Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film - Tapa blanda

Linda Williams examines the theoretical and poetic writings of the Surrealists during the period from 1910 to 1930 and traces the emergence of a poetics of the cinematic image based upon the fluid associations of dreams and the unconscious. Incorporating both Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and Metz's methodology on film and dream rhetoric, she analyzes the structure of unconscious desire in four key Surrealist films by Luis Bunuel: "Un chien andalou" and "l'Age d'or" (both co-scripted by Salvador Dali) and "Phantom of Liberty" and "That Obscure Object of Desire".

"An important contribution to film theory. . . . Williams has a fluid, assured style. She is clearly in command of the subject. She's made a strong and original argument for the psychoanalytic basis of Surrealism."James Monaco, author ofThe New Wave