We often forget that film is an artistic medium. 20th-century art never followed rational structure. If history only valued art that could be rationally explained, we would not know the paintings of Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp, and Miro, or the writings of Mallarme, Breton, Apollinaire, and Tzara. However, we immortalized these artists because they challenged preconceived artistic structures, pushing the world to redefine what is considered great. For over 85 years people have discussed, analyzed, rejected, and applauded Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou, making it as much a part of the Western canon as any of these other artists’ works. Yet, the public focuses their attention on disproving Bunuel’s claim that “nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything”– concentrating on creating a logical elucidation of the film’s surface content, rather than trying to understand why Un Chien Andalou was made the way it was (Kinder 5).…show more content… Un Chien Andalou is a film that tests the freedom of artistic cinematic expression. The insensitive spontaneity that links together the slicing of the eye, the ants crawling out of the hand, the dragging of a grand piano with two dead donkeys on it, and the man wiping his mouth off his face, shocks the audience– forever engraving the imagery into their minds. The value of these scenes does not derive from a cryptic connection we have failed to find, but rather, their ability to evoke an emotional reaction from the audience without any apparent correlation. By treating filmmaking as art and pushing surrealist ideals to the zenith, Bunuel and Dali’s Un Chien Andalou dismisses the notion that cinema must submissively follow the restricting laws of apparent logic– forcing audiences to reconsider the definition of an excellent