Peter Cook
British actor, satirist, writer and comedian (1937-1995)
Alain Resnaiswas a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.
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About the Alain Resnais
Alain Resnaiswas a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.
Resnais began making feature films in the late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and the imagined past. These films were contemporary with, and associated with, the French New Wave (la nouvelle vague), though Resnais did not regard himself as being fully part of that movement. He had closer links to the “Left Bank” group of authors and filmmakers who shared a commitment to modernism and an interest in left-wing politics. He also established a regular practice of working on his films in collaboration with writers previously unconnected with the cinema such as Jean Cayrol, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jorge Semprun and Jacques Sternberg.
In later films, Resnais moved away from the overtly political topics of some previous works and developed his interests in an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. This led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh, as well as films featuring various kinds of popular song.
His films frequently explore the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives.
Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies, including one Academy Award, two Cesar Awards for best director (he was nominated on eight occasions), three Louis Delluc Prize and one Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
12 Quotes by Alain Resnais
- 1.
So I used formal techniques to make the film more perceptive emotionally.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 2.
Oh, yes, that never happened to me in my life before. It was a risky film, and I warned the producer.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 3.
Luck, I never looked to make difficult movies on purpose. You make the films you can make.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 4.
I am never driven. Every film I’ve made has been an assignment.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 5.
I’d even say it’s a realistic film because that’s the way it happens in our heads; that was the idea.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 6.
It was repugnant, but it was the only way to communicate.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 7.
That’s easy to answer: I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 8.
I never thought of becoming a director. When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me – I still watch silent films.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 9.
Since we had little money and few documents, we had nothing.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 10.
I saw part of The Singing Detective on TV in New York. I said, Something is going on here.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 11.
The present and the past coexist, but the past shouldn’t be in flashback.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)
- 12.
There was a darkness, a melancholy, that people had trouble accepting. Maybe now, it would work better.
Alain ResnaisFrench film director (1922-2014)