Born in Brest in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet studied mathematics and biology before turning to literature at the age of 30. His novels gained worldwide recognition for the French literary movement known as "Le Nouveau Roman" or "The New Novel." At 40, he carried his exploration of unorthodox narrative structures into a parallel career as a screenwriter and director. Winner, with Alain Resnais, of the Golden Lion in Venice in 1961 for L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), he subsequently directed eight features. Robbe-Grillet lived in seclusion in Normandy until his death earlier this year at the age of 85. The Archive is pleased to present Last Year at Marienbad, along with Robbe-Grillet's first four features as director--which have been nearly impossible to see until now. These rare films will be screened in new 35mm prints from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

Special thanks to: Delphine Selles--Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Lise de Sablet--Los Angeles Film and TV Office, French Embassy.

The Archive is grateful for the generous sponsorship of the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies which made this series possible.

Program notes adapted from and with the permission of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

All films are in French with English subtitles.

Friday November 7 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

L'IMMORTELLE
(The Immortal Woman)
(1963, France/Italy/Turkey) Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet

In Robbe-Grillet's enigmatic first film (considered by many to be his best) a melancholy professor meets a beautiful and mysterious woman who may or may not be involved in a white slavery ring. After a passionate but brief encounter, she disappears. His subsequent search for her through the streets of Istanbul is a maddening endeavor, as the locals inexplicably deny ever having seen her.

Cinematographer: Maurice Barry. Cast: Françoise Brion, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Guido Celano. 35mm, 100 min.

TRANS-EUROP EXPRESS
(1968, France/Belgium) Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Robbe-Grillet's most accessible film combines realism and fantasy with uncharacteristic humor. Robbe-Grillet himself plays a writer-director who constructs a narrative involving a drug smuggler (Trintingnant) aboard a trans-continental train. Full of mirror images, distortions of reality, duplications and titillating scenes featuring nude women in chains, the film makes no pretense of having a conventional narrative. Rather, the plot invents itself as it proceeds, creating (and ignoring) problems, inconsistencies and downright impossibilities.

Producer: Samy Halfon. Screenwriter: Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cinematographer: Willy Kurant. Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie France Pisier, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nadine Verdier. 35mm, 100 min.

Sunday November 9 2008, 7:00PM* ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD
(L'Année Dernière à Marienbad)
(1961, France) Directed by Alain Resnais

Though ostensibly both a mystery and a love triangle, Renais' realization of Robbe-Grillet's script rejects Hollywood's vocabulary in its investigation of memory and perception within a palatial hotel in Marienbad. Often freezing the characters in tableau-like positions, Sacha Vierny's fluid camera defines three-dimensional space by gliding around the characters and through the rooms of the hotel, focusing as much on the ornate architectural details as the characters themselves. Like a Cubist painting, no one point of view can be determined, no linear narrative determined, creating a sense that all events are taking place in shared memory.

Producer: Pierre Courau, Raymond Froment. Screenwriter: Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny. Editor: Jasmine Chasney, Henri Colpi. Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitöeff, Françoise Bertin. 35mm, 94 min.

Sunday November 16 2008, 7:00PM* ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

L'EDEN ET APRES
(Eden and After)
(1970, France/Czechoslovakia) Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Robbe-Grillet's first film in color is an erotic and labyrinthine tale of murder and vampirism set somewhere between the fictitious landscapes of the Marquis de Sade and Lewis Carroll. In Café Eden, a group of bored students who engage in a series of baroque parlor games are visited by a mysterious stranger whose presence evokes new menacing fantasies. In L'Eden Et Apres, the author deliberately questions the principles of logic, rational cognition, narrative and drama.

Cinematographer: Igor Luther. Editor: Bob Wade. Cast: Catherine Jourdan, Pierre Zimmer, Richard Leduc, Lorraine Rainer. 35mm, 98 min.

L'HOMME QUI MENT
(The Man Who Lies)
(1968, France/Czechoslovakia) Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Shot on location in Czechoslovakia, L'Homme qui ment is the Kafkaesque story of a soldier, who after supposedly being shot down by the Germans, recounts his story as a French Resistance fighter, though he may actually be a traitor. Exploiting the sympathies of the townspeople (and the local women) the protagonist invents his own character and past as he goes along. Featuring no shortage of erotic scenes, including a voyeuristic depiction of a lesbian affair between a maid and her sister, and a typically obscured narrative, the film garnered Robbe-Grillet an award for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival.

Producer: Jan Tomaskovic. Screenplay: Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cinematographer: Igor Luther. Editor: Bob Wade. Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dominique Prado, Sylvie Bréal. 35mm, 95 min.