• A convincing case could be made for Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad to be called the most attractive work of cinema of all-time—a formal, stylistic, and visual sonic boom  
an interior shot as good as anything Ozu ever produced (or nearly)
  • Winner at Venice
  • It’s Resnais’ second feature after Hiroshima Mon Amour in 1959— this one-two punch is lock-step (if not better) than Truffaut and Godard at the time
  • Starts, like Resnais’ debut, with a gauntlet-thrown-down stunner of an introduction opening- there are these rolling tracking shots, low-angle shots of an luxurious hotel and a voice over repeating a series of phrases that often pair with the grand visuals—“corridors, baroque, galleries, empty, salon, marble, doorways, doorframe, mirrors”- repeated over and over for 5 minutes as if Resnais’ is boldly putting you into a trance or hypnotizing you
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Starts, like Resnais’ debut, with a gauntlet-thrown-down stunner of an introduction opening- there are these rolling tracking shots, low-angle shots of an luxurious hotel and a voice over repeating a series of phrases that often pair with the grand visuals
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“corridors, baroque, galleries, empty, salon, marble, doorways, doorframe, mirrors”- repeated over and over for 5 minutes as if Resnais’ is boldly putting you into a trance or hypnotizing you
  • Low-angle chandelier shot, dwells on the ornate architecture of the interior at 5 minutes
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Low-angle interiors dwells on the ornate architecture of the interior at 5 minutes
  • A framed picture of the garden maze at 6 minutes and perfect frame of the hallway (we’ve had nothing but perfect frames so far)— this movie, the hotel set-piece, the maze, the corridors—clearly an important film to Kubrick and The Shining
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The definition of opaque—it makes The Master or something look downright accessible or mainstream- haha
  • Silent figures, beautiful people in black tie, banal gossip, mystery card game
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Silent figures, beautiful people in black tie, banal gossip, mystery card game
  • Shot at not one but three Bavarian luxury hotels
  • Art-museum quality frames galore including this stunner at 12 minutes that could be from Pawel Pawlikowski or Cuaron’s Roma—perfect symmetry
Art-museum quality frames galore including this stunner at 12 minutes that could be from Pawel Pawlikowski or Cuaron’s Roma—perfect symmetry
  • Heavy use of mirrors in the formal visual design for Resnais
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a mirage,strong mirror work and widescreen work here– almost like a split diopter shot
  • Kubrick for sure was influenced, I think Lynch is another—Leos Carax— surrealism, smoky—design, mood and form favored over narrative – certainly cinema’s great labyrinth
  • Overheating splices of dialogue, everyone stopping in a the middle of the scene – never seen anything like it—vacant models holding poses as the camera glides by with formally repeated tracking shots—the camera is always stalking like ghost
  • The key shot—one that could be cinema’s single finest (yes, all of cinema)—is the shot (often repeated in the film and variations on it after) of the meticulously manicured symmetrical gardens at 26 minutes. Statues and fountains
The key shot—one that could be cinema’s single finest (yes, all of cinema)—is the shot (often repeated in the film and variations on it after) of the meticulously manicured symmetrical gardens
  • Debut for Delphine Seyrid (who had a nice run after this including work with Demy, Truffaut, Bunuel—she’s very good here),  Giorgio Albertazzi the male lead— characters without names— Sacha Pitoeff as the young Boris Karloff-looking character
  • Form- repeating the scene the way the character remembers it (mostly Albertazzi) with his voice over— but we’ll get it again with the actor mouthing words
  • A meditation on memory, subjectivity (Wasn’t it cold that summer? Over and over) – replaying the same scene with different outcomes
  • It is like the final segment of Antonioni’s L’Eclisse meets The Shining
  • Seyrid in triplicate in the mirror
Seyrid in triplicate in the mirror
  • At 38 mins Resnais (always the editing genius) splices in frames of Seyrid in an all-white room—Fight Club’s Fincher splicing— then throttles it and goes to that in the next scene like the transitions in Easy Rider
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At 38 mins Resnais (always the editing genius) splices in frames of Seyrid in an all-white room—Fight Club’s Fincher splicing— then throttles it and goes to that in the next scene like the transitions in Easy Rider
  • Endlessly enigmatic and impenetrable—best to let the visuals and rhythms wash over you and not try to unlock it
  • Certainly feels like the Uncle of WKW’s In the Mood For Love, so much in common there
  • Cutout of Hitchcock hidden in a frame at one point, add to the mystery and homage
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Cutout of Hitchcock hidden in a frame at one point, add to the mystery and homage
  • There’s a progression in the narrative but it does double back often and stops completely, repeats certain shots and sequences like overlooking the garden
  • The camera never stops—you can get spoiled by the visuals actually- there are 50 shots here more beautiful than any one in really good films
The camera never stops—you can get spoiled by the visuals actually- there are 50 shots here more beautiful than any one in really good films
  • A jump edit sequence where Seyrid’s character (at 70 mins) lays in bed four times from different angles—close to the Varda Cleo shot repeated three times that would influence Scorsese
  • Tone poem, fever dream, ambiguity, memory, nightmare (that organ score is more nightmare than dream), like an unwinnable game of chess, a mirage, elliptical
  • Sacha Vierny as the cinematographer— go on to work with Greenaway from 1985-1996 or so and take part in all of his most important work
  • A Masterpiece