Nominees: Viridiana, Yojimbo, La Notte, The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer, Mother Joan of the Angels, One Eyed Jacks, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Through a Glass Darkly, The Innocents, The Young One, Dancing in the Rain
Oscars pick: West Side Story
Nominees: Fanny, Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg
A modernist work of art, a master class of form over traditional narrative. Last Year at Marienbad has been called a “film about the power of cinema”, and a story of repressed memory, or false memory. But it’s ultimately whatever you think it is.
Me? I think memory is a ghost. And this is a ghost story, fueled by an unsettling desire.
Throughout the picture, a man, credited as X, tries to persuade A, who doesn’t remember him, that they had an affair the year before. Is X’s pursuit romantic, or is it harassment?
Screenwriter Robbe-Grillett originally wrote in a rape scene and felt that X had probably never met A before. Director Resnais removed the rape and was of the opinion that the two had probably met a year earlier. This collision of contrasting ideas lends an overall disquieting tone to the film.
Memory is a ghost, it’s vague and ethereal. And this reads like a ghost story.
Maybe it’s that spooky organ music, which makes me think of Carnival of Souls. Maybe it’s the way the camera glides through hallways as if we are watching the movie through the eye of a floating spirit. Maybe it’s the use of split lenses (not split screen work mind you) so that when we see two people in the same room, it appears as if they are NOT inhabiting the same space at all. Maybe it’s the backgrounds that suddenly change, like the Hotel itself is an apparition.
It’s in the way people move, or don’t move. The performances are disassociated, stilted; these people are more like phantoms than flesh and blood. The story X tells A is unreliable and ever changing: is that false memory or a specter’s wispy fugue state of mind?
Everything in this film keeps me off balance (and I like that): People are constantly seen in reflective surfaces, in one scene their shadows are painted in. Their clothing changes mid-conversation. They are shot draped in the deepest darkness, and in other moments, in a white glare so blinding they seem to disappear into the background...
...like ghosts.
And memory is a ghost. We are seeing what the characters are remembering - memory is faulty - remembering is like visiting an ever-fluctuating spirit world.
That’s how I see it. But whether you are of the opinion that the movie is an enigmatic artistic masterpiece or feel it’s the pretentious work of two self-indulgent intellectuals, this is the magic of Marienbad. Each viewer works the film out for themselves, and no two people see the same exact thing.
🎭Loads of great acting this year: a few faves that just missed the cut include Hayley Mills (Whistle Down the Wind), Annie Girardot (Shadows of Adultery), Carroll Baker (Something Wild), James Cagney (One, Two, Three), and the all-star casts of The Huster and Paris Blues.
One that made it all the way to the top...
Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels - If you've seen Ken Russell's The Devil's, this is the aftermath. Mother is not as campy or garish, which I preferred. The performances are superb, and I named the mesmerizing Lucyna Winnicka -who shows great range here- my best actress (on her second nomination). It's a rather chilling tale with an ending- SPOILER ALERT- that outdoes a similar act from the Exorcist.
Best Actor: Toshirō Mifune, Yojimbo
Honorable Mentions:
Best Actress: Lucyna Winnicka, Mother Joan of the Angels
Honorable Mentions:
Honorable Mentions:
Stuart Whitman, The Mark * Paul Newman, The Hustler * Marcello Mastroianni, La Notte & Divorce, Italian Style * Dirk Bogarde, Victim * Clark Gable, The Misfits * Tatsuya Nakadai, The Human Condition III * Mieczyslaw Voit, Mother Joan of the Angels * Dilip Kumar, Ganga Jumna * Peter Cushing & André Morell, Cash on Demand
Honorable Mentions:
Duša Počkaj, Dancing in the Rain * Harriet Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly * Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's * Deborah Kerr, the Innocents * Silvia Pinal, Viridiana * Emmanuelle Riva, Léon Morin, Priest * Ayako Wakao, A Wife Confesses * Hideko Takamine, Happiness of Us Alone * Jeanne Moreau & Monica Vitti, La Notte
Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee, A Raisin in the Sun
Supporting Actor: Martin Stephens, The Innocents
Supporting Actor: Martin Stephens, The Innocents
