L'Année dernière à Marienbad

BFI Film Classics

by Jean-Louis Leutrat, Paul Hammond (Translator)

This book is an examination of the European art cinema piece "l'Anne derniere a Marienbad", a collaboration between director Alain Resnais and "enfant terrible" Alian Robbe-Grillet. An abstract thriller and love story, this book attempts to show that the movie's deviations are a philosophical puzzle.

Genres: Film

72 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 2001

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What would Chanel do without this film? One of my favorite films of all time. Style has never been so deadly and serious. In many ways it is the ultimate dandy film, and one can see the roots of Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music in this work.

The BFI books are usually super and this is one of my favorite titles with respect to a film I greatly admire. Well written and interesting.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The BFI Film Classics series consists of tiny introductions to the given films, not much more than pamphlets. One can quibble about the length, and this volume is little more than 50 pages once you subtract the front matter, notes and bibliography. But as a fan of L’Année dernière à Marienbad, I definitely feel that this book, slim though it is, has helped me get much more out of Alain Resnais’ masterpiece.

Jean-Louis Leutrat quickly covers Resnais’ biography and the story of his collaboration with writer Alain Robbe-Grillet to produce the screenplay, and here many of the details were already familiar to me from other books on French cinema. Where this book of Leutrat’s really shines is in his examination of matters of mise-en-scène, for example characters looking paradoxically in the wrong direction over a sequence of shots, only increasing the ambiguity of the already infamous ambiguous world of Marienbad. The book includes a number of still from the film to illustrate Leutrat’s points, and though I had already seen the film several times before I read this book, I had a new appreciation of its visual language.

[امیرمحمد حیدری · Rating 1 out of 5]

والا کاش اول فیلم را دیده بودم. عجله‌ای انتخابش کردم که حین کار بخوانمش، فکر کردم کتابی‌ست که فیلم از رویش اقتباس شده یا فیلم‌نامه یا چنین چیزی. اما نه، صرفا در مدح فیلم بود. با توصیفاتی که از فیلم کرده بود و عکس‌های موجود در کتاب، ظاهراً از این فیلم‌های روشنفکرپسندِ تماماً نماد است که جنبه‌های سینمایی را نادیده می‌گیرد. اما من نمی‌توانم الآن نظری بدهم. در نتیجه بعد از دیدن فیلم، نظرم را می‌نویسم که کتاب چه‌قدر در اثبات نظریات خود_که ممکن است درست یا غلط باشند_موثر واقع شده.

[Orin · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK. I watched the film a couple of weeks ago. Now I've got to go back and do it again. And probably again.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

??? 90s?: the film that questions the film that questions...

[David Sterritt]

“L’Année dernière à Marienbad” is the movie that did most to get me seriously interested in film many decades ago, and reading Jean-Louis Leutrat’s monograph on it has been a nice prelude for my zillionth viewing of it this week. The book isn’t always entirely clear, whether because of Leutrat’s phraseology or Paul Hammond’s translation, but it covers the enigmatic territory with care and concision. A worthwhile entry in the BFI Film Classics series.

[Anika · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strictly for interested parties like myself who can't seem to get enough of the beguiling mysteries hidden in the endless corridors and labyrinthine layout of Marienbad. Was disappointed, I'll admit, that most of Leutrat's focus was on close formalist analysis--I was looking more for more theory-based interpretations of its cinematic echoes and ramifications. But worth reading, for me, for the all-too-brief one page section "The Origins of the Artwork" wedged in at the end: "One of the two works (but which?) would be a rewrite of the other; and not just because, using its own means, the one translates the other."

It's quite possible that a year from now I might end up hinging an entire thesis off that concept...

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brief but decent introduction to one of the most intriguing films that I've ever seen. Given that the film itself is a thorough enigma, there's only so much explication that can be achieved in a book about the film, but what can be said is said in this volume. For that reason alone, it's worth reading if you can't get the film out of your head (like me) since the asking of questions is always more important (and rewarding) than obtaining answers.