Alain Robbe-Grillet (films mainly)

IdleRich

IdleRich
The other day I watched La Belle Captive directed by ARG. While flawed in some ways I thought it was fantastic, it very much reminded me of David Lynch at his best in the way there created a dreamlike feel to the whole film along with an air of menace. There were also levels within levels as the protagonist seems to wake up only to realise he is still trapped in weirdness. This aspect of the film is repeated in the picture (within a picture) by Magritte that gives the film it's title. The viewer's understanding is deliberately confused by the way it jumps around in time and repeats moments (sometimes not quite in the same way) and the way that characters act differently from one moment to the next. Apparently the film draws heavily from a Greek myth called the Bride of Corinth.

The painting as it appears in the film

http://deeperintomovies.net/journal/image08/labellecaptive06.jpg

Some stuff about the film

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/3874

Anyway, I loved Last Year At Marienbad (for which he wrote the screenplay) and someone recommended his films L'Immortelle and Eden et Apres in the weird films thread, plus this one looks pretty good

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070116/maindetails

so it seems I need to see more of his films - but I can't find them anywhere. Anyone got any tips? Any fans here?
 
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woops

is not like other people
massive fan here

missed him last year, then he died! oops

i did make it to the Trans-Europe Express screening the next week though.

films he directed do seem to be very hard to find indeed. His books are pretty widely available though and more than worth a look.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"films he directed do seem to be very hard to find indeed. His books are pretty widely available though and more than worth a look."
Well, I read one last year and I'll get round to the rest later but right now I'm in a filmy mood (plus I've got a million books by my bedside table that I want to read first). I don't get why so many things that ought to have a fairly large following are so hard to get your hands on.
 

woops

is not like other people
Yeah you're right, it's a shame. In the case of Robbe-Grillet though, probably a good idea to try fnac (once described to me as the french equivalent of wh smith) or somewhere like that before giving up hope completely.

A 'filmy' mood sounds a bit horrible, like a state of mind where you keep thinking everything's covered in some kind of oily slick. Hope you're well Rich!
 
I don't get why so many things that ought to have a fairly large following are so hard to get your hands on.


as i understand it he was somewhat antithetical to having his films released on video.

so it seems I need to see more of his films - but I can't find them anywhere. Anyone got any tips? Any fans here?

nonetheless his filmography is near complete @ KG in various qualities. not all are subbed. Trans Europe Express has a handy dandy recent release on DVD that shouldn't be hard to find. L'immortelle is an ok print and i think is fan subbed. Eden et apres circulates hardsubbed in blurry VHS wobble-o-vision but there's been a european DVD release of some kind and the dudes who do such things are in the process of transferring the subs. so online is you.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"so online is you."
Not yet it isn't.

Interesting hearsay here

http://esotika.blogspot.com/2008/02/alain-robbe-grillet-august-1922.html

"I can assure you that all of Robbe-Grillet's films are soon to be released on DVD (as a set). One of his very last telephone conversations was with the producer of the DVDs with whom he was due to meet to check the colour of the prints. The bonus of this set will include a series of previously unseen interviews between R-G and French TV presenter, Frédéric Taddeï.
I was a friend; we spoke about it a few days before he died. The problem at the moment is that one of the films has been blocked for copyright reasons, but they're working on it."
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Read 'The Erasers' and got bored about halfway, although it showed promise at some points. My abiding memory in relation to Grillet is the girlfriend I had who was reading one of his...we marvelled/laughed at pages descibing a banana plantation.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"we marvelled/laughed at pages descibing a banana plantation."
That's Jealousy isn't it?

Anyway, got a load of these films off someone. Watched Gradiva (flashy, erotic and fun - not sure it adds up to anything though) and L'Immortelle (weird, repetitive and rather like Marienbad). Both deal with similar themes - western man out of his depth in an eastern country, blind characters, mysterious women, s&m, enforced prostitution (possibly) - despite being made more than forty years apart. I think that L'Immortelle was somewhat more interesting despite lacking the sheen of the later film - Gradiva in fact reminded me more of La Belle Captive despite the surface similarity to L'Immortelle - though R-G probably thinks that the surface is the most important (only) thing.
Looking forward to watching Eden et Apres, Trans-Europe Express and Progressive Slidings of Pleasure at the weekend if I find the time.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well I watched Eden et Apres at the weekend in fact and, yeah, it was a pretty interesting film. Started off like something from Godard and then went off all over the place. Also, now I realise that a lot of the scenes in Gradiva were recyclings of scenes from Eden et Apres. Very confusing and strange film anyway that is well worth watching although I couldn't say I understood a lot of it.
Will send you a pm Drilla, cheers.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
... and yesterday I watched Glissements Progressifs du Plaisir, which it turns out also has scenes which are reused in Gradiva. I probably should have applied some systematicity to the order in which I watched these things although how was I to know that the later ones would reference the older ones?
Anyway, now I've seen about five or six films of his it's striking how many things appear in virtually every one of them: naked ladies (but no men), s&m, eggs, shoes (in fact objects in general - I mean all films have objects in but they are not so repetitively focussed on and filmed as here, reminds me of Borowczyk), often a murder or death that may or may not have happened and is likely to be repeated with someone else in the victim's place, orientalism, vampires and bloodstained mouths, bloodstains in general, paint that looks like blood, people who are blind or blindfolded or pretend to be blind... and so on and so forth. An interesting mix but what does it all mean? I reckon that the similarities and links suggest that it may be worth considering the body of work as a whole - I can't believe that whatever he's getting at has changed much over his career. He's continually returning to the same ideas and presumably believes that he is improving his techniques for getting to them. Whatever they are.
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
EDEN AND AFTER is fantastic, as is L'IMMORTELLE, and yes the comparison to DAVID LYNCH is spot-on, Lynch freaks will find Robbe-Grillet movies very, very easy to digest, as will fans of surreal/cult cinema, and there's boobs and sexy knickers in there with all the intellectual stuff, so there's not much NOT to like :)

It's a shame his movies are still so hard to come by, and a Criterion ECLIPSE box set is defintely on the cards.. The only way to get his films is on the grey/torrent drome, or hope yr friendly neighborhood Cinemateque put on a festival in the next decade...

GRADIVA is to be released by Pete Tombs most excellent MONDO-MACARBRO label, expect the best English-friendly version f a R-G movie, and hopefully opens the floodgates for many more..
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
You missed motorbikes. Well they been in the two I've seen. La Belle Captive and Gradiva.

I think in terms of meaning, "they mean what they mean" in that both of them seem complete artistic statements to me, with a really strong internal coherence. Difficult to achieve with such left field matter. He really understands the logic of dreams as well, I'd imagine he's probably spent a lot of time studying his own. (Any idea if he's undergone psychoanalysis of any kind?). Even his editing technique seems dreamlike - the way that events flow into each other and jump but this provides no real disruption to the narrative flow. He understands the power of erotic obsession very clearly as well.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm not sure whether or not he's ever undergone psychoanalysis but he's obviously got some interest in it. My understanding is that he has a background in mathematics or engineering or something and he was able to make a decent living from that, meaning - he claimed - that he was free from commercial pressures when writing and thus able to stick to his vision. I'm sure that his interest in maths is somehow reflected in his books/films but I'm not sure exactly how or where.
Does say this on wikipedia:

"The reader must slowly piece together the story and the emotional experience of jealousy, for example, in the repetition of descriptions, the attention to odd details, and the breaks in repetitions, a method that resembles the experience of psychoanalysis in which the deeper unconscious meanings are contained in the flow and disruptions of free associations. Timelines and plots are fractured, and the resulting novel resembles the literary equivalent of a cubist painting."
Don't think there were any motorbikes in any of his other films that I've seen. But I don't tend to notice motorbikes or cars or stuff very much.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I thought the toothache in Gradiva was really telling. I think its a castration motif in psychoanalysis (but isn't everything, he said smugly) - and losing teeth tends to turn up in people's dreams a lot (if you talk to people about dreams or end up reading accounts). Seemed to reference/signify an entry point into the world of dreams as well as having resonances with the pain and sadism shown in the film elsewhere. That's why I liked the film I guess, every motif was multi-layered and in every scene you get more and more out of them.

Also LOVED the whole Dream Actress thing. That was great and one of the moments that for me broke the flow of the film in a way Lynch doesn't do (and I liked it because of that). This whole little routine was for me a moment when the film seemed to step right out of itself - "broke the fourth wall", I think the phrase is - and was refering to something completely different - politics rather than surreal weirdness.

DId you notice where this is also done where Belkis listens to the opera at the end? Very clever scene.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"DId you notice where this is also done where Belkis listens to the opera at the end? Very clever scene."
Can't quite remember this, is it that the music is on the soundtrack and then she starts listening to it?
I think you're right though, dreams of teeth are normally supposed to represent feelings of sexual inadequacy (although I think there are various interpretations depending on what happens in the dream) and even if that kind of stuff is all bollocks you can use the recognised lie as a device in a film.
Basically I agree with what you're saying but can you cast any light on why all the s&m stuff is in there? Is it just that he's a dirty old man who likes seeing naked women being whipped? I'm beginning to suspect that that is the case.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
She starts listen to the music and then there's that classic cinematic moment, where the music and her internal process are supposedly in tune, a slow zoom starts and she looks intently into the distance.... and then he totally disrupts it by having her take the music off. It's a nod to the viewer, complete disruption of a cliched moment. Then he does it all over again!

The teeth thing is totally true - they are a powerful symbol in dreams probably because of their role in our development. Development of teeth coincides with the "terrible twos". What is bollocks is to attribute trite, easy meanings to this sort of material a la Dream Dictionaries. Robbe-Grillet doesn't do this at all though.

Not sure about the whipping - obviously its got a degree of fethisistic power for him. Seem to be some other resonances though ie the SM dimension of his relationship with Belkis who says he can whip her if she likes. Also, it's a way of intensifying erotic passion isn't it? Making it into something more powerful.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"The teeth thing is totally true - they are a powerful symbol in dreams probably because of their role in our development. Development of teeth coincides with the "terrible twos". What is bollocks is to attribute trite, easy meanings to this sort of material a la Dream Dictionaries. Robbe-Grillet doesn't do this at all though."
No, you're right, I'm not saying he does. I used to have a dream dictionary though.

"Not sure about the whipping - obviously its got a degree of fethisistic power for him. Seem to be some other resonances though ie the SM dimension of his relationship with Belkis who says he can whip her if she likes. Also, it's a way of intensifying erotic passion isn't it? Making it into something more powerful."
It's just seeing so many of his films in quick succession and feeling that the s&m is almost the main thing, he seems to be absolutely obsessed. That moment with Belkis saying that seems like the classic story of the fetishist projecting his fantasy on to someone else in the misguided (hopeful?) belief that all women want to be whipped or love foot-fetishism of whatever his kink is.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Was there SM in La Belle Captive? Some bondage maybe, but I don't recall whipping? I thought in the final scene (where Belkis finds the gun) that he was going to catch her going through his stuff, and this would provoke a whipping.
 
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