Luis Buñuel

The Milky Way

The Milky Way

The first of what Luis Buñuel later proclaimed a trilogy (along with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty) about "the search for truth," The Milky Way (La voie lactee) daringly deconstructs contemporary and traditional views on Catholicism with ribald, rambunctious surreality. Two French beggars, present-day pilgrims en route to Spain's holy city of Santiago de Compostela, serve as Buñuel's narrators for an anticlerical history of heresy, told with absurdity and filled with images that rank among Buñuel's most memorable (stigmatic children, crucified nuns) and hilarious (Jesus considering a good shave). A diabolically entertaining look at the mysteries of fanaticism, The Milky Way remains a hotly debated work from cinema's greatest skeptic.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1969
  • 101 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #402

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Video introduction by screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
  • New video interview with film scholar Ian Christie
  • Luis Bunuel: Atheist Thanks to God, a documentary featuring several of Bunuel's close friends and collaborators
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • PLUS: New essays by Carlos Fuentes and Mark Polizzotti, and an interview with Luis Bunuel

    New cover by Gonzalo Garcia Barcha

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Video introduction by screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
  • New video interview with film scholar Ian Christie
  • Luis Bunuel: Atheist Thanks to God, a documentary featuring several of Bunuel's close friends and collaborators
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • PLUS: New essays by Carlos Fuentes and Mark Polizzotti, and an interview with Luis Bunuel

    New cover by Gonzalo Garcia Barcha
The Milky Way
Cast
Paul Frankeur
Pierre
Laurent Terzieff
Jean
Bernard Verley
Jesus
Edith Scob
The Virgin Mary
Muni
Mother Superior
Julien Bertheau
Richard- "maitre d'hotel"
François Maistre
French priest
Alain Cuny
Man with cape
Michel Piccoli
Marquis de Sade
Pierre Clémenti
The devil
Jean Piat
The Jansenist
Delphine Seyrig
The prostitute
Jean-Claude Carrière
Priscillian
Credits
Director
Luis Buñuel
Screenplay
Luis Buñuel
Screenplay
Jean-Claude Carrière
Producer
Serge Silberman
Cinematography
Christian Matras
Editing
Louisette Hautecoeur
Production design
Pierre Guffroy
Costume design
Jacqueline Guvot

Current

The Milky Way: The Heretic’s Progress
The Milky Way: The Heretic’s Progress

Luis Buñuel grapples with the contradictions between faith and faithlessness in this darkly humorous picaresque.

By Carlos Fuentes

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Luis Buñuel

Writer, Director

Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel

As made clear in his seminal works Viridiana and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie—delirious screeds against, respectively, religion and social conformity—Luis Buñuel was one of cinema’s great subversives and mischief makers. He began his career as a member of the French surrealists—his first films, Un chien andalou and L’âge d’or, absurd and violently sexual scandals that met with censorship, were collaborations with Salvador Dalí. After years of working alternately in his native Spain (where the scintillating, shaming faux documentary Land Without Bread and, later, Viridiana were both banned), the United States, and Mexico, Buñuel made most of his late films in France, combining surrealist non sequiturs with attacks on the bourgeoisie, the church, and social hypocrisy in general in such masterpieces as The Milky Way, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire.