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Alain Robbe-Grillet and his Wife Catherine
aboard the T.E.E.
Alain Robbe-Grillet - The 1996 Film Retrospective
(From the 'Living Time 2000 Prospectus')
For many years revered as the figurehead of the Nouveau Roman
(The New Novel) - consider works such as Les Gommes, Le Voyeur
and La Jalousie - Alain Robbe-Grillet is perhaps one of
the most undeservedly neglected of great film-makers, known by
most only for the screenplay of L'Année Dernière
à Marienbad [Last Year at Marienbad] (1961) - directed
by Alain Resnais - a cornerstone of the Nouvelle Vague
(New Wave) and an inter- national success of the time. However,
Robbe-Grillet, like Marguerite Duras, afterwards devoted his
time equally to novel- writing and film-making. Since 1962 he
has directed nine full-length features as well as writing the
screenplays for two others. He has published twelve novels over
the same period , the most recent of which comprise his semi-autobiographical
trilogy, which was concluded in 1994 with Les Derniers Jours
de Corinth. Even though Robbe-Grillet's films have long been
a source of inspiration and discussion for directors and film
theo- rists, as well as inciting much controversy due to the
uncompro- mising nature both of the narrative technique and the
graphic imagery, they have not been presented to a large public
since they were first made.
Every one of his films was screened at the Retrospective, both
those that had been banned in England (for example Glissements
Progressifs du Plaisir) and those that had already acquired
a cult reputation (such as Last Year at Marienbad and
Trans-Europ- Express). Towards the end of the retrospective
he visited Engl- and and personally presented some of his films,
in particular the premiere of his latest film. Below are Details
on all of his films.
L'Année Dernière à Marienbad
[Last Year at Marienbad] (1961)
94 minutes, B&W, dir. Alain Resnais, scr. Alain
Robbe-Grillet
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff
In a vast, old-fashioned hotel, a man meets a woman
at a party who may or may not have had an affair with him the
previous year at Marienbad - or was it Frederiksbad? Winner of
the First Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1961, of the French
Film Critics' Méliès Award as "The Best Picture
of the Year" and of the André Bazin Gold Medal from
the International Federation of Film Critics, this also earnt
Robbe-Grillet an Oscar Nomina- tion for his screenplay at the
American Academy Awards in "62.
A few additional words need to be said about this
film because although it was not directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet
it still abso- lutely deserves a place in his own film catalogue.
As the one who penned the screenplay he possesses 50% of the
authorial rights of this film. However, as the script that he
wrote was a complete shooting script of the film and was followed
almost to the letter by Resnais, in a sense the final vision
owes more to Robbe- Grillet than it does to Alain Resnais, even
though it betrays the inimitable style of this latter. Debate
concerning this issue - who of the two owed more to the final
film - ensued immediately upon its release and has not even fully
abated yet. Perhaps it would be best to take the novelist's/film-maker's
own words seriously when they insist they are co-authors of the
work, that the work was like a child to them both, neither belonging
more to one than to the other.
Before progressing to the remainder of the films it
is just worth saying that although Last Year at Marienbad
was screened first, l'Immortelle [the Immortal One] must
nonetheless be considered as his début feature, not only
because it was written earlier than the script for Marienbad,
but because it was technically the first instance in which he
stood behind the camera and called the shots himself. This was
his directorial début even though Marienbad was an earlier
film. In fact, to be totally accurate, he was shooting l'Immortelle
in Istanbul as Marienbad was being shot in Germany.
L'Immortelle [The Immortal One] (1963)
100 minutes, B&W, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Françoise Brion, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, C.
R-G
His first solo directorial feature, scripted before
Last Year at Marienbad, though only completed in 1962. Winner
one year later of the Prix Louis Delluc, this film-enigma tells
the story of N., who falls in love with the elusive stranger
Leila in Istanbul. She disappears mysteriously and he is determined
he will find her again.
Trans-Europ-Express [Trans-Europe-Express]
(1966)
95 minutes, B&W, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, Alain Robbe-Grillet,
Catherine Robbe-Grillet and Daniel Emilfork
Banned in England on its initial release in 1967,
it was ten years before this film was able to receive an 'X'
certificate. Jean (played by Robbe-Grillet himself) writes a
screenplay for a film while on board a Trans-Europ-Express while
Trintignant plays the protagonist of the film-within-the-film
- a professional drug-smuggler with sado-masochistic tendencies
who gets involved with a prostitute and double agents while commuting
between Paris and Antwerp.
L'Homme qui ment [The Man who
lies] (1968)
116 minutes, B&W, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ivan Mistrik, Silvie Breal, Sylvia Turbova
and Zuzana Kocurikova
Winner of Best Actor (Trintignant) and Best Screenplay
awards at the 1968 Berlin International Film Festival, in this
film the stranger Boris turns up in a remote Czech village, claiming
to be someone who left many years ago. Robbe-Grillet says about
this character: "Boris is someone in the act of creating
himself. Boris does not lie, he speaks. He is the modern hero
who has chosen his words as the gurantee of his own reality".
L'Eden et Après [Eden and After]
(1971)
121 minutes, Colour, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Catherine Jourdan, Pierre Zimmer, Richard Leduc and
Lorraine Rainer
Robbe-Grillet's first excursion into colour, shot
in Tunisia and Czechoslovakia. While part of an actor's group
Catherine tries some 'fear powder' offerred her by mysterious
stranger Duche- min. He vanishes and she sets off for North Africa
to find him, living for real the hallucinations she had witnessed
earlier. "This is a film about colours. About the blue and
white of the land- scape, and about the red that would come to
stain it cruelly." A second version of this film called
"N. a pris les des" was edited for French Television
(Title is an anagram of "Eden et Après").
Glissements Progressifs du Plaisir
[Gradual Slidings toward Pleasure] (1974)
105 minutes, Colour, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Anicee Alvina, Olga Georges-Picot, Michel Lonsdale,
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Isabelle Huppert
A young girl is accused of the murder of a woman who
is found dead in her apartment by the police. She is interrogated
by a detective, a policeman, a judge, nuns and the father superior
- all of whom begin to act very strangely in her presence. Inspired
by Michelet's La Sorceresse and L. Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Le Jeu avec le Feu [Playing with
Fire] (1975)
95 minutes, Colour, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Anicée Alvina, Phillippe Noiret, Jean-Louis Trintignant
and Sylvia Kristel
This tale of incest and perversion was Robbe-Grillet's
first colour feature in Cinemascope. It tells the story of the
daughter of a rich banker who is kidnapped, but who subsequently
realizes that she is on the side of those who have captured her
and knowingly extorts a ransom from her father [cf. the story
of Patty Hearst]. It was an Official Selection of the 1975 Venice
Film Festival.
La Belle Captive [The Beautiful Captive]
(1983)
90 minutes, Colour, scr./dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring Daniel Mesguich, Gabrielle Lazure, Cyrielle Claire,
Arielle Dombasle and Daniel Emilfork
An erotic vampire story telling the tale of Goethe's
Bride of Corinth. Walter discovers the body of Marie-Ange in
the middle of the road and takes her home to nurse her back to
recovery. A shock is in store when he eventually tracks down
her parents in order to ask for her hand in marriage. A chilling
horror movie accompanied by the chamber music of Franz Schubert
(String Quartet No. 15).
After "La Belle Captive" there is
a gap of over twelve years before Alain Robbe-Grillet directs
a further film. The only film project to which he contributed
in the interim was a feature- length animated work called "Taxandria"
for which he provided the original story and script, though which
changed so far be- yond what he had initially conceived and described
that he dis- owns his part in this project. "The Blue Villa"
is discussed in a separate section devoted to discussion of its
UK Release.
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