Poll

Your Favorite Alain Resnais Film is...

Night and Fog
12 (21.1%)
Toute la mémoire du monde
0 (0%)
Hiroshima mon amour
14 (24.6%)
Last Year at Marienbad
16 (28.1%)
Muriel, or the Time of Return
0 (0%)
The War is Over
0 (0%)
Je t'aime, je t'aime
1 (1.8%)
Stavisky...
1 (1.8%)
Providence
1 (1.8%)
Mon oncle d'Amérique
3 (5.3%)
Life Is a Bed of Roses
0 (0%)
L'Amour à mort
0 (0%)
Mélo
0 (0%)
I Want to Go Home
0 (0%)
Smoking/No Smoking
1 (1.8%)
Same Old Song
0 (0%)
Not On The Lips
1 (1.8%)
Coeurs (aka. Private Fears in Public Places)
2 (3.5%)
haven't seen any
5 (8.8%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 30

Author Topic: Resnais, Alain  (Read 6031 times)

Totoro

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #10 on: March 12, 2012, 07:22:30 PM »
Night and Fog & Hiroshima

I saw the last half of Last Year at Marienbad also. I need to revisit it sometime soon. Out of these two, however, Night and Fog is my favorite.

sdedalus

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2012, 08:04:12 PM »
1. Last Year at Marienbad
2. Hiroshima, mon amour
3. Wild Grass
4. Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs)
5. Mon oncle d'Amerique
6. Muriel
7. Night and Fog

All great.
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Totoro

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2012, 03:09:18 AM »
Oh! I forgot he did Wild Grass. What a chameleon.

That's probably my favorite then.

WillMunny

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2013, 05:33:56 AM »
In this case - a genius like Resnais I mean - there should be the option: I like them all.
If I had to choose 3 titles as this poll requires I'd say in no particular order:
Coeurs
Last Year at Marienbad (in my opinion it has aged better than Hiroshima)
Mon oncle d'Amérique (it was my first Resnais, I still remember the announcement of the Golden Lion on the news and the feeling that I was soon having a chance to see one of his works finally).
I have just ordered the DVD of Vous n'avez encore rien vu - the list of films in the poll needs an update.

Antares

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2013, 03:46:46 PM »
Last Year at Marienbad (1961) 96/100 – If you would have asked what I felt about this film after the first thirty minutes, I would have told you it was arthouse tripe. But something happened at around the 30 minute mark… I fell asleep. I had been tired when I first ventured into this film, not a smart thing when one is dealing with a French new wave film, and I slept for about an hour. When I awoke, I found where I had been when I dozed off and continued on. But then I felt myself being sucked into the surrealistic imagery. It reminded me of the feeling I have for Classical music Tone poems, which is what this film kind of replicates. Is it a dream, or maybe a nightmare, could it be an allegory for French society? It is so ambiguous that I finished it a little over an hour ago, and my mind is still fixed upon many scenes. My favorite scene is when the camera rushes through the hotel and bursts through a window and expands upon the garden grounds, which are bathed in a most luminescent sunlight. A few guests of the hotel are scattered around the courtyard, and they are motionless, just like the statues that rim the perimeter. But the guests draw long shadows on the ground, yet the trees and the statues do not. It’s a strikingly beautiful shot, which reminded me of a Rene Magritte painting. There are countless other scenes that are meticulously crafted throughout this film’s duration and make for a rather confusing, yet fascinating venture into the realm of surrealism. Would I recommend this film to everyone…hell no! It is too vague, too ambiguous and maybe one could say, a bit too weird for most people’s tastes. But if you love a film that makes you ponder, haunts your mind, then this is a film for you. I can see where this may have been influential to other directors in the following years. Many times throughout, I could see where Kubrick had borrowed some elements for The Shining and also maybe, Polanski for certain ways to depict abstract horror in Repulsion. I’m definitely going to revisit this film again. But for now, it’s time to delve into the plethora of extras which are on disc two of the Criterion set.
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MartinTeller

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2013, 04:48:22 PM »
One of us! One of us!

It does feel like it very well could have had some kind of influence on The Shining.

Antares

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2013, 04:55:27 PM »
It's been three hours since I finished it, and I'm still contemplating various thoughts on what I think it means. I haven't had a film make me feel like this since Repulsion. I can't wait to delve into disc two.
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Antares

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #17 on: February 06, 2013, 06:04:38 PM »
Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) 82/100 - It lays the groundwork technically for the much better, Last Year at Marienbad which came out two years later. Alain Resnais is a master of black and white cinematography, probably rivaled only by Kurosawa at the time. There are so many great shots in this film and the framing of the characters in certain scenes, proves what a genius like Resnais can do in the medium. I loved in the beginning of the film when the embraced couple is shown with ash falling all over their skin, then it cuts away to the after effects of the Hiroshima bombing. It returns to the couple, and now their skin is clean, changing the mood of the scene, before once again, switching to more of the bomb's harsh reality. Finally, it's switches back to the couple one more time, but now, the couple's skin is covered in beads of sweat, indicating to the viewer that the rest of the film is a love story. In just a span of a few moments, Resnais creates three different motifs, showcasing fear of the unknown, the comforting embrace of two people, possibly in love and finally, the erotic nature of romance. It was an absolute masterstroke of genius. This is the third film I've seen directed by Resnais, and he's definitely become, alongside Eric Rohmer, the shining beacons of the French New Wave for me.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2013, 06:13:46 PM by Antares »
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Antares

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #18 on: February 06, 2013, 06:13:56 PM »
Night and Fog
Last Year at Marienbad


Hiroshima mon amour

Guernica
« Last Edit: July 12, 2018, 07:20:07 PM by Antares »
Masterpiece (100-91) | Classic (90-80) | Entertaining (79-69) | Mediocre (68-58) | Cinemuck (57-21) | Crap (20-0)

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Alain Resnais
« Reply #19 on: March 02, 2014, 02:30:57 PM »
Great filmmaker. Desperately need to see more.

 

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