This article, published a few years after the US release of “Zéro de Conduite,” provides a valuable historical account of Vigo as a person and director, written by a close friend and colleague. It quickly mentions that Vigo, like all geniuses, was shunned by mainstream society before being (posthumously) lauded for his brilliance. Zilzer argues that Vigo’s life of hardship influences his films by creating a “poetry of realism” on the screen, thus taking a much less political and more aesthetic analysis of his work. He mentions how Vigo’s work was never technically perfect, but never suffered from that fact either. He then summarizes Vigo’s political heritage, all the way back to his anti-war grandfather, who was assassinated under similar circumstances as his father was. He describes Vigo’s character as a blend of the energy of his lineage with the “carefreeness” of his Basque relatives in Pyrenees. After discussing the start of his film career, Zilzer makes an insightful observation that, while filming a documentary of Nice, Vigo shot the “boredom of the rich and the enthusiasm of the poor.” Zilzer then describes the public reception of “Zéro de Conduite,” which was controversial to say the least. In fact, during the screening the lights were turned on several times and a few open fights broke out. Most interestingly, the author points out that although parts of the film could be “called surrealistic…Vigo was never considered a surrealist-his search for realism was too deep.” The article ends with a lengthy description of the production of Vigo’s final film, “L’Atalante.”
    Much of this article is useful for my thesis, particularly the personal recollection and historical accuracy it presents. By giving a more detailed description of his heritage, he solidifies the notion that Vigo’s works are strongly motivated by his anti-authoritarian upbringing. However, his description of the film as poetic realism (as opposed to surrealism) challenges my thesis. I would argue, however, that poetic realism was a tendency rather than a movement, as many others have said, and that as such, his surrealistic touches simply add to the poetry of the realism that he is portraying, by focusing on school administration from children’s eyes. I believe that “Zéro de Conduite” achieved Vigo’s search for realism by portraying more than simply superficial aspects of the oppression in school; his use of the surreal allows the audience to empathize with the children in a way that enhances their reality, ultimately creating an absolutely-realistic film, by opening up new perspectives on a recognizable institution.

full citation: Zilzer, Gyula. "Remembrances of Jean Vigo." Hollywood Quarterly. Vol. 3, No. 2  (Winter, 1947-1948). 125-128. University of California Press. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1209357>.

This article summarizes the periods of “historical avant-gardes” in film history. Specifically, it discusses modernism as having three “coordinates”: official art of aristocratic regimes, new technology and industrial revolution’s impact on film, and the hope of social revolution. He then goes on to claim that the film theory of such movements was expressed in both written and filmic manifestos, the latter of which he offers “Zéro de Conduite” as an example.  He describes how avant-garde films were labeled such not only because of their unconventional aesthetics, but also their independent modes of production. He then divides up avant garde into three distinct movements: Impressionism, Pure Cinema, and Surrealism.  However, within the avant garde there were two distinct tendencies to achieve either a high autotelic form, or a low form that attacked art establishment. He goes on to describe surrealism as a way to link moving images with metaphorical process of automatism, the actual functioning of thought. He also mentions the Surrealist’s praise of the subversive, anarchic undercurrents in slapstick films. Finally, he discusses the potential to liberate the repressed by combining dichotomous elements of fantasy and mundane reality. By using certain cinematic techniques, Surrealists not only represented dream but also mimicked its internal structuration. Surrealists had faith in the ability of film to unleash the “liberating energies of the Unconscious.” He then discusses the Surrealist opinion of cinema as close to a dream itself, and goes on to mention many post-modernist theorists of the “dream state.”
    This article is a valuable addition to my thesis, because it provides more background on the artistic movements surrounding Vigo’s film, and how exactly he belonged to some and distinguished himself from many others. It is interesting that the author sees “Zéro” as a filmic manifesto, as its surreal opposition to and victory over the “establishment” adults in the film, and the historical context of it’s controversy and prohibition by the government would certainly support that qualification. The article’s description of the pure energy and creative force of slapstick-like humor as a threat to the establishment is very relevant to Vigo’s film, as the children’s activities and the film’s techniques exude a kind of creative, imaginative energy that eventually topples the authority of the school. The humorous, mischievous tendencies of the children are directly paralleled to the unimaginative, boring, stuffy old teachers who hardly ever smile (save Huguet). It is important to note, however, while discussing slapstick as a threat to the establishment that in the film, a “renegade” teacher named Huguet (who wears a different color coat than the rest of the teachers) plays a part in inciting this student rebellion by indulging and encouraging their silliness with imitations of Charlie Chaplin playing the Tramp in the schoolyard, or classes where he teaches standing on his head. Slapstick plays a large role in fomenting the student revolt, and it is this humor that laughed in the face of such contemporary serious crises in authority around the world, such as the Great Depression, which anarchists saw as a crisis in capitalism, one they were all-too-willing to poke fun at. There is more to discuss about Surrealism, in a later post.

Stam, Robert. "The Historical Avant-Gardes." Film Theory. New York University: New York. Blackwell Publishing, 2000. 55-58.
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An anarchist world...a surrealist world: they are the same. -Andre Breton Jean Vigos film Ziro de Conduite was banned when first released in 1933, due to potentially incendiary content, and it provoked a near riot at a press gathering that same year. The film, which concerns a rebellion of French boarding school students against their faculty masters, was an emotional and personal undertaking for Jean Vigo, whose anarchist upbringing colored his view on school and authority. As a result, he created a film that was distinctly anti-authoritarian in almost every respect. This paper will argue that Jean Vigo's masterpiece "Zero de Conduite" is a paragon of anti-authoritarian film, because it subverts power and authority at a political and cultural level by targeting not only the antagonists of the film, but eventually, through surrealism, the structure of the film itself. As a result, "Zero de Conduite" became hugely influential to the political and cultural upheaval of 1968, and anticipated many of the theories and actions of the Situationist International, responsible in large part for the student uprisings of May 1968 in Paris. To this day, Vigo's work and its implications remain influential to the modern anarchist movement, which necessitates both political and cultural revolution.

Rabaté, Jean-Michel. " Loving Freud Madly: Surrealism between Hysterical and Paranoid Modernism." Journal of Modern Literature 25.3-4 (2002):58-74.

Rabaté examines the role of surrealism in the spread of Freudian ideas. The author approaches this topic by first looking at the historical context from which the discourse emerged. While other surrealists and Freudians had become friends and collaborators, Freud and Breton had a long history of animosity between them. Unable to become friendly because of constant bickering over who deserved credit for various ideas in art and psychology, the surrealist and Freudian fields were forced to keep their distance. Breton and his followers eventually embraced the idea of hysteria and exalted the idea of guided paranoia. However, in the wake of issues within the surrealist camp as well as the events occurring in society, the majority of surrealists eventually embraced the idea of “paranoid modernism.”  Rabaté concludes the article by arguing the by embracing the idea of modernism, the surrealists, who had at one time been the enemies of Freud, were able to both take on and in turn take over many of Freud’s ideas.

The idea that the surrealist dream sequence created by Dali, which is shown in Spellbound, could be understood perfectly well by the application of Freudian principles would have been completely absurd to both Freudians and surrealists. But interestingly enough, and perhaps because of the commercial takeover of the intellectual ideas of Freud and Surrealism, the surrealist sequence appears to make complete sense to the Freudians analyzing John Ballantine within the context of the film. By creating this peaceful co-existence of ideas within the film, Spellbound itself becomes a vehicle for the dissemination not only of independent surrealist and Freudian principles, but for the idea that both ideologies are able to co-exist and ultimately act as one ideology.

Bradshaw, Peter and Andrew Gilchrist. "How to make a surrealist film: Grab a giant seashell, send for a rotting donkey, and don't forget to press your dinner jacket...Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Gilchrist offer 10 tips for any budding Bunuels." The Guardian (London), 5 March 2007,16. Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, 9 April 2008. .

Bradshaw and Gilchrist offer “budding Bunuels” ten tips for perfecting surrealist films. Their article might approach the issue of surrealist filmmaking from a humorous perspective, but there are several legitimate points within the article. The authors argue that filmmakers should dress their characters in formalwear, repeat scenes, change scenes abruptly, let a seashell star in the film, slice open an eyeball, and sell tickets made of sandpaper to the premier of the film, just to name a few. While, the authors openly mock the ridiculousness of many surrealist traditions, each one of their tips is grounded in the past action of a surrealist star from Bunuel to Dali.

In addition to hiring a seashell and appearing in full scuba gear for your film’s premier, the authors argue that each surrealist film should include a dream sequence. They specifically single out the dream sequence in Spellbound, which was created by Dali. While the article, by mentioning the film by name seems to imply its superiority, or at least superior notoriety, when compared to other surrealist films, the inclusion of Spellbound in this top ten list of surrealist tips emphasizes the lack of opportunity for originality that plagued Dali and other surrealist filmmakers who worked within the Hollywood system. In Spellbound, Dali was used for his name recognition rather than his vision as a surrealist thinker. Instead of allowing Dali artistic freedom to create the alternate world that he had imagined, the producers of Spellbound changed Dali’s vision and subsequently demeaned his contribution to the film. Instead of allowing him artistic control, Spellbound used Dali’s name as a vehicle for publicity and conformed his vision to the restrictions of a surrealist greatest hits list.

This film was done in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. David Lynch attended school at the Academy, where he first began working in film. This is one of his early experimentations with surrealism. By S. Stein