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Max Ernst, Jack Bittner, John La Touche, Libby Holman

Surrealist painter and Dada film-theorist Hans Richter wrote, produced, and directed the experimental exercise Dreams That Money Can Buy, one of the most significant contributions to the 20th-century ... read more read more..."avant garde" movement. The project began in 1944, while Richter was director of the Institute of Film Techniques at City College in New York. Combining short scenarios written by such world-renowned artists as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamps, Man Ray, Alexander Calder and Fernand Leger, Richter came up with a full-color, feature-length study in dreamlike "wish fulfillment." The film's only nod to continuity is the presence of a self-styled heavenly psychiatrist, whose patients purportedly visualize the images which play across the screen. Described by one observer as "surreal yet somewhat Jungian," Dreams That Money Can Buy cost $25,000 and was three years in the making (Richter liked to take his time: his later Dadascope took five years!) Its New York premiere was greeted with a mixture of bravos and bewilderment, especially when the projectionist elected to show the film on the wall and ceiling rather than the screen. One assumes that the projectionist was less capricious when Dreams That Money Can Buy won a special prize at the 1947 Venice Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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65% liked it

354 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 39 min.

Directed by: Hans Richter

Release Date: January 1, 1947

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Flixster Reviews (28)

  • jes25924
    August 11, 2008
    jes25924
    Hans Richter and some of his friends in the old time surreal avant garde gang; Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Max Ernst, decide to get together and direct a suprisingly acessible (for these guys this is Oceans 11), film about a man who sets up a buisness selling dreams to pe... read moreople, who cant' have any of there own. After all, as our narrator Joe, informs us, "If you can look inside yourself, other people shoudnt be any problem".

    Assorted "characters" come into the Dream shop, a gangster, a repressed banker, an overzealous pamphletere, a blind man, a bored housewife, etc, and all are given dreams, each one directed by a different surrealist; Ernst, Duchamp, Ray, etc. Which alternately, delight, offend, distrub, and annoy there patrons.

    In that respect it's a little like an anthology film, with each dream, a story in the story, the best of which is a satire of conventional(1940's) relationships, staring two mannequins who fall in love and get married. It's a suprsingly charming and funny little feminist music video (I want the soundtrack, just for this sequence). Though the rest of the music is handled by experimental composer John Cage, who gives the film both a traditional comedic tone and one of ambigious drones and general avant-gardishness.

    The narravtive of the framing tale, that is the story of Joe, owner and dream weaver of the buisness, is also distinct in that, none of the characters mouths move, and when dialogue does take place on screen it comes as voice over, usually with one characters monologues followed by the others...most of which is spoken in a kind of Beat style rhyming (this is also a decade before any of the big Beat writers Keroac, Ginsberg, etc, start publishing.). That though a bit silly at first, actually enriches the story, really quite beyond, any individual dream sequence.

    If you like early avant gard films or the artists involved, this is an absoulte must see, but if your also just interested in early comic fantasy, stories about dreams, poetry, or just watching something visually different, that doesn't just dismiss narrative as a nuisance, it's worth the price of admission. Few films see the relationship of dream, cinema, and audience this clearly or disticntly.

    It's the feel good avant garde comedy of the 40s! If only it would get released on dvd already...
  • theartandsound
    August 27, 2007
    theartandsound
    what exactly is "the stuff that dreams are made of" anyway? what of oneiric pleasures and pains, lessons and lamentations? who are we when thrust to the looking glass? the intricate cosmology of our midnight perambulations is a source of rapturous power and delight. however, thi... read mores astral plane is fraught with thin ice...

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Critic Reviews

Bosley Crowther
June 23, 2007
Bosley Crowther, New York Times

Obviously 'arty' in nature, it still tries for new ways to frame ideas. For that it is to be commended. Better go see it for yourself. Full Review

Anton Bitel
June 20, 2007
Anton Bitel, Film4

A curiosity piece for lovers of the surreal, if not exactly for the mass market where the real money lies. Full Review

June 23, 2007
Chicago Reader

Click to read the article Full Review

June 23, 2007
Time Out

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