Last Year at Marienbad. A Cine-Novel

This is the text of one of the most unusual artistic ventures of our time, the scenario of the most discussed film of recent years and a collaboration between France's most influential young novelist and most talented young director. Alain Resnais was already famous for such films as HIROSHIMA. MON AMOUR, when he asked Alain Robbe-Grillet, the author of JEALOUSY, and leader of the " New French School " to write a film for him. The result was LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD. which has convulsed the critics, fascinated the public, won the first prize at the Venice film festival and which is certain to become one of the greatest classics of the cinema. In an important introduction, Alain Robbe-Grillet tells of his collaboration with Resnais and of his intentions in writing this cine-novel. The ideas and treatment are revolutionary and un-comprising in the extreme. A man tells a woman that they have met before, that they have been lovers, that they agreed to separate for a year. The year is up and he has come back for her. At first she remembers nothing of this, but as he relates their past together, real or imaginary, the images of memory form in her mind ... and she begins to believe him. Her memory is the heroine of the picture and the reader or watcher is shunted backwards and forwards between the past and the present, the real and the imaginary, that which is seen and that which is only glimpsed and guessed at. The film and the book are necessary compliments to each other. They can be seen and reread with ever greater fascination and interest. For this reason, the original French publication of the cine-novel became a best-seller overnight. No-one interested in the contemporary arts in English speaking countries can afford not to see the film and to read the book.