Dalí: Painting & Film

Dalí: Painting & Film:

Last evening, I visited the Dalí: Painting & Film exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Overall, it was a fantastic exhibition and I learned quite a great deal about Salvador Dalí’s interest in film that went far beyond his collaborations with Buñuel, like the famed “Un Chien Andalou.” Dalí created wonderful storyboards and set designs for quite a few unrealized films, including a collaboration with the Marx Brothers! Here’s a quote from a 1937 letter Dalí wrote to surrealist André Breton: “I’m in Hollywood, where I’ve made contact with the three American Surrealists, Harpo Marx, Disney and Cecil B. DeMille.” I also hadn’t realized that Dalí created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchock’s Spellbound (1945). Apparently, a phantasmagoric ballroom scene was shot for this sequence but ended up on the cutting room floor. Dalí’s artwork and notes for this part of the dream are quite remarkable. It’s sad that the footage was lost.

Link to Spellbound clip, Link to Dalí: Painting & Film at the LACMA

Previously on BB:
• Salvador Dalí on “What’s My Line?” Link
• Salvador Dalí TV commercials Link