The film he could never live down, or up to, in some critic's eyes; Alain Robbe-Grillet was still angry with director Alain Resnais in recent interviews. The critically praised LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD was one of the iconic films of the 1960s; it confounded mainstream critics and audiences at the time, and still does. This famous image will create a sense of deja vu even if you've never seen the film.
He was also a painter and worked images of other painters into both his novels and films; the novel and film LA BELLE CAPTIVE were generated by a series of Rene Magritte canvases...
At work on his most recent film, the much criticized GRADIVA. In a recent interview he struck out at French audiences, critics and his old colleague Alain Resnais..
Rather than write a smug, reductive obit I'll present some impressions upon learning of the death today in France of Alain Robbe-Grillet (from cardiac failure according to reports), who may have been the most important writer of the second half of the 20th century and one of its most radical, innovative filmmakers. Still producing new films and literature into his mid 80's he was restless, angry, intellectually stimulating, artistically courageous and uncompromising.
"In the dimness of the cafe', the manager is arranging the table and chairs, the ashtrays, the siphons of soda water; it is six in the morning."
In the first sentence of his first novel LES GOMMES (1953) the former agronomist calmly, obsessively presents his revolution. Present tense, unadorned description of seemingly banal actions which will define the modern world as a quoditian myth cycle without clear meanings or direction.
"I must return to that delicate girl who is still languishing in her cage, for M, The Vampire, and Doctor Morgan are now returning to the little white room in order to continue the interrogation, after having gone out for a sandwich to the drugstore in the nearby station."
When was the last time you read Sade, or saw a Jean Rollin vampire film? Just two names which come to mind when reading this (writing professors would say run-on) sentence from his 1972 novel PROJECT FOR A REVOLUTION IN NEW YORK.
Given his novels, filmscripts, stories, films, paintings, acting appearances, lectures, essays (his most important text may prove to be the 1964 POUR UN NOUVEAU ROMAN) he was omnipresent in academia and film culture of the 1960s and continued on with ever more difficult novels, films, collaborations with visual artists and several volumes of autobiography.*
One of his films (GLISSEMENTS PROGRESSIFS DU PLAISIR) was once ordered burned in public. One of the books which most influenced him was Michelet's "La Sorciere" and the many images of sadomasochism found in his novels and films caused him to be compared to another French rebel, Sade. His films influenced many other filmmakers including Sam Peckinpah, Jess Franco, Monte Hellman, Dario Argento and Paul Schrader. Novelist-screenwriter Richard Matheson (I AM LEGEND) once said he wrote the script for DE SADE (1969) deliberately in the nonlinear style of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD.
His first film L'IMMORTELLE (1963) was filmed at the same time Alain Resnais was shooting Robbe-Grillet's script for MARIENBAD. It was shot under protest by its cinematographer who disagreed with all of Robbe-Grillet's aesthetic choices. I'll be reviewing L'IMMORTELLE and other ARG titles in coming blogs and I'm considering pushing all other planned blog events of the next week or so back to cover his film legacy.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said today that Robbe-Grillet was the most "rebellious" members of the presitgious and highly exclusive Academie Francaise. That he was.
LA BELLE CAPTIVE was finally released on a welcome, if basic, US DVD presentation last year. Let's hope that his other films follow in the Criterion style editions they deserve.
I feel grateful to have been able to meet him at a 1976 showing of EDEN AND AFTER and SLOW SLIDINGS INTO PLEASURE in New York City. He was a disarmingly humble, gentle and witty individual. A unique figure who will be impossible to replace.
To read my other posts on the works and career of Alain Robbe-Grillet just type his name into the search engine at the top of the blog.
I recommend the excellent chapter on the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet in Pete Tombs' and Cahtal Tohill's essential "Immoral Tales."
Thanks to Kimberly Lindbergs.
*Recommended books and films by Alain Robbe-Grillet:
L'HOMME QUI MENT/THE MAN WHO LIES (1968): this 1968 war film was his last b&w feature and discerning critics consider it one of his best.
TRANS-EUROP-EXPRESS (1966): a director (Alain Robbe-Grillet) constructs the life and death of a drug smuggler (Jean Louis Trintignant) during a train-ride between Antwerp and Paris.
REFLECTIONS OF THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE: An intricate fantasy about an international crime cartel. One of his most accessible and entertaining novels.
L'IMMORTELLE: a cine-novel.
[You'll have to go gray-market for the films]
(C) Robert Monell, 2008
