http://memoriesofthefuture.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/hell-erect-barbed-wire-around-his-little-ego/
I like your reviews of MURIEL in dvdverdict.com and in your blog very much. Your reviews inspired me to begin reading some parts of the book ALAIN RESNAIS, written by John Francis Kreidl, published by Twayne Publishers in Boston, 1977. In this book, there are three articles on MURIEL in page 79-134. At first, I intended to finish reading these three articles before I comment on your blog, but now ten days have passed, and I still can’t find time to finish reading them, so I think I should start making some comments before it’s too late.
Here are some of my thoughts on MURIEL, a film which I saw only once in 1997:
--My friend commented after seeing this movie with me that he had spotted a clock in many scenes of this film, or if there was no clock in the scene, the characters in that scene would be talking about time. I think that when I find the time to watch the DVD of this film, I will try to see if what my friend said was right. (Or maybe I just remember wrongly what my friend said.)
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--In dvdverdict.com, you said, “…I personally respond more deeply and intensely to Resnais's earlier, more poetic masterpieces Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima mon amour…”.
I think I share the same feeling with you. I like MURIEL very much, but less than those two films. I think my feelings towards Resnais’s films are varied, and my feelings might depend on who was the scriptwriter of each Resnais’s film, because some of his films seem to have different styles. I don’t know how much the style of each of his film is influenced by him or his scriptwriter.
Alain Resnais’ films that I saw, in preferential order:
1.LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1961, A+++++++++++++++)
Written by Alain Robbe-Grillet
2.HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959, A++++++++++)
Written by Marguerite Duras
3.NIGHT AND FOG (1955, A++++++++)
Written by Jean Cayrol
4.MY AMERICAN UNCLE (1980, A+++++)
Written by Jean Grualt, adapted from Henri Laborit’s writings
5.SAME OLD SONG (1997, A++)
Written by Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui
6.MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN (1963, A+)
Written by Jean Cayrol
7.PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES (2006, A+)
Written by Jean-Michel Ribes, adapted from Alan Ayckbourn’s play
8.NOT ON THE LIPS (2003, A+)
Written by Andre Barde
9.MELO (1986, A)
Written by Alain Resnais, adapted from Henri Bernstein’s play
I like every film of Resnais that I saw, and I think he is an auteur, but sometimes I wonder how much of my love for LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR is due to the scriptwriter or the director.
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--I think MURIEL can be a part of an unintentional trilogy of FRENCH MEN AND WAR, This trilogy include:
1.ADIEU PHILIPPINE (1962, Jacques Rozier)
It’s about a French man before going to Algerian war. I haven’t seen this film yet.
2.FLANDRES (2006, Bruno Dumont, A+)
Though the war in this film is not Algerian, I think the content of this film somehow reminds me of MURIEL. In MURIEL we never saw the torture of Muriel, but what is not shown in MURIEL might be substituted by what is shown in FLANDRES, I guess.
3.MURIEL
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--There are many films about Algerian war which I want to see, but haven’t seen them yet, including:
1.THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)
2.THOU SHALT NOT KILL (1961, Claude Autant-Lara, 148 min)
3.THE UNDECLARED WAR (1992, Bertrand Tavernier, 240 min)
You can find the list of films about this conflict in an article in africultures.com. The article is called FROM MISCEGENATION PHOBIA TO AMBIVALENCE IN FILM by Olivier Barlet.
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--I think films about war veterans are very interesting. Many films in this group deal with the guilt of the war veterans and the unforgettable sins they did during the war, or deal with their mental scars. Sometimes these war veterans seem to carry the sin and guilt around and bring them back home and it affected those people around him.
Interesting films in this group may include:
1.MY STEP-BROTHER FRANKENSTEIN (2004, Valeri Todorovsky, Russia, A+)
2.THE TWILIGHT ZONE: EPISODE “NIGHTCRAWLERS” (1985, William Friedkin, A+)
I’m not sure if this thriller TV episode is a metaphor for something or not.
3.MARIA’S LOVERS (1984, Andrei Konchalovsky, A)
4.THE LIGHT (2004, Philppe Lioret, A)
5.TRACKS (1976, Henry Jaglom)
I haven’t found the time to see this DVD yet.
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--In the book ALAIN RESNAIS, John Francis Kreidl quoted Pierre Kast from Cahiers du Cinema. I think what Kast said is very interesting, so I quote it here.
Pierre Kast said in the article “Les Malheurs du Muriel” in Cahiers du Cinema No. 149 (November 1963) page 29 that:
“What does Resnais propose [in MURIEL]? To show, it seems to me, as never yet before seen, a certain reality: to oblige the viewer to confront himself with himself, [an act] which appears to him at once faithful and monstrously unfaithful to that which he has never thought about in looking at himself in this way. It is concerned above all with the profound reputting under analysis of all of the logical systems dealing with external reality concerning those people who live in the world today. Evidently, if one sets out to describe the subject matter of MURIEL with a certain type of vocabulary, one arrives at a presentation analogous to that of ELLE or MARIE-CLAIRE; but it is precisely that which is put to the question; in other words, the film obliges people to find themselves in the presence of –in regarding their own self-adventure—the same horror that springs forth in looking at the external world, this monstrous reality in which they live and to which they are normally accustomed. And the essential proposition of Resnais is to open their eyes and tell them: look at yourself, here you are in fact.”
The book ALAIN RESNAIS by John Francis Kreidl is still available in amazon.com, but the price is 46.50 dollars. You may check your local library.
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--Some trivia: MURIEL is in the top ten best films of 1963’s list by Jean-Luc Godard. The list is as follows:
1.TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC (Robert Bresson)
2.THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Luis Bunuel)
3.THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock)
4.THE CHAPMAN REPORT (George Cukor)
5.ADIEU PHILIPPINE (Jacques Rozier)
6.DONOVAN’S REEF (John Ford)
7.MURIEL
8.THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (Jerry Lewis)
9.IRMA LA DOUCE (Billy Wilder)
10.TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (Vincente Minnelli)
Looking at this list, I wish THE CHAPMAN REPORT be released as DVD soon, because Ty Hardin is gorgeous.
TY HARDIN
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