Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Dalíland

Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí
Kismet
by
ABR Arts 11 July 2023

Dalíland

Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí
Kismet
by
ABR Arts 11 July 2023
Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí (photograph courtesy of Kismet).
Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí (photograph courtesy of Kismet).

In January 1957, Salvador Dalí appeared on American television in What’s My Line, a game show featuring a segment in which blindfolded panellists tried to work out the identity of a mystery guest by asking only yes-no questions. Dalí did not make it easy for the panel or the host: he answered ‘yes’ every time, not only to ‘Are you a performer?’ and ‘Would you be considered a leading man?’ but also to ‘Do you have anything to do with sports?’ In his mind, he was famous for absolutely anything and everything.

This footage is incorporated into the opening scene of Mary Harron’s Dalíland, a film about the artist’s life that focuses on a chaotic period in the mid-1970s. It’s a neat way to introduce the notion of the artist as celebrity, as self-mythologiser, as ‘a misleading man’, as one of the panellists suggests. The original footage is shown, then images of Ben Kingsley, who plays the older Dalí, are artfully inserted into it.

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.