Question 1

True or false: He was a close friend of Salvador Dalí and co-wrote the script for 'Un Chien Andalou'.

Accepted Answer

True. Buñuel and Dalí collaborated on the iconic 1929 surrealist short film, famous for its eye-slitting scene.

Question 2

True or false: He fled Spain during the Civil War and later became a naturalized Mexican citizen.

Accepted Answer

True. After the Spanish Civil War, he lived in exile, eventually making most of his films in Mexico and adopting citizenship.

Question 3

True or false: Buñuel never used dream sequences, claiming they were too obvious a surrealist trick.

Accepted Answer

False. He frequently used dream sequences, but in a subversive way, blurring reality and fantasy, as in 'The Exterminating Angel'.

Question 4

True or false: Buñuel won the Academy Award for Best Director for 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'.

Accepted Answer

False. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1973, but Buñuel never won Best Director.

Question 5

True or false: Buñuel was a lifelong atheist and refused to work with religious themes.

Accepted Answer

False. He was atheist yet obsessively explored Catholic imagery and rituals, like in 'Viridiana' and 'The Milky Way'.

Question 6

True or false: His first film, 'Un Chien Andalou', was funded entirely by his mother’s inheritance.

Accepted Answer

True. Buñuel’s mother gave him money from her inheritance to produce the short, which became a surrealist landmark.

Question 7

True or false: He directed only one film in color, despite working well into the 1970s.

Accepted Answer

True. Surprisingly, all his films were black-and-white except his final feature, 'That Obscure Object of Desire' (1977).

Question 8

True or false: Buñuel once put a dead donkey on a piano during a live theater performance.

Accepted Answer

True. In his surrealist days, he placed a rotting donkey corpse on a grand piano at a 1928 Paris event to shock the audience.

Luis Buñuel Trivia Questions