Experience film history: Everything about the Dalí exhibition “Spellbound”

Experience film history
Everything about the Dalí exhibition “Spellbound”

This year would be Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) turned 120 and Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) turned 125. Around 80 years ago, at the height of their creativity, the two worked together on the psychological thriller “Spellbound”: Hitchcock commissioned Dalí to create a dream scene and the three minutes in which Gregory Peck (1916-2003) experienced it became one Cult scene in Hollywood, because it brought surrealism to Hollywood. Now the original set of the film, in which Ingrid Bergmann (1915-1982) also starred, can be seen in the old Philharmonic Hall in Munich.

“I wanted to convey the dream with great visual sharpness and clarity, sharper than the film itself,” Hitchcock once said about the collaboration with the famous Spanish artist, explaining: “As you know, all of Dalí’s works are very solid, very sharp, with very long perspectives, black shadows. It was the avoidance of the cliché: all the dreams in the film are blurry. That’s not true – Dalí was the best man to make the dreams because that’s how dreams should be.” Many of the works of art created around and used in the film are owned by Dalí expert and explorer Beniamino Levi. He is making his originals available for the exhibition; not a single replica can be found here.

Dalí exhibition in Munich: Immerse yourself in Dalí’s dream worlds until mid-April

The heart of the exhibition is the 55 square meter scenography “Spellbound”, which served as the set design for the dream sequence in the Hitchcock classic, which was shown in German cinemas at the time as “I’m fighting for you”. The impressive work of art is lined with numerous bronze busts, graphics and sketches by the great Spanish master.

Various multimedia installations are distributed throughout the exhibition. In addition to smaller holograms, there is a walk-in VR installation that makes Dalí’s dreams tangible and connects them with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the father of psychoanalysis. As a visitor, you experience Dalí’s most famous pictures as animations and can meet freely through the room under the glasses. Technically, this is successfully implemented and moving between Dalí’s dissolving clocks in the desert or on a bed sailing across the sea makes Dalí’s art come alive and tangible.

The “Spellbound” exhibition opens on Friday, February 2nd and runs until April 21st, 2024, although tickets are already sold out on some weekends.

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