Essay Database

SURREALISTS AND FREUD The instincts and unconscious urges of humankind were heavily featured in the works of the surrealists of inter-war Europe. The link between psychoanalysis and the surrealist movement is most evident in the films of the movement. Before examining to what extent the surrealists (in particular, the Spanish film-maker Luis Bunuel) were influenced by Sigmund Freud's writings, I will first briefly present Freud's various models of the mind. Freud's scientific process was anything …

…find themselves eating dinner on the stage of a theatre). The surrealist view of the unconscious is indebted to the unconscious of Freud's topographical model. The difference is in the motives and reasoning behind the use of the unconscious. Freud wanted to understand the human psyche, while the surrealists were on a mission of liberation and freedom. Perhaps both parties had more in common than they cared to admit, regardless of their differing cultural framework.