L’année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad)

In a Bohemian castle converted into a hotel, an atmosphere of silence reigns. The guests are there to rest and apart from a few murmured words, all noise is forbidden. When one resident becomes infatuated with a young woman, he tries to persuade her that they had an affair the year before in Marienbad.

This film was produced amidst great enthusiasm. I remember the morning when I was waiting at Alain Robbe-Grillet’s place for him to get back from the screening of the rough-cut. The way he opened the door, the first thing he said to me. It was total happiness. I’ll never forget that moment. What he had put into it was fantastically elaborate. Of course, I didn’t try to change what I liked, I only tried to change what was financially impossible, by finding an equivalent solution. One might think that it’s a series of different sequences. Henri Colpi (the film editor) and I were working on the basis that we didn’t want to worry about the continuity of what had been shot. And we realized that the order was very strict. Which shows what an inspired text it was. I have always said that I was of absolutely no use on this film. […] The technicians and actors have such great input into the creation of a film. However, the script had been written after we had spent many hours discussing what we would like to see in a film and never did see. We had several possibilities, of course. Sometimes, we’d do more than one take and vary the intonation and meaning. That was quite fruitful. You know, the three leads, Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi and Sacha Pitoëff were acquainted with Stanislavsky. Especially Delphine Seyrig, who had worked with Strasberg. It could not happen against a background of neutrality. We let ourselves be carried away by notions of contrast and the musical quality of certain shots compared to others. We put pain and suffering into it, sometimes lightness and irony, by building several hypothetical approaches.

Alain Resnais, Trying to Understand my Own Film, in «Films and Filming», February 1962.

PRODUCTION 1: Studiocanal
1 Place du Spectacle
92863, Issy-les-Moulineaux - France
Tel. +33 (0)1 71350374
clement.geray@studiocanal.com
http://www.studiocanal.com/fr

PRODUCTION WHEN THE FILM WAS MADE: Argos Films

COPRODUCTIONS WHEN THE FILM WAS MADE: Cineriz

RESTORATION BY: Studiocanal with the support of Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée and Chanel

PRESS OFFICE: Clément Geray - Studiocanal
1 Place du Spectacle
92863, Issy-Les-Moulineaux - France
Tel. +33 (0)1 71350374
clement.geray@studiocanal.com