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PROVIDENCE
Although the ending sucks, this is a fascinating and altogether unique hallucinatory drama by the famed avant-gardist Alain Resnais. The ADAPTATION of its time, PROVIDENCE is a bold exploration of the creative process that breaks every conceivable cinematic law…which is for the best, methinks!
The Package
The 1977 British-French co-production PROVIDENCE, featuring a cast of
acting heavyweights (John Gielgud, Ellen Burstyn, Dirk Bogarde, David Warner and
Elaine Stritch), was the first English language film directed by the French “New
Wave” master Alain Resnais, and is very much in keeping with heavily
experimental Resnais classics like HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR and LAST YEAR AT
MARIENBAD. In PROVIDENCE Resnais collaborated with the celebrated playwright
David Mercer (whose previous film credits include 1966’s counter-culture classic
MORGAN!), just as in HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR he did with the famous novelist
Maguerite Duras and with the writer/filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillete on LAST YEAR
AT MARIENBAD. As in those films, the collaboration seems to have inspired both
writer and director to previously unexplored heights of creativity.
The Story
Clive Langham is a veteran novelist--and all-around asshole--on the eve of
his 78th birthday. Ensconced in Providence, his secluded country
mansion, Langham falls into a drunken stupor while plotting out his latest
novel.
In this new book Langham’s son Claude is the protagonist, a phlegmatic
lawyer prosecuting Kevin, who shot and killed an innocent man in a forest,
believing the latter was turning into a werewolf. The jury finds Kevin
innocent, much to Claude’s dismay, and Kevin goes back to his mistress Sonia,
who just happens to be Claude’s wife! Claude, however, is hardly an innocent
victim, as he’s carrying on an affair with the elderly Helen, who, as Langham
observes, is “old enough to be his mother.” In fact, it gradually becomes clear
that in real life Helen was actually the protagonist’s wife Molly Langham…and so
really is Claude’s mother!
More real-life facts become clear as the narrative progresses, such as the
fact that Kevin is Langham’s illegitimate son and that the abovementioned Molly
Langham killed herself, apparently because she couldn’t stand to live with her
obnoxious hubbie (a fully understandable reaction, based on what we’re shown).
Meanwhile, Langham’s imagined psychodrama continues, periodically interrupted by
his bitter, self-effacing rants and frequent trips to the crapper (much
attention is lavished on the man’s bowel movements). All the characters in his
narrative are calculating, self-absorbed and venal to a fault--just like their
creator.
The next day, however, the preceding narrative’s real-life counterparts
meet at Providence for Langham’s birthday, and it turns out that the drama he
concocted the night before is complete nonsense, as Sonia, Claude and Kevin are
all nice, caring people. Langham, however, remains a total asswipe, and
relentlessly insults and ridicules his loved ones before unceremoniously sending
them away.
The Direction
Alain Resnais is one of the cinema’s great innovators and does some of his
best-ever filmmaking during the hallucinatory stretch of PROVIDENCE, which takes
the form of the central character’s feverish imaginings. Characters appear and
disappear unexpectedly, replay actions, repeat dialogue and often break the
fourth wall to address their creator, whose voice-over ruminations serve to
shape the narrative as it occurs. The scenery is equally important in the way
it shifts, often from shot to shot: in one scene a character descends a lengthy
staircase to answer a door, but in the next shot the stairs are nowhere to be
seen. Likewise, the time period is constantly changing, from a WWII setting
(complete with Nazis in the background rounding people up, apparently a “De
Rigeur” element in Langham’s fiction) to a modern day one and back again.
The result is one of the few truly convincing cinematic portrayals of a creative
imagination at work, graced by David Mercer’s exceptionally literate dialogue.
My problem was with the film’s deadly here-and-now third act, set in the
scenic back yard of Langham’s estate with his loved ones visiting. The
sequence, containing a pointless and distracting 360 degree pan, has no other
purpose than to prove to the viewer that Langham’s offspring are really nothing
like his imagined portrayals, and in my view is unnecessary, considering that
the hallucinatory bits impart the lurid details of Langham’s tortured life with
infinitely more complexity and imagination.
Vital Statistics
PROVIDENCE
Action Films/Columbia Pictures
Director: Alain Resnais
Producers: Yves Gasser, Klaus Hellwig
Screenplay: David Mercer
Cinematography: Ricardo Aronovich
Editing: Jean-Pierre Besnard
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, David Warner, Elaine Stritch,
Denis Lawson, Cyril Luckham, Kathryn Leigh-Scott, Milo Sperber, Anna Wing, Peter
Arne