‘Not much zoology – apart from the rabbit!’ Desmond Morris on his secret surrealist love romp film

The zoologist, now aged 97, is about to unveil Time Flower, his fantasy-fuelled film in which he pursues a woman called Ramona – who gave such a brave performance leaping off the bonnet of a car that he proposed to herIn the opening scene of Time Flower, a surrealist film by the zoologist Desmond Morris, a woman is lying facedown on the ground, clutching the grass with manicured hands and shaking her head. She is about to start running across a Wiltshire moor in elegant black heels, chased by Morris in a shirt and tie, her eyes wide, her lipstick dark, the angle of the shot emphasising her perfect, parted, panting mouth. Just before she trips and falls, a wild rabbit will stare straight at the camera – and flee.This 10-minute black-and-white film, which Morris made in 1950 while he was a 22-year-old student at Birmingham University, has lain untouched in his archive for nearly 75 years. Created in response to Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, it is a testament to Morris’s early work as a surrealist artist. He exhibited alongside Joan Miró before he became a zoology broadcaster and the author of The Naked Ape. Continue reading...

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