- From Alain Resnais’s Mon Oncle d’Amérique
I’ve had surrealism on the brain since Alain Resnais, arguably the last living heir to that movement, died a few weeks ago. Nowadays writers commonly use the word “surreal” when they simply mean dreamlike, disregarding the philosophical and political moorings of the original surrealist movement. How far that word has been stretched in the 90 years since André Breton published the first Surrealist manifesto, which reads practically like a call to arms:
On a related note, I’m almost finished with Breaking Bad, and I’ve been surprised by how much the acclaimed TV series has in common with traditional surrealism. Some of the most effective passages depict criminal activity being carried out under the veneer of respectable middle-class activity. Business practices and work relationships in conventional life are paralleled by those of the underground—and the viewer comes to regard them all as inextricable. Breaking Bad illustrates an alternative order hiding beneath our own through some wonderfully concentrated images, like the little tube of poison that Walter White hides behind an electrical outlet in his suburban living room. Incidentally, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was involved with The X-Files, which Resnais cited as a major influence in his later years. I wonder if Resnais got around to Breaking Bad before he passed away—that outlet motif seems right up his alley.
