| The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| French | Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie |
| Directed by | Luis Buñuel |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Serge Silberman |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Edmond Richard |
| Edited by | Hélène Plemiannikov |
Production company | Greenwich Film Productions |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Countries |
|
| Languages |
|
| Budget | $800,000 |
| Box office | $286,916[1] |
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French:Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie) is a 1972surrealistsatiricaldark comedy film directed byLuis Buñuel, who wrote thescreenplay in collaboration withJean-Claude Carrière.[2] The narrative concerns a group of Frenchbourgeoisie and the fictional South American country ofMiranda's ambassador to France attempting—despite continual interruptions—to dine together. The film starsFernando Rey,Paul Frankeur,Delphine Seyrig,Bulle Ogier,Stéphane Audran,Jean-Pierre Cassel,Julien Bertheau andMilena Vukotic.
The film consists of several thematically linked scenes: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends, and the four dreams of different characters. The beginning of the film focuses on the gatherings, while the latter part focuses on the dreams, but both are intertwined. There are also scenes involving other characters, including two in which aMaoist terrorist from Miranda attempts to assassinate the ambassador. The film's world is not logical, and the bizarre events are accepted by the characters.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie was a critical and commercial success. It won theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film andBAFTA Awards forBest Actress in a Leading Role (Audran) andBest Original Screenplay (Buñuel and Carrière).[3]
A French bourgeois couple, François and Simone Thévenot, accompany François's colleague Don Rafael Acosta (the ambassador from the South American nation ofMiranda) and Simone's sister Florence to the house of the Sénéchals, the hosts of a dinner party. Alice Sénéchal is surprised to see them, explaining that she expected them the following evening and has no dinner prepared. The would-be guests then invite Alice to join them for dinner at a nearby inn. There, a waitress informs them that the restaurant is under new management. There are no diners inside, and the party hurriedly departs shortly after discovering avigil for the manager, who died a few hours earlier, in an adjoining room.
Acosta, François, and Alice's husband Henri meet the next day at the Mirandan embassy to discuss the proceeds of a large cocaine deal. Acosta sees a young woman selling clockwork-animal toys outside; he shoots one of the toys with a rifle and the woman runs off. He explains that she is part of aMaoist Mirandan terrorist group that has been targeting him for months.
Two days later, the friends arrive at the Sénéchals' for lunch, but Henri and Alice escape to the garden to have sex instead of joining them. Acosta deduces that the Sénéchals know the police are coming and have fled to avoid arrest for their involvement in drug trafficking, prompting the group to leave in a panic.
When the Sénéchals return from the garden to find the rest of the group gone, they meet a bishop who has donned their gardener's clothing. They throw him out, but when he returns wearing his bishop's robes, they embrace him with deference. The bishop asks to work for them as their gardener. He tells them that when he was a child, his parents werepoisoned with arsenic and the culprit was never apprehended.
The women visit ateahouse, where a soldier tells them about his childhood. Following his mother's death, his cold-hearted father sent him to military school. The ghost of the soldier's mother informed him that the man was not his real father but his father's killer; they had dueled over her. She asks her son to poison the culprit, and he complies.
Simone meets Acosta, with whom she is having an affair, at his apartment. They retreat to his bedroom to have sex but are interrupted by a visit from François, whereupon she makes a convenient excuse and leaves with him. Acosta is then visited by the terrorist, who has come to kill him. He ambushes and chastises her, and tells her to leave after she refuses his sexual advances. As she leaves, he signals to agents waiting across the street, who capture her.
The group convenes at the Sénéchals' for dinner, but are interrupted the arrival of an army regiment, who join the dinner only to be called away for alarmingly close maneuvers. The colonel invites them to his house in return; Henri dreams that the colonel's dining room is a stage set in a theatrical performance where the audience is angry with the actors for not knowing their lines. François dreams that, at the dinner, the colonel badgers Acosta about the political situation in Miranda, culminating in Acosta shooting the colonel.
The bishop is called away from gardening to giveabsolution to a dying gardener, who confesses to poisoning his former employers due to their mistreatment of him. Realizing that the employers were his parents, the bishop finishes giving the gardener absolution before fatally shooting him with a shotgun.
The Sénéchals, the Thévenots, and Acosta are arrested for drug trafficking. The police chief dreams that the ghost of a former inspector killed in retribution for torturing a student protestor releases the traffickers. He wakes up from the dream to learn that the Interior Minister has ordered them to be released. Acosta dreams that they return to the Sénéchals' for dinner but are shot by a rival gang of drug traffickers fromMarseille. After waking up, he walks to the kitchen and sloppily eats leftovers stored in the refrigerator.
A recurring scene of the six people walking silently and purposefully on an isolated country road is also the final sequence.
After having announced thatTristana (1970) would be his last film because he felt he was repeating himself, Buñuel met with screenwriterJean-Claude Carrière and discussed the topic of repetition.[4] Shortly afterwards, Buñuel met with film producerSerge Silberman, who told him an anecdote about having forgotten about a dinner party and being surprised to see six hungry friends show up at his front door. Buñuel was suddenly inspired, and Silberman agreed to give him a $2,000 advance to write a new script with Carrière. They wrote the first draft in three weeks and finished the fifth draft by the summer of 1971, titledBourgeois Enchantment. Silberman had secured enough money for the film in April 1972, whereupon Buñuel began pre-production.[5][6]
Buñuel cast many actors whom he had worked with in the past, such asFernando Rey andMichel Piccoli, and adjusted their roles to their personalities. He had more difficulty casting the female leads, and allowedDelphine Seyrig andStéphane Audran to choose which parts they would like to play before changing the script to better suit them. WhenJean-Pierre Cassel auditioned for his role, he was surprised when Buñuel cast him after simply glancing at him once.[7]
Filming began on 15 May 1972, and lasted for two months on an $800,000 budget (equivalent to $6,013,683 in 2024). In his usual shooting style, Buñuel shot few takes and often edited the film in camera and during production; Buñuel and Silberman had a long-running and humorous argument as to whether Buñuel took one day or one and a half days to edit his films.[8]
On the advice of Silberman, Buñuel used video playback monitors on the set for the first time in his career. This resulted in a vastly different style than any of his previous films, including extensive use of zooms andtracking shots instead of his usual close-ups and static camera framing.[6] It also resulted in Buñuel's being more comfortable on set and limiting his already minimal direction to technical and physical instructions. This frustrated Cassel, who had never worked with Buñuel before, until Rey explained that this was Buñuel's usual style and that since they were playing aristocrats their movements and physical appearance were more important than their inner motivation.
Buñuel once joked that whenever he needed an extra scene he simply filmed one of his own dreams.The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie includes three of Buñuel's recurring dreams: a dream of being on stage and forgetting his lines, a dream of meeting his dead cousin in the street and following him into a house full of cobwebs, and a dream of waking up to see his dead parents staring at him.[8]
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie was a critical and commercial success in both Europe and the United States.[8]Roger Ebert called it a comedy, but noted that Buñuel's comedies were "more like a dig in the ribs, sly and painful."[9]Robert Benayoun described it as "perhaps [Buñuel's] most direct and most 'public' film".[10]Vincent Canby wrote: “In addition to being extraordinarily funny and perfectly acted,The Discreet Charm moves with the breathtaking speed and self-assurance that only a man of Buñuel’s experience can achieve without resorting to awkward ellipsis.”[11] Buñuel later said that he was disappointed with most critics' analysis of the film; he also disliked the film's promotional poster, depicting a pair of lips with legs and abowler hat.[8][10]
Buñuel and Silberman travelled to the United States in late 1972 to promote the film. Buñuel did not attend his own press screening in Los Angeles and told aNewsweek reporter that his favorite characters in the film were the cockroaches which appear in one of the dream sequences. While visiting Los Angeles, Buñuel, Carrière and Silberman were invited to a lunch party by Buñuel's old friendGeorge Cukor where other guests includedAlfred Hitchcock,Billy Wilder,George Stevens,Rouben Mamoulian,John Ford,William Wyler,Robert Mulligan andRobert Wise.[12]Fritz Lang, one of Buñuel's favorite directors, was unable to attend, but Buñuel visited him the following day and received an autographed photo.[13]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's consensus reads, "An intoxicating dose of the director's signaturesurrealist style,The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie represents Buñuel at his most accessible."[14]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 93 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[15]
| Award | Year | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[3] | 1973 | Best Foreign Language Film | France | Won |
| Best Original Screenplay | Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière | Nominated | ||
| BAFTA Awards[16] | 1974 | Best Film | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Nominated |
| Best Direction | Luis Buñuel | Nominated | ||
| Best Actress | Stéphane Audran | Won | ||
| Best Original Screenplay | Luis Buñuel,Jean-Claude Carrière | Won | ||
| Best Sound | Luis Buñuel, Guy Villette | Nominated | ||
| French Syndicate of Cinema Critics | 1973 | Prix Méliès | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Won |
| Golden Globe Awards[17] | 1973 | Best Foreign-Language Film | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Nominated |
| Nastro d'Argento | 1974 | Best Foreign Director | Luis Buñuel | Nominated |
| National Board of Review Awards[18] | 1972 | Top Foreign Language Films | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Won |
| National Society of Film Critics Awards[19] | 1972 | Best Film | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | Won |
| Best Director | Luis Buñuel | Won | ||
| Best Screenplay | Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière | Nominated | ||
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards[20] | 1973 | Best Director | Luis Buñuel | Nominated |
| Best Screenplay | Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière | Nominated |
Silberman decided not to wait until May 1973 to premiere the film at theCannes Film Festival, and instead released it in the autumn of 1972 to make it eligible for theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Buñuel was famously indifferent to awards and jokingly told a reporter that he had already paid a bribe of $25,000 in order to win the Oscar.[21] Silberman accepted the award on Buñuel's behalf at the ceremony. At the academy's request, Buñuel posed with the Oscar statuette for a photograph, but wore a wig and oversized sunglasses.[12][22]
In January 2021,The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie was released byThe Criterion Collection as part of a Buñuel box set with its successorsThe Phantom of Liberty (1974) andThat Obscure Object of Desire (1977).[23]
In June 2022,The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie received a4K digital restoration fromStudioCanal for its 50th anniversary.[24] The restoration was issued on Blu-ray and DVD.[25][26]
On 23 March 2018, Panorama released the film on Blu-ray in Hong Kong.[27]
In October 2014,Stephen Sondheim andDavid Ives announced that they were developing a new musical provisionally titledSquare One, with a plot inspired by bothThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Buñuel's 1962 filmThe Exterminating Angel, projected to open in 2017.[28] Production ceased at some point,[when?] but Sondheim held a September 2021 reading.[29][30][31] Following Sondheim's death that November, Ives announced that the musical, retitledHere We Are, would have a limited engagement world premiere in September 2023 atThe Shed in Manhattan.[32][needs update]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
