of sexual violence, poverty, and cruelty to animals. It can be a bit hard to watch at times. I know I'll probably get made fun of for including this, but I thought that maybe I should.

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Another black and white subbed movie. I see a trend ;)

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Another black and white subbed movie. I see a trend ;)

 

Sorry about that! As much as I wanted to go with something newer and possibly in English, I couldn't pass up the chance to make myself watch more semi-canonical films while tricking myself into thinking it has nothing to do with my academic life.

 

Anyway, that wasn't quite what I was expecting, which might be the mildest thing anyone has ever said about a Buñuel film. Before watching Viridiana, I had seen Un Chien Andalou, the director's famous collaboration with Salvador Dali, and Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan, his pseudo documentary about the suffering of Spanish villagers during the Spanish Civil War (which may or may not have been a parody of more earnest efforts like Ernest Hemingway's The Spanish Earth). With both of these earlier films, it is clear that shock is a key element of Buñuel's style. Un Chien Andalou features one of the more brutal scenes in film history, in which a woman's eye appears to be sliced open with a razor blade.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bysxnMXqX28

 

While not so explicit, Las Hurdes is similarly unsettling, featuring images and descriptions of poverty, starvation, and horrible atrocities associated with war. In spite of this, it is a film that doesn't take its subject matter entirely seriously. Buñuel's work is often satirical, and at times, Las Hurdes appears to mock the more serious documentaries which were released around the same time. One section attempts to show how treacherous the land by claiming that even the goats the live in the mountains frequently fall to their deaths because of the uneven terrain. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_EcRaBDxQc&t=12m3s

 

However, it's pretty obvious that the goat in the clip above did not just happen to slip and fall. The smoke from a gunshot is clearly visible. Film critics have debated if this was a poorly concealed attempt to conceal a staged scene, or a deliberate attempt to undermine the realism of documentary film. I bring both of these films up to show how Buñuel is know for defying audience expectations. Viridiana, from its opening moments, continues this tradition. The credits roll with the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah playing over them, and the first scene takes place at a convent. For those unfamiliar with Buñuel, it may seem that the film will be a tribute to, or an earnest explanation of faith. Those who know him better know to expect something far more perverse. It is a film of lecherous men, sexual violence, and all kinds of desecration. This dark tone is especially well conveyed through imagery such as Last Supper tableau, the man dancing to "Hallelujah" while wearing Don Jaime's wife's veil, and the burning crown of thorns.

 

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In spite of having seen a few of his earlier films, I didn't expect the film to be quite so dark. In these earlier film, the violence and cynicism always carried with it a playful quality, mostly due to its connection to surrealist art. 

 

Stylistically, the film is far more grounded, though there are some beautifully framed shots and artful camera movements. The lighting in the scene in the bedroom after Viridiana has been drugged is particularly effective. 

 

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The film only becomes stranger after Don Jaime commits suicide, leaving Viridiana and his son Jorge to share his land. Feeling that she cannot go back to the convent after nearly (it was nearly, right?) being raped by her uncle, Viridiana instead chooses to invite thirteen men and women living in poverty to stay at the house. She promises them food and employment. Predictably, they prove to be unworthy of her trust, and they destroy the house, assault Jorge, and attempt to rape Viridiana. 

 

I haven't fully processed my response to the film yet, primarily because I can't seem to divorce my feelings on the film's misanthropic worldview from my response to the film as an aesthetic object. On the one hand, it's a technically masterful film, but on the other parts of it made me nauseous. There's a long tradition of films being championed for their formal merits in spite of their horrifying content Birth of a Nation and The Triumph of the Will both come to mind. But in both of those cases, praise of the film is always qualified with statements such as "not to endorse the film's ideology."

 

Maybe the most depressing image in the film is Jorge buying the exhausted dog tied below the carriage in order to save its life. Buñuel immediately follows this image with a shot of an identical carriage with another dog, probably destined to die of exhaustion. It's a stupid thing to fixate on in a film filled with attempted murder, attempted sexual assault, probable actual rape, etc. Still, it seems most indicative of the general sense of hopelessness that pervades the film. 

 

Anyway, that's my first set of thoughts on the film. I'll probably get my mind around it a bit better later in the week. Sorry for the rambling/unfocused nature of this all. The film just sort of left me feeling not entirely alright.

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I thought this was a solid film with a completely depressing message.  Viridiana is objectified, drugged, taken advantage of, and nearly raped.  In the end she loses her faith and throws in the towel.  The ending has a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" feeling.  Jorge tried to defend her at the end, but he's still a sleazy womanizer (a cat pouncing on a rat?) so her ending up with him (and being shared?) is really just the least terrible of the possible endings she could have had in this movie.

 

I found the film to be surprisingly compelling (I haven't seen any other work of this director), and the dialogue was particularly sharp.  Some of the paupers said some strange things.... "All rich men have asthma." (what?)  The movie felt like it was always moving forward even when not much was actually going on.

 

The first act of the film is quite creepy, but then it becomes nearly slapstick for a while before becoming intensely carnal.  It really made me feel that Viridiana was blind to the darkness inside of people.  I'm not sure if that's the overall message of the film, however.

 

Sad flick!

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I thought this was a solid film with a completely depressing message.  Viridiana is objectified, drugged, taken advantage of, and nearly raped.  In the end she loses her faith and throws in the towel.  The ending has a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" feeling.  Jorge tried to defend her at the end, but he's still a sleazy womanizer (a cat pouncing on a rat?) so her ending up with him (and being shared?) is really just the least terrible of the possible endings she could have had in this movie.

 

I found the film to be surprisingly compelling (I haven't seen any other work of this director), and the dialogue was particularly sharp.  Some of the paupers said some strange things.... "All rich men have asthma." (what?)  The movie felt like it was always moving forward even when not much was actually going on.

 

The first act of the film is quite creepy, but then it becomes nearly slapstick for a while before becoming intensely carnal.  It really made me feel that Viridiana was blind to the darkness inside of people.  I'm not sure if that's the overall message of the film, however.

 

Sad flick!

 

I think your point on the shifting tone of the film is spot on. I wonder if some extent these different moments of despair, humor, and hedonism in some way relate to the potential responses to the potential (or enacted) brutality of humanity. Buñuel seems to fall into the category of people who make bleak humor from the worst of humanity, but I find it hard to laugh along with him at times.

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I was also thinking about your comment on Jorge saving the dog, followed by the shot of that other dog that might be marching to its inevitable demise.  This really goes hand in hand with Jorge's comment to Viridiana about how helping out a handful of paupers doesn't help the thousands that are homeless.  It definitely seems to be an underlying point of the film that no matter what you do you can't help everyone, and going along with the fact that the paupers betray Viridiana at the end you could argue the film is even saying you can't help anyone.  Period.

 

But it's a criterion movie so maybe I'm looking too much into meaning behind things that are just there.

 

The Lord's supper pose the paupers make for the photo that never happens is very amusing, but I wonder if one of the points is to show how not only are they rascals but actually go so far as to disrespect Viridiana and her beliefs.  They're just playing along to get a free ride so to speak.  When faced with the idea of working around the property they aren't particular receptive.  It reminds me of this bible verse, which I guess would be pretty appropriate here because of the content of the film...

 

[2Th 3:10-11 NASB]

 

10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. 11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

 

I know nothing about the director so I have no idea if he's trying to make a point along these lines or not.

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Started watching this last night!!  Forgot to check when it was made, thinking it was a '30s or '40s joint, and found the picture and sound to be a little too nice for that era.  '61!

 

I've stayed away from Bunuel for the wrong reasons.  "Slicing up eyeballs!  Ha ha ha ho!  Girl is so groovy..." etc.  When someone occupies such a specific cultural notion (in this case, of bizarre, creepy imagery) I tend to subconsciously discredit the works.  I find people use Bunuel's name to evoke a style.  Rather than having a dialog on his films' interior meanings and forms, his name is referenced and mined for aesthetics.

 

So I'm happy to be dragged into a later-period piece.  I find it beautifully shot and compelling so far.  That Uncle is one strange bird....

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Started watching this last night!!  Forgot to check when it was made, thinking it was a '30s or '40s joint, and found the picture and sound to be a little too nice for that era.  '61!

 

I've stayed away from Bunuel for the wrong reasons.  "Slicing up eyeballs!  Ha ha ha ho!  Girl is so groovy..." etc.  When someone occupies such a specific cultural notion (in this case, of bizarre, creepy imagery) I tend to subconsciously discredit the works.  I find people use Bunuel's name to evoke a style.  Rather than having a dialog on his films' interior meanings and forms, his name is referenced and mined for aesthetics.

 

So I'm happy to be dragged into a later-period piece.  I find it beautifully shot and compelling so far.  That Uncle is one strange bird....

 

I'm so bad at hearing lyrics. I've listened to Doolittle so many times, and never really made out the lyrics on "Debaser" since I find Frank Black's voice really hard to understand some times. The music part of my brain never meets the film part of my brain apparently, so I never knew that song was about Un Chien. Huh.

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Allllright!  Finished this up last night.  I liked it but didn't love it.

 

I liked the casual pessimism of it.  It was more of a shoulder-shrug, which made it seem like Buñuel didn't want us to leave the theatre emotionally devastated (ahem, Bresson).  I felt more ready to think about the film when it was over.  I wasn't "bullied" into feeling anything.  Felt more clinical.

 

Totally agree on the shifting tone.  Felt like the film had 3 distinct acts.  prettyunsmart, I'd say it's more nihilistic than hopeless.  I guess this is tied in with the clinical feeling I got from the film.  Hopelessness really gets to my core, the idea of just being a person in the world is impossible.  The end of film is like what Boris says "If you can't beat 'em join 'em", which is more of a settling, rather than a point of despair.  "Viridiana, are you over your shock? the world is horrible, let's play cards."

 

I thought the pauper party scene was interesting from a cultural standpoint.  By the '60s the middle class was fully established, right?  Cultural and art objects that used to be only for the upper crust could be consumed by everyone.

 

In a lot of ways, the film seems to position itself between old and new.  There are horse and carriages everywhere, but then it's actually the '60s and there are automobiles.  The police wear uniforms like they're from the 1800s.  At the end Jorge is installing electrical outlets and light switches.  He implies that the farmland has sat fallow for years, the aristocracy having left it to rot.  Don Jaime's rape attempt is symbolic towards the crazy, muddled, poisoned Old Money of Europe.

 

Does Viridiana actually represent capitalism/industrialism in some way?  She puts faith in the lower class to work and to work on what they love.  At first it seems ordered, but the lack of education, the misery of their physical ailments, their uncontrollable lusts, etc. couldn't be contained.  When left to their own devices, they're casting people out, breaking into the house, etc.  THEY DANCE HORRIBLY TO HANDEL.  Buñuel seems to say, well, this is what capitalism/modernism is going to do to our sacred works and to our religion.  We are now sharing the cultural/political world with the lower class and have to confront and acknowledge their existence, and that is going to cause a shift in our morality.

 

So Buñuel seems to be saying that old way was bad (Uncle, aristocracy), but that the new way is just as bad (paupers, upward mobility of the lower classes).  We are not progressing as a society.  Everyone wants to rape Viridiana, old and new.

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Allllright!  Finished this up last night.  I liked it but didn't love it.

 

I liked the casual pessimism of it.  It was more of a shoulder-shrug, which made it seem like Buñuel didn't want us to leave the theatre emotionally devastated (ahem, Bresson).  I felt more ready to think about the film when it was over.  I wasn't "bullied" into feeling anything.  Felt more clinical.

 

Totally agree on the shifting tone.  Felt like the film had 3 distinct acts.  prettyunsmart, I'd say it's more nihilistic than hopeless.  I guess this is tied in with the clinical feeling I got from the film.  Hopelessness really gets to my core, the idea of just being a person in the world is impossible.  The end of film is like what Boris says "If you can't beat 'em join 'em", which is more of a settling, rather than a point of despair.  "Viridiana, are you over your shock? the world is horrible, let's play cards."

 

I thought the pauper party scene was interesting from a cultural standpoint.  By the '60s the middle class was fully established, right?  Cultural and art objects that used to be only for the upper crust could be consumed by everyone.

 

In a lot of ways, the film seems to position itself between old and new.  There are horse and carriages everywhere, but then it's actually the '60s and there are automobiles.  The police wear uniforms like they're from the 1800s.  At the end Jorge is installing electrical outlets and light switches.  He implies that the farmland has sat fallow for years, the aristocracy having left it to rot.  Don Jaime's rape attempt is symbolic towards the crazy, muddled, poisoned Old Money of Europe.

 

Does Viridiana actually represent capitalism/industrialism in some way?  She puts faith in the lower class to work and to work on what they love.  At first it seems ordered, but the lack of education, the misery of their physical ailments, their uncontrollable lusts, etc. couldn't be contained.  When left to their own devices, they're casting people out, breaking into the house, etc.  THEY DANCE HORRIBLY TO HANDEL.  Buñuel seems to say, well, this is what capitalism/modernism is going to do to our sacred works and to our religion.  We are now sharing the cultural/political world with the lower class and have to confront and acknowledge their existence, and that is going to cause a shift in our morality.

 

So Buñuel seems to be saying that old way was bad (Uncle, aristocracy), but that the new way is just as bad (paupers, upward mobility of the lower classes).  We are not progressing as a society.  Everyone wants to rape Viridiana, old and new.

 

I agree that the film is a narrative of modernization to a large extent, with the decadent aristocracy of the past dying off to be replaced by the new bourgeois, which Jorge stands in for to some extent. I'm a little suspicious of the idea that Viridiana would be representative of capitalism (in part because I don't know how much Buñuel really operates on a direct symbolic level). Critiques of capitalism tend to view it as rapacious, rather than the object of rape. Viridiana is idealistic, pure, genteel. So how would that connect to capitalism? 

 

At the same time, I wonder how much sense it makes to connect the film to the rise of the middle class, since that is often (at least in American and European contexts) seen as a late 19th century phenomenon. I wonder if instead the pessimism toward social change and might relate to the failed outcome of the Spanish Civil War and the continued power of the fascist Franco regime.

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I agree that the film is a narrative of modernization to a large extent, with the decadent aristocracy of the past dying off to be replaced by the new bourgeois, which Jorge stands in for to some extent. I'm a little suspicious of the idea that Viridiana would be representative of capitalism (in part because I don't know how much Buñuel really operates on a direct symbolic level). Critiques of capitalism tend to view it as rapacious, rather than the object of rape. Viridiana is idealistic, pure, genteel. So how would that connect to capitalism? 

 

At the same time, I wonder how much sense it makes to connect the film to the rise of the middle class, since that is often (at least in American and European contexts) seen as a late 19th century phenomenon. I wonder if instead the pessimism toward social change and might relate to the failed outcome of the Spanish Civil War and the continued power of the fascist Franco regime.

 

That's perfect!  I know next to nothing of Spanish history.  Also, yeah, pretty easy to poke holes in my Viridiana symbolism.  I was just extrapolating the modernization thing and stapling it on top of of places it didn't belong (I do that a lot when I'm trying to work through something).

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Right, sorry it took a while, but I saw Viridiana. I found it a troubling film, and not at all pleasant to watch. Well, let me restate that: the first half hour I thought was rather fascinating, with the desperate uncle and strange imagery of Viridiana shoveling dirt into a basket. It felt a bit exaggerated here and there, but it was artfully shot.

 

I was indeed expecting this to be a bleak condemnation of religion, but instead the film fixes on the contrast between the pious and the irredeemable wicked. Poor Viridiana has her hopes dashed at every turn, and her faith proves utterly worthless outside the cloister. As soon as the paupers come in (which felt like it came out of the blue) I got a sneaky suspicion this would end in grossest violence. That didn't quite happen fortunately, though I came close to switching off the film as soon as the toothless leper and the other bum started raping her.

 

I like Ariskany's interpretation of this, that it's about the progress of civilisation and plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. I was slightly baffled at the ending, which felt tongue in cheek (let's play cards!) and inappropriate. I don't quite know what was the point of it all: was there a lesson for Viridiana here? Is she a martyr for a bygone life style? I feel that a film that's so heavily auteured (the Last Supper painting, the weird interludes, they're all knowing winks) is primed to make a statement. It can't just end on 'well, that's the whole story because that's just what happened'. Or is it really just the horribleness and disappointment of life that Viridiana has to endure?

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Right, sorry it took a while, but I saw Viridiana. I found it a troubling film, and not at all pleasant to watch. Well, let me restate that: the first half hour I thought was rather fascinating, with the desperate uncle and strange imagery of Viridiana shoveling dirt into a basket. It felt a bit exaggerated here and there, but it was artfully shot.

 

I was indeed expecting this to be a bleak condemnation of religion, but instead the film fixes on the contrast between the pious and the irredeemable wicked. Poor Viridiana has her hopes dashed at every turn, and her faith proves utterly worthless outside the cloister. As soon as the paupers come in (which felt like it came out of the blue) I got a sneaky suspicion this would end in grossest violence. That didn't quite happen fortunately, though I came close to switching off the film as soon as the toothless leper and the other bum started raping her.

 

I like Ariskany's interpretation of this, that it's about the progress of civilisation and plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. I was slightly baffled at the ending, which felt tongue in cheek (let's play cards!) and inappropriate. I don't quite know what was the point of it all: was there a lesson for Viridiana here? Is she a martyr for a bygone life style? I feel that a film that's so heavily auteured (the Last Supper painting, the weird interludes, they're all knowing winks) is primed to make a statement. It can't just end on 'well, that's the whole story because that's just what happened'. Or is it really just the horribleness and disappointment of life that Viridiana has to endure?

 

Fun fact: The film was supposed to end with Viridiana sleeping with Jorge, but it was deemed to be too obscene. The cards scene was meant to get by censors while still implying a threesome among the players. 

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I feel that Jorge is the real lead character here, and the only sensible person in the lot. I mean, he gets out on top, so he has to be the hero.

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My in depth analysis of Viridiana is as follows:

 

This movie is fucked up.

 

On the ending: I loved that last scene. Jorge's power over both the women is...I don't know if I'd call it disturbing, but maybe unnerving? And the final shot pulling out of the bedroom and the subtly implied menage a trios...so, so good. I'm glad it was that ending and not the more direct one originally planned.

 

Oh and I liked the scene where Viridiana is praying with the peasants and it's intercut with shots of the home demolition/renovation of the house. She's naively trying to save these poor folks while Jorge begins his modernization of the estate. I guess we see later how that works out for each of them...

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Shit, I forgot that I still have to watch this movie

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