The Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí refused to cooperate with anyone wanting to make a film about him – until 1965, when he was finally persuaded to agree by the British director Jack Bond. Like Dalí, Bond, who has died of a stroke aged 87, brought an idiosyncratic style to his work. He was sometimes likened to Ken Russell, another graduate of BBC arts documentaries, for his wild imagination.
Invited to tea with Dalí at the St Regis hotel in New York, the artist’s winter home, Bond was asked why he wanted to make a film. “My intention would have been to mentally take an electric drill and get inside your head to destroy you and your subconscious and your ego once and for all,” he replied. Dalí’s manager dropped the teapot, but Dalí said: “We will make a film, then.”
