Moderna Museet has reversed its decision to censor Luis Buñuel’s The Andalusian Dog (1929). This follows Kunstkritikk’s report on Monday that the museum had altered one of the most famous scenes in film history. To protect sensitive visitors to the exhibition The Subterranean Sky, where the film has been on display since October, a black frame had been added to replace the short sequence when a razor blade cuts through an eyeball.
In Kunstkritikk’s article, Lena Essling, curator of moving image and performance at the museum, said that the decision might be reconsidered, and now it has been back-pedalled. In an article in Dagens Nyheter, today Wednesday, Moderna’s chief curator Fredrik Liew emphasises that the decision to censor the film was made “with good intent, to avoid the shock effect”. Nevertheless, he admits that an “incorrect assessment” was made and that it is “categorically wrong to make this kind of intervention.”
Liew says he is “grateful” that the matter was brought to the fore, and that the opening scene of The Andalusian Dog has been screened in its entirety since Friday. Now the audience risks being exposed to the “shock effect” that Moderna wanted to avoid, but which was probably Buñuel’s intention.
