3. Salvador Dali Made Un Chien Andalou Intentionally Incomprehensible As A Protest
The 1929 surrealist short Un Chien Andalou, directed by Luis Bunuel and conceived by Salvador Dali, is without question the most famous work of the surrealist cinema movement, a film most memorable for its iconic scene in which a woman's eye is cut open with a razor. While it's easy to imagine that Bunuel and Dali thought they were making a film that was the zenith of intellectualism, in fact, they knew that the film was basically incomprehensible, and fully expected audiences to despise it. Bunuel wanted to insult the bourgeoisie, stating, "the film represents a violent reaction against what in those days was called avant-garde, which was aimed exclusively at artistic sensibility and the audiences reason", and reportedly had pebbles in his pocket during the first screening, ready to lob them at hecklers. However, this proved unnecessary, as the film was a huge success, and was screened continually in Paris for roughly 8 months following its initial screening.