David Bowie began every concert in his 1976 "Station to Station" tour by showing this film. (If you've ever heard an audience groan at the opening scene, imagine an entire auditorium, most of whom were undoubtedly seeing it for the first time.)
Luis Buñuel told Salvador Dalà about a dream in which a cloud sliced the moon in half "like a razor blade slicing through an eye". Dalà responded that he'd dreamed about a hand crawling with ants. Out of these two dreams this film was born.
A cow's eye was used in the scene where the woman's eye is slit.
After editing the film, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalà didn't know what to do with it. An acquaintance introduced Buñuel to Man Ray, who had just finished The Mysteries of the Chateau de De and was looking for a second film to complete the program. The two movies premiered together at the Studio des Ursulines.
At the Paris premiere, Luis Buñuel hid behind the screen with stones in his pockets for fear of being attacked by the confused audience.
During the bicycle scene, the woman who is sitting on a chair, reading, throws the book aside. The image it shows when it lays open is a reproduction of a painting by Vermeer. Vermeer was a Dutch painter greatly admired by Salvador DalĂ, and whom DalĂ referenced often in his own paintings.
In 1960, a soundtrack was added to this film at the direction of Luis Buñuel. He used the same music which was played (using phonograph records) at the 1929 screenings - extracts from "Liebestod" from Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" and two Argentinian tangos.
Included among the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', edited by Steven Jay Schneider.
On the album "Doolittle" by The Pixies, the song "Debaser" is based on this film. Repeatedly throughout the song, the line "I am un chien andalusia" can be heard being screamed by the lead vocalist, Frank Black.
Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies".
The movie contains several references to Federico GarcĂa Lorca (who was in love with Salvador DalĂ) and other writers of that time. The rotting donkeys are a reference to the novel "Platero y yo" by Juan RamĂłn JimĂ©nez, which Luis Buñuel and DalĂ hated.
The priest being dragged with the piano is Salvador DalĂ.
This film is referred to in the song "Debaser" by Pixies.
With a running length of 16 minutes, this is the shortest film listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the book series edited by Steven Jay Schneider.
Luis Buñuel:
[insects]
Ants emerge from a wound in a hand.