smoking / no smoking
Je t'aime, je t'aime / i love you, i love you
la vie est un roman / life is a bed of roses
on connaît la chanson / same old song
mon oncle d'amérique / my american uncle
l'mmour à mort / love unto death
i want to go home
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program:
SMOKING (140m) / NO SMOKING (142m)
The New York premiere of Resnais’ 1993 two-pronged interactive comic
tour de force, based on six of the eight playlets by British author Alan
Ayckbourn grouped under the title "Intimate Exchanges," and adapted by
the writing team of Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui (who also wrote UN
AIR DE FAMILLE and Resnais’ recent SAME OLD SONG). SMOKING and NO
SMOKING, which can be seen in any order, both center around the
marriage of an alcoholic headmaster named Toby Teasdale and his timid
wife Celia, and the predicaments that ensue when they cross paths with
the super-suave Lionel Hepplewick and the modest housekeeper Sylvie
Bell. All four men’s roles are played by Pierre Arditi and all five
women’s roles by
Resnais’ favorite actress, Sabine Azema. And in a gorgeously artificial
light conjured up by the great cinematographer Renato Berta that evokes
school primers, comic strips and the stage, Resnais playfully meditates
on free will and chance by offering alternate versions of events,
spurred by the smallest shifts in action…such as the difference between
smoking and not smoking. A film experience that is at once provocative,
mysterious and truly joyful. A USA Films release.
SMOKING: Fri June 30: 1 & 6:30; Sat July 1: 3:50 & 9:15; Mon July 3:
3:45 & 9:15;
Sat July 8: 3:15; Sun July 9: 5:45; Mon July 10: 3:15 &
8:30;
Thurs July 13: 3:30; Wed July 19: 1 & 6:30; Thurs July 20: 3:50
NO SMOKING: Fri June 30: 3:40 & 9:10;Sat July 1: 6:30; Tues July 4:
3:15 & 8:30;
Sat July 8: 6; Sun July 9: 3; Wed July 12: 1 & 6:15;
Wed
July 19: 3:40 & 9:10; Thurs July 20: 1
JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME / I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU
(1967; 91m)
Resnais once explained that his work dealt with the desire to "stop
death in its tracks, the toll that time takes on us, just as the the
photographer or the painter wants to capture forever the face and body
of the woman they love." In JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME, whose Cannes premiere
was ruined by the events of May 1968, Resnais rendered explicit what had
been implicit in his previous work, and made a movie about time travel.
After a failed attempt at suicide, Claude Ridder (Claude Rich) is chosen
as the first man to journey back into time. But the past is his own
past, and the routes that he has to take to commune with his beloved
Catrine are as complex and bewildering as a trip through a maze. Funny,
moving and bewitching, this rarely seen film is one of Resnais’ richest.
Written by Jacques Sternberg, with a score by the great Krzysztof
Penderecki. A new print has been struck for this series.
Sun July 2: 3:50 & 8:30
ALAIN RESNAIS DOCUMENTARIES (145m)
Le Chant de Styrène (1958; 19m); Gauguin (1950; 11m); Van Gogh (1948;
20m); Toute la mémoire du monde (1956; 22m); Les Statues meurent aussi /
Statues Also Weep (1953; 30m); Nuit et brouillard / Night and Fog (1955;
32m); Guernica (1950; 12m)
Before he took the world of cinema by storm with HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR,
Resnais made a series of documentary essay films which rank with his
greatest work and each of which has as complex a relationship with time
as his features: his tributes to Van Gogh and Gaugin; Guernica;
Les
Statues meurent aussi, his controversial film about African statues
(written by Chris Marker) that was only seen in a censored cut for years
because it took on the still loaded topic of French racism; Night and
Fog, his immortal, utterly devastating journey into the memory of the
holocaust; Toute la mémoire du monde, his Borgesian portrait of the
Bibliothèque Nationale; and Le Chant du styrène. A program not to be
missed.
Sun July 2: 5:45
Mon July 3: 1 & 6:30
LA VIE EST UN ROMAN / LIFE IS A BED OF ROSES
(1983; 111m)
An eccentric, visionary count (Ruggero Raimondi, the opera singer who
starred in Joseph Losey’s film of Don Giovanni) at the turn of the
century invites his friends into his rococo pleasure palace, his Temple
of Happiness. Seventy years later, the same palace is used as the site
for a conference on alternative education. Two time frames, two visions
of Utopia, are deftly interwoven in this most magical of Resnais’ films.
With Vittorio Gassman, Geraldine Chaplin, and Fanny Ardant. With a
beautiful score by M. Philippe-Gérard and gorgeous camerawork by Bruno
Nuytten.
Tues July 4: 1 & 6:10
ON CONNAÎT LA CHANSON / SAME OLD SONG
(1997; 122m)
Resnais was a big Dennis Potter fan, and this was his loving tribute to
the late writer. But while songs signify the dream lives of Potter’s
characters, the popular songs that flow from the psyches of Resnais’
characters serve the same sort of function as the movie memories of the
characters in MON ONCLE D'AMèRIQUE--they’re part of their make-up as
people, sitting right at the core of who they are. SAME OLD SONG, one of
Resnais’ most sheerly delightful films, is once again about a menagerie
of believably neurotic Parisians: Odile (Sabine Azéma), an hysteric
desperately in search of a bigger apartment; her sister Camille (Agnès
Jaoui, also the film’s co-writer, with Jean-Pierre Bacri, the same team
responsible for SMOKING / NO SMOKING); Simon (André Dussollier), the real
estate agent with whom Camille falls in love. Every character has a
flawed exterior that not too carefully conceals a nervous bundle of
impulses and longings, and Resnais’ unflinching look at the way people
function is tempered here by a newfound serenity and tenderness. A piece
of advice: don’t let the fact that you don’t know the songs bother you.
It’s what they mean to the characters that’s so touching.
Wed July 5: 1 & 6; Thurs July 6: 3:30 & 8:30
MON ONCLE D'AMèRIQUE / MY AMERICAN UNCLE
(1980; 123m)
What it is to be human, according to Resnais via the theories of
behaviorist Henri Laborit. In one of Resnais’ most playful films (and
one of his biggest hits). Laborit, appearing as himself and
commenting on questions of motivation, anxiety, and role-modeling, is
interspersed with key moments in the lives of a technical manager in
the middle of a downsizing panic (Gérard Depardieu), an actress in
the midst of a life crisis (Nicole Garcia), and a a writer/politician
(Roger Pierre), each of whom identifies with a movie star. Somehow,
right at the center of life, is the elusive dream of being elsewhere,
delivered from the pressures of existence by a sudden inheritance
from the mythical "American uncle" of the title. Resnais and
screenwriter Jean Gruault "manage to convey a dense, multilayered
narrative with remarkable ease and simplicity. The film is also
memorable for its dead-on portrayal of French yuppiedom in its early
ascendancy" (Jonathan Rosenbaum). A must re-see.
Wed July 5: 3:30 & 8:30
Thurs July 6: 1 & 6
L'AMOUR à MORT / LOVE UNTO DEATH
(1984; 93m)
Simon (Pierre Arditi), an archeologist, is miraculously resurrected from
the dead, but he’s persistently haunted by his memories of what he saw.
In one of his most audacious aesthetic moves, Resnais signifies Simon’s
visions with gaps, ghostly white-outs, scored by the great German
composer Werner Henze. As Simon is further and further drawn back into
death, to the final death beyond the one he’s already experienced, he’s
comforted by the people he’s met on the other side. Co-starring Fanny
Ardant and Sabine Azéma, L'AMOUR à MORT is one of Resnais’ least known
films here in the states, and maybe one of his most chilling. "One ofthe
most ambitious films in the history of cinema" (Gilles Deleuze).
Fri July 7: 1, 6 & 10:10; Sun July 9: 1 & 8:30
I WANT TO GO HOME
(1989; 105m)
Cleveland cartoonist Joey Wellman (Adolph Green) accepts an
invitation to have his work shown in an exclusive Parisian gallery.
He suffers the pains of travel to a foreign country in hopes of
reconciling with his estranged daughter Elsie (Laura Benson), who is
trying her best to rid herself of her American provinciality and
become French. Her father’s greatest admirer, intellectual Christian
Gauthier (Gérard Depardieu), is the figure she most admires and
emulates. This odd comedy of cultural misalliances, written by
cartoonist Jules Feiffer and scored by John (Cabaret) Kander,
features a beautifully spirited performance by Green and a charming one
by Depardieu. Like all Resnais’ films, there’s a funny
mental/soulful mechanism that unites the characters in this case,
little interjections from an animated cat, Joey’s trademark
character. With Linda Lavin as Joey’s girlfriend.
Fri July 7: 3 & 8
Sat July 8: 1 & 8:45
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