Last Year At Marienbad Archives - The Playlist

Chris Nolan Says ‘Inception’ Inadvertently Influenced By ‘Last Year At Marienbad’; Plus New Video Clip

Edward Davis — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:02:00 +0000

Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is right around the corner on July 19 and the veil of secrecy behind the film is slowly being lifted and some of that might be because Warner Bros. is thinking some audiences have no clue what the movie is about and therefore might not be as interested as some of the geeks, cineastes and fanboys who are clearly obsessed (yes, we kind of include ourselves here, we’re not fronting).

Why do we believe this to a degree?

Continue reading Chris Nolan Says ‘Inception’ Inadvertently Influenced By ‘Last Year At Marienbad’; Plus New Video Clip at The Playlist.

A New ‘Last Year At Marienbad’ Documentary Surfaces By Volker Schlöndorff

Sean Gillane — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:27:00 +0000

Genuine cinephilia interest has just been piqued a few notches.

A new documentary, aptly titled “The Making of Last Year in Marienbad,” examining the production of Alain Resnais’ seminal and enigmatic 1961 picture, “Last Year at Marienbad” has begun screening for select audience members recently. The film is comprised of 8mm footage shot by cast member Francoise Spira (whose character, like all the characters in the film, lacks a name) during the production of Resnais’ mystifying classic.

Continue reading A New ‘Last Year At Marienbad’ Documentary Surfaces By Volker Schlöndorff at The Playlist.

Monte Hellman’s ‘Road To Nowhere’ Screens At Cannes To Potential Buyers… While He Prepares Next Directorial Effort?

Gabe Toro — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:00:00 +0000

A lot of laymen assume that it’s only up-and-coming filmmakers who are struggling in the independent film climate, taking risks with brand new technology that may or may not work. Not so, according to a NY Times article, reporting on “Road To Nowhere,” which veteran director Monte Hellman (“Two Lane Blacktop,” “The Shooting”) is shopping to distributors before making a festival debut at Venice, among other locations.

“Nowhere,” which was made for under $5 million, has been described as a “romantic noir,” though the Times tells us it’s a movie within a movie, “a North Carolina political scandal, a double suicide, multiple identities and myriad flashbacks, U-turns and pirouettes in the plotline.” Hellman, who compares the film to “Last Year At Marienbad,” describes the narrative as both a “puzzle” and directly related to the theme of gambling, and the film itself as a “dream project.”

Told he would need $12 million for the budget, Hellman instead shot with the Canon 5D Mark II, a high-def camera that captures twelve minutes at a time and looks and handles like a stills camera.

Continue reading Monte Hellman’s ‘Road To Nowhere’ Screens At Cannes To Potential Buyers… While He Prepares Next Directorial Effort? at The Playlist.

‘Last Year at Marienbad,’ Bergman Interviews, Malle’s ‘Dinner’ Masterpieces Coming to Criterion Collection in June

Nick Duval — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:07:00 +0000

If faltering as of late (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” gentlemen), the Criterion Collection has always been an immensely reliable source for a cinephiles to eat their heart out. Now, the collection welcomes three incredibly very respectable titles to the elite status of membership in June.

1. Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad”
2. Marie Nyreröd’s “Bergman Island”
3. Louis Malle’s “My Dinner With Andre”

‘Marienbad’ is an elliptical and hypnotic, near-avante garde French classic, ‘nuf said.

Continue reading ‘Last Year at Marienbad,’ Bergman Interviews, Malle’s ‘Dinner’ Masterpieces Coming to Criterion Collection in June at The Playlist.

Blur’s ‘Last Year At Marienbad’ Homage

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:09:00 +0000

So last night we finally saw the legendary surrealist classic, “Last Year At Marienbad,” at New York’s Film Forum. The glacially-paced, chilly, and hypnotically opaque (not to mention lavishly stylish) abstraction is not for the impatient at heart. We dragged our roommate to the film and she was so peeved (and praying-for-death) by its slow-moving ellipticalness and absence of narrative, she demanded we at least get some sort of blog post out of it. So here we are.

Continue reading Blur’s ‘Last Year At Marienbad’ Homage at The Playlist.